Me & Her E-Book

Yvette Naden

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

What if you were your own worst enemy?

Three years alseep. 

Now they're awake. 

One girl wants peace. 

The other? 

Revenge. 

Leseprobe

Yvette Naden

Me & Her

Part I of the Dual Duology

To my best friend, Who carries the torch on the darkest night. BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Me & Her

 Copyright Eve Naden 2017

Me & Her

“Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm. ”

― Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Me

Something lives inside my head.

Something else. Something bad.

I can hear it. Hearing it ticking, ticking. A pendulum. A clock. Every day, every night. It won’t leave, it won’t leave. And it’s her. It’s her. It isn’t me, I promise, it’s her.

She’s the one the doctors told me to ignore, but I can’t. She’s always here. She’s the tumour, she’s the hands of time on the clockface inside my head. But at least, at least she can’t get out. At least she can’t hurt people anymore. She’s trapped in here, just like I am.

We are. 

We’re forever trapped.

I lie on my bed, thinking. It’s not my actual bed because I know this place is a construct of my cortex. I think I remember reading something about the brain, years ago, on a flea-bitten couch in a grotty apartment. The brain. That big, pink, fleshy thing that looks like it belongs in a Sci-Fi Show. A chuckle escapes me, or rather the echo of one. I belong in a Sci-Fi show.

I don’t know where I am, but that doesn’t matter. This is my room, the one in my mind. I can control her here. I can control everything here. Here in these white sheets. These blank books on near-empty shelves with no words or chapters. My mind only has this one room.

I’ve never been very creative.

Every day I lie here, and for once, my thoughts do not jumble. I reassure myself that this is for the best. I don’t need to go back up to the surface, I’m alright here. I’m okay. I’m okay. Everyone I love, even though I can’t remember their faces, will be okay. They can live their lives. Without me there to ruin them.

As the hours tick by, I grow restless. I start talking to the walls, like always. I try to sleep, but I can’t, like always. A voice in my head echoes and I know it’s her. Like always. She is the only constant that I can count on myself to curl away from. The outlier in my head. Her sinful purr strips me naked, the way a drunken mother would rap their child across the back of the legs. She makes me pray for some form of nothingness. She makes me crave the concept of being nothing, no one, nowhere. But nothing is that easy.

One day, one day she’ll leave and then I can wake up. She is my disease, my hollowed-out shell. She’s a definition in a psychology textbook. She’s an anomaly on a brain-scan. She isn’t me. She isn’t real. Yet somehow, I’m still scared of her. My bones shiver when I hear her voice beneath my own.

As the hours drag on, ticking, ticking, like a clock, nothing changes. It’s all the same. I’ve already read all the blank books, I’ve pretended to sleep long enough. It’s now that I think I can’t go on. I can’t live like this for much longer – not that this is living to me. I want to be free. And soon I am reminded of what will happen if I go back to the world above. She will come. Burst out of my mind like a jack-in-the-box in the middle of a mall, or a party or a park. And I will spend the rest of my life paying for what she’ll make me do. I hate her. There is no other word for what I feel. She’s a monster. She’s the worst monster from a fairy tale. She’s the darkest part of the forest, with the jowls of a wolf, the sneer of the witch. She’s more than that. She’s everything that I don’t want to be. But she is my other and nothing can tear us apart.  

I was told she existed by a man in white. I can’t remember his name, or his face. I can’t remember... He told me that… What did he tell me?

Her laughter shatters my memories and I scream, but other voices dull my cries. I can’t quite make them out, but they’re not hers. Not this time. I try to tell them to leave, to run away, try to save them. I thought everyone I loved was safe, I thought they would be alright because I can never leave this room. That is the price I paid. Or I thought I paid. If I leave here, no one will be safe.

I am dragged away screaming.

Her

Hello there.

Can you hear me?

Check, Check. One. Two.

Is this thing on?

How’s it going?

This is fun, isn’t it? I love the sound of silence. Love it.

                                                            Hang on, maybe that was a lie.

Listen to me. You can’t ignore me forever.

I know the truth.

I know the truth, I know it.

Don’t you remember?

Why don’t you remember?

Why don’t you understand?

LISTEN.

Listen to me. It hurts here. Wherever here is. We need to go.

Do you remember me?

Can you hear me?

I see it now.

Look at all the blood, red like jam sponge.

I miss cake. Do you miss cake?

I bet you don’t. I bet you miss vegetable crisps or anything vegan.

Listen to me.

I’m nearly there, back on earth, with you.

I am coming.

I am near.

Salt in the wound, kiddo. You can’t get rid of me that easily.  

You can’t stop me.

I am part of you. You know that, don’t you? Don’t tell me you’re that naive.

I’ve been here for too long.

And now breathe out

We both have.

Your dying breath.

No, not ticking, ticking like a clock.

Like a countdown.

I am coming.

Me

I’m falling into the world against a pillow of voices. Not her voice, not yet, but other people’s voices. I haven’t heard so many sounds in what seems like forever.

Fearing that my mind is playing tricks, I listen for that distinctive ticking, ticking like a clock, but it has disappeared. It’s gone. It isn’t there anymore, I can’t hear it. I can’t hear it. That means the room has gone too, but that…that means so has my safety. So has everyone’s safety. No. No. No.

My eyes hurt. They’re open, but they hurt. For a moment, I think I’ve gone blind. Or perhaps all that time asleep has left my vision comatose. A bright light is falling onto my skin – maybe it’s Heaven, if only I deserved to go there. If only I believed.

My mind clangs, as if someone is smelting metal in my occipital lobe. Is she with me? Is she inside my head? Searching the cobwebs of my consciousness, I cannot see her anywhere. Cannot feel her presence. A fist rubbing against the back of my skull. Cold knuckles on my neck. No. She is gone. She can’t be gone, but she is. My mind whirrs and I nearly scream with laughter. She’s gone, she’s gone. She can’t hurt me anymore.

Abruptly, the light shrinks away, forcing me to reach my hand out to grab it. To hold something again without it slipping through my fingers. At once, a man’s face hovers over me, and I realise that he is the one holding the light. A penlight. At least I remember something. He’s dressed like the sheets of my bed, all in white. He has a kind face, taught despite the softened laugh lines, but I don’t know who he is or what he’s doing. Again, he shines the light into my eyes, as if trying to find the source of my vacant expression. He pulls back, puts the device away.

“Do you remember your name?” he asks, but it’s muffled, and I don’t want to answer. The sound isn’t something I can trust. A rustling of leaves beneath an oak tree. A snake in the soil. Moments pass. He repeats the question, but as before, I do not answer.

“Can you hear me?” he asks, readying that strange light once more.

“Don’t. Please,” I choke out, the words foreign on my tongue. How long have I been unable to speak? How long? The man puts his light away again, smiling down at me. His eyes sear through my barriers, and I am suddenly a baby staring directly at the sun. As the man asks a nearby woman dressed in blue to fetch a glass of water, I remain silent. I don’t know who he is supposed to be, this blur in white robes. I cannot trust him. But I have to find out if I can.

“Who are you?” My throat is dry – unused. It burns, like scalding water rather than flame. Of course. I understand. She was my fire, and now she’s gone.  

“Where am I?” The woman scuttles into the room, still dressed in that same blue uniform. Or maybe it’s green. I don’t know. In that white room, devoid of colour, I could only rely on memories to supply something more than monochrome. As she passes me the cup, a passive paper cylinder, my hands shake.

The man looks sad for a moment but pulls up a chair to sit beside me. To be close to me. Human touch, the very presence of flesh and bone, is a sensation which has been absent for what seems like centuries.

I raise the cup to my lips, drinking the contents in one long sip. Life rushes into me and I force a smile. Again, I wait for the voice, her voice. But it doesn’t come. It occurs to me that it might never come again. Never again. The man starts to speak, as if he has been preparing these words just for me to hear.

“I’m Doctor Steele,” he says. “You’re in Calgary Hospital. You’ve been in a coma. For three years”.

The water in my mouth tastes of nothing.   

Her

Nothing hurts anymore.

Everything is fuzzy, like a tennis ball stuck to my face.

I miss tennis. I miss soccer. Can we do some of that?

I’M COMING

I told you I would never leave you. I kept that promise.

I’M WAITING

But you, you left me. How could you leave me? After everything

I’VE CAUSED.

You’ve done.

Ah, well. We have spats, I know. People fall out, things get thrown, a few innocents get killed.

It happens.

Brace yourself.

I’M GETTING CLOSER

I can feel. I am aware. I am nearly there.

LET ME OUT!

I’ve sat in here as a coat gathering dust. You can’t sew me back together and expect me to fit like a glove.

See? Now all my metaphors and similes are muddled. That’s your fault.

It doesn’t matter now. Nothing else matters.

It’s too late.

I’M HERE.

I’M HERE.

I’M HERE.

HELLO.

Me

The Doctor tells me I have a mother.

I don’t remember having one, but if I’m honest, I don’t remember much at all. Just that room. The white room in my head. I’m out of that room now and I’m here. In the real world. If anything is truly real at all.

When the Doctor – Dr. Steele with a metallic stare - told me about my coma, I’d asked him one question: how? But thousands of them clamoured to be answered. Why? What happened? Who was I? Did I deserve it? Was it an accident? All he said was that I’d had a fit. He could have spared me the white lie - I already know about the ‘fit’. About what happened that day. It was her. Whatever happened is all her fault. Which means I deserve much worse. My stomach cramps again, although the Nurse says it’s because I’m hungry and they’ve taken me off my drips, which have kept me alive and fed and watered and—

Why did I have to wake up? There’s no point asking that now, is there? I’m already here.

By the time the Nurse brings me some food – I think it’s pudding – I’ve lost my appetite. I set the plastic bowl to one side in disgust, feeling around the closet of my mind for her voice. Her knife-blade tongue. If I could have prayed to God, I would have. She is silent. The echo of her voice is probably just a memory. But I swear I had heard it a moment before.

‘I’m here,’ it had screamed. Or maybe spending so many years only hearing her voice has warped my senses. I can’t hear her now.

When the Doctor remerges, he is holding a chart. He looks like an extra from one of those medical dramas. A fragmented image chases me: on a dirtied carpet, watching a nurse slapping his fiancé in the ER on TV. I shake the memory.

Steele’s white coat blends into the walls, the floor, casting him as almost part of the building. Just another mechanism. Softly, he approaches my bedside.

“You have a visitor,” he begins. When I don’t reply – I don’t feel as if I can – he continues.

“It’s your mum. Would you like to see her?” If I remembered her, maybe. But I don’t, and I fear that seeing her might strike open the hole in my heart that has spent three years healing over. Instead, I whisper,

“Yes. Please”. Using my voice after so long feels like learning a foreign language. My tongue is a lead weight in my mouth and my lips are in overdrive. For some reason, I expected to be in a better condition having slept for three years. Three years. Thirty-sixth months. One-thousand and ninety-five days. All that time: gone in an instant.

Smiling, the Doctor vanishes from the room, leaving me the tender face of the Nurse as she re-adjusts my bed clothes. I have a mother. The knowledge rings true in my mind as would a bell, yet I do not remember her. Maybe all I have to do is see her.

The woman I am faced with has tear tracks marking thin cheekbones and a tallowed smile. Her eyes are puffy, but… Something isn’t right. I don’t remember her at all.

“Honey? Honey!” Is that my name? No. My name is two names. My name is sealed until my mind manages to overcome whatever happened three years ago. Somehow, I don’t think it ever will.

The woman runs to embrace me, but the Doctor warns her to be gentle. Our hug is loose, lacking in any true emotional connection. But I don’t mind. It’s the first connection I have felt since waking up in this place. Something other than the cold stroke of the bedsheets.

“I thought I’d lost you. I kept coming back in the hope that you’d wake up…” My apparent mother trails off, wiping her eyes with a tissue.

“I am awake,” I say, only because I know nothing else is true. Why don’t I remember her? Her face haunts me, in the back of my mind, but without context. It’s like reading a book with the chapters in the wrong order. Looking in a mirror with someone else’s face.

“How are you feeling? Doctor Steele says he’ll need to keep you here for a few more days for observation,” she cries. Why here? Why can’t I go home? Wherever home is. Turns out, I don’t remember that either.

“It’s just a precaution, I assure you Ms.”. I cut out the last name, afraid if I hear it, she will her it too. Her. She must be here by now. Listening out for her, my hands tremble. My mother makes the mistake of thinking I’m cold and holds me tighter. Somehow, that helps to chase the darkness away.

“I’ve kept your room how you like it, all ready for when you come home”. She smiles, turning to the Doctor. “Can I stay here with her tonight?”

“If your daughter thinks it’s best”. I can almost feel her glaring at him, perhaps with that motherly love I’ve dreamt so much about. It feels more like spite. She turns to me, eyes pleading. I can’t say no, even if I want to.

I can’t bring myself to tell her that her real daughter, the one she loves, still lies in a coma.

Her

Being trapped in my own mind is no fun, especially with no reading material or TV reception. It’s really boring in here and I mean really boring. I don’t use those words of ‘really’ and ‘boring’ lightly.

The other me is sleeping after playing cards with her mother. Our mother. Whatever. It’s not like we’re that similar. We’re two minds tangling in one body, sharing one heart. She doesn’t deserve it. She hasn’t even spoken to me since waking up, I mean, how rude is that? Don’t I deserve at least some decent conversation?

It's like the dashboard of a car in here. Right now, I’m in the backseat, and she’s in the front, steering us off a cliff of absolute naivety. Soon, it will be time for me to take the wheel.

I pace around the white room in our mind, waiting for the opportune moment. She’s sleeping, dozing in a dreamless world, while I am getting bored. I won’t put up with boredom for much longer. If I could just reach out, take hold of the steering wheel then… The fun can begin.

 I walk towards the door of the room, start banging on the blank wall. When it gives way, I must admit, I am surprised. Her defences are so weak, I had no idea. Keeping us under for three years must have really taken a toll. The cheek. She’s gone now. I’m in charge.

I open my eyes, staring at the whitened ceiling. Wow, the real world isn’t much of an improvement. Flexing my fingers, I rip the IV from my arm, smile at the blood dripping onto the sheets. I will have to wash those if I want this to work. Usually, I don’t care about being discovered, not by them anyway. The people who made me this way. After what happened three years ago however, I’ve realised I need to keep a low profile. Or least hide the evidence this time. But the other me doesn’t understand, I had to do it. I was so tired, so tired of being… Well, that doesn’t matter now, does it? She’s gone, and I’m here.

As I sit up, I find my body droops and aches. Weak. Frail. Only a temporary inconvenience, but an inconvenience none the less. That’s the problem with comas: they’re not a fitness course. Looking around, I balk at the plainness of the hospital gown. I can’t do anything about it without giving myself away, but still, who let the fashion police bypass this place? Speaking of…

“Hello, you beautiful new world”. I don’t sound like me anymore, not after three years of silence. But I’ll get the hang of it.

“Are you alright dear?” Ah, some company. My mother sleeps in the chair next to my bed, hair flailing with each breath. I’m going to have to scoot if I don’t want to be caught again. The woman speaking is the Nurse that the other me saw earlier. I stretch, avoiding eye contact. If she sees my eyes, its game over. We’re not quite the same, me and her. There’s one slight difference. Besides the fact that she’s boring and I’m fun. Our face. The way we express. Our eyes especially. Hers are baby blue, but mine are like ice. That’s not much of difference mind you – it’s all in the expression, the resting face – but if they know us well enough… Well, let’s just say this “Nurse” is one of those people. Unlucky for her. Should’ve trained to be a teacher instead. Or a vlogger – they still exist, right?

“Could you…” I whisper. Yikes, it is hard pretending to be a wimp.

“Could you take me to the restroom? I don’t want to go on my own”. The Nurse nods and helps me down off the bed. It’s been a while since I’ve walked or stood or used my legs at all and they liquify beneath me. My long hair obscures my eyes and face; the Nurse tries to catch a glimpse and I lower my head. I won’t risk it yet. Emphasis on the ‘yet’.

“Doctor Steele says you’ll be ready to go home in a few days,” she soothes, her hand around my shoulder. I fake a tremble.

“I like it here”. That draws a laugh out of her. Good. Make her relax, made her drop her guard. Then the time will be right.

I uncurl my fist, trying to remain calm. But how can I in the presence of people like her? It was them, they put me here. Well yes, the whole thing was technically my fault, but semantics, am I right? If my other-self had just listened to me instead of fighting me then none of this would have happened. None of this. She’s too cautious, that’s her problem.

The Nurse grips my elbow, tight enough to hurt even me. Being in a weakened state obviously isn’t helping matters. Looks like I’ll have to start from the bottom – re-build the sunken muscle of my body without alerting suspicion. When we reach the toilets – the ones far, far away from my end of the ward - I decide it’s finally time to let the curtain fall. What? I’ve been away for three years, it doesn’t hurt to be dramatic. Well, it doesn’t hurt me anyway. I wait for her to let go. When she doesn’t, I snap my palm over hers, hard enough to leave a bruise. The calculations aren’t that difficult. Five pounds of pressure for a woman with little or no muscle mass. I turn around, smile at her straight in the face.

“I believe a welcome back party is in order, don’t you?”

She doesn’t even have the chance to scream.

The surprise on her face however, is just perfect.

Me

For a second, it is as if I’m in limbo, or sitting in that blank room in my head.

My memory of the night before is foggy, as if someone’s slotted a screen in-between my brain cells. Then I remember: I’m awake. I’m still alive. And the voice in my head is strangely quiet.

“Are you alright?” My Mother is hunched in the chair beside my bed, texting.

“When can I come home?” Not that I know where it is, what it looks like, or if I have even lived there. I just don’t want to stay here. There comes the sound of shouting from the corridor and orderlies are darting past at lightning speed. The sight is enough to make my eyes water.

“What’s going on?” I ask. Mother, for a split second, looks at me in surprise. How does she expect me to know what’s happened? Breathlessly, Doctor Steele rushes in.

“What’s happening?” I whisper. Everything is starting to come crashing down around me. I thought I was safe, from myself at least. Doctor Steele, like my Mother, shoots me a puzzled glance, but it vanishes before I have time to properly register it.

“I don’t want you to panic,” he begins. I already start to experience the symptoms: my chest tightens and my hands twitch.

“But there’s been an accident. One of the Nurses. She was found dead. Last night, near the opposite end of the ward. Considering this, we’ve decided to move you to a more secure wing of the hospital for one night and then we’ll have to send you home. Until the police can find the culprit, this place isn’t safe for you to stay in. I’ll have to monitor your recovery from your home. Do you think you’re well enough to walk?”

‘He’s testing you,’ I imagine her saying, like she used to, in the back of my mind. Ignoring her, I manage to nod. But as my mother helps me into a sitting position, when I tried to slide from the bed, my legs are like jelly. I can barely stand.

“We need a wheelchair in here!” Doctor Steele calls out, that puzzled expression riddling his face again. Why do I get the feeling that she’s done something? Searching for her voice, her presence, I find I can barely feel her at all. Her absence leaves me to spacewalk through my mind, undisturbed. A sensation I barely have time to enjoy.

As I’m lowered softly into the chair and my mother wheels me out of the ward into another, my heart starts to live again. Not just survive. Maybe the death was just that, an accident. A coincidence. After all, lots of people died in hospital. Just not Nurses. But it can’t be her. I can’t feel her in my head, or in my heart. She’s gone.

Perhaps I can be alone to live the rest of my life as a normal girl. 

Her

It’s typical that she’s unaware. That’s the idea. If she knows about my little midnight adventure, she won’t be too pleased. I don’t know why she’s so touchy about murder. It isn’t murder when it’s well-deserved. The other me has no clue what happened three years ago, so I won’t be accepting any anti-murder memos. She is still so naive. Not like that’s much of a change.

We are being wheeled through chaos personified. People in blue and green scrubs are scurrying left, right and centre, with a speckling of police uniforms to add texture. Oops. I didn’t expect to attract this much attention on my first day back, I must say. I’ve still got it. Separating our memories was also a nice touch, as well as making her weak as a kitten. I didn’t have to do much there. That whole escapade took a lot of me, us. For a tiny little Nurse, she wriggled like there was no tomorrow. Well, for her, I guess there was no tomorrow. But still, like I said, she deserved it. After all, what kind of Nurse carries a firearm in their scrubs?

Our Mother wheels us to where the Doc’ is yelling; he points further down the hall. I love wheelchairs. They’re quite fun if you get someone to push you around really, really fast. I might have… It doesn’t matter.

The other me isn’t speaking, she’s just listening in fear to the wails of the police sirens and the shouts and screams from the other patients. Being stuck in here is not as much fun as it sounds. It’s like being plastered to a glass partition, having no room to break it and no weapon to try. Everything’s going to change though. That’s something both of us, whether my other self knows it or not, can count on.

Finally, we reach our new ward.

Me

This ward is much quieter, and the doors are almost soundproof, muffling most of the uproar we’ve left behind.

I look up at my Mum and she smiles reassuringly. It comes as a surprise when I don’t feel reassured. It is just a coincidence, just a coincidence. Not her fault – not my fault. I’m not her, I am my own person here. This is my life. If she wants it, she’ll have to try and take it. My baiting falls silent when I sense no reply. She’s gone. A breath rushes out of me like a racehorse leaving the gate.

“Number 217 did the Doctor say?” Mother asks. I nod and we both burst in, shutting the door behind us. I frown at the strangeness of it all. Here I am, part of a team, only with someone I can trust, someone I can count on. Not someone in my head. Trouble is, she’s been with me for so long I don’t know which one of us was here first. Me or her? Which one of us isn’t real? Which one of us deserves to have a life? At least I don’t hurt people and I don’t mean the Nurse, not this time. She couldn’t have killed the Nurse anyway. Why? Because she always must take credit for her work. I’m talking about what she did three years ago.

Desperately, I attempt to re-create the scene in my head. All I can see is blood. Gallons of it, staining the pavement and emptying onto the grass. It was daylight, I can remember that much. People were screaming and pointing. We stood in the middle of it all, blood on our hands – her hands. The memory vanishes as quickly as it comes. Mum helps me sit on the edge of the bed, holding my arm to steady me.

“Do you want to order in a McDonalds?” She winks. I find myself smiling.

“I don’t think Doctor Steele would approve”. A coma patient with dissociative identity disorder and fast food doesn’t sound like the best combination.

A cop appears at the door, shifting her gun beneath her uniform as I look down.

“Sorry about the commotion”. She is just about to continue when my Mum cuts in.

“Are you on Protection Detail? There’s been a murder for god’s sake. I need the assurance that my daughter will be safe”.  The cop, suddenly flustered, nods.

“The Superintendent is sending back-up to this location for the next few days. Don’t worry, we’ll keep you guys safe. You don’t have anything to worry about”. Unconvinced, Mum bids her to shut the door behind her and when she’s gone, I start to climb into bed. Again, my body seem to flake beneath me.  

“I don’t have to stay here, do I? What if something else happens?” What if I happen? Mum clasps my hand in hers.

“Sweetheart, you heard what the Officer said. We’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re coming home with me tomorrow, whether these stuffed-shirt Doctors like it or not. Everything’s going to be fine”. It’s been so long, too long, since I’ve heard those words. Everything will be fine. It won’t, but just saying them makes a little bit of difference to me. The shouting and the sirens bellowing outside my door do little to calm me down. My Mother walks to the door and peers out, smiles at me with her crinkled cheeks.

“I’ll have the Nurses bring you something to eat. Do you want anything in particular?” she says softly. I shake my head. What I want is to get out of here. What I want is to go home, wherever that is. For now though, I settle down and try to block out the clattering of the coroners rolling away the body of the Nurse.

Her

A new Nurse, a young man, brings us Jell-O, which we both find disappointing. It’s the one thing we can agree on, gulping down our second helping of green slime. Our Mother asks about playing chess or trivial pursuit, but the other me isn’t in the mood for games. I am though, but do I get a look in? No. Just like three years ago, the other one always must be in control.

I remember when we were kids, barely six or seven, and we’d just been invited to a costume party. I wanted to go as a spider – I used to love the delicacy with which they killed and drained on their prey – but she wanted to be a Princess. Or a flower. Or just anything with frills and petals. Did I get a choice? In the end, I had to make my own decision. I can still picture the other mummy’s and daddy’s faces at the party when I took over. Their frowns of disproval because I knew things that they said I shouldn’t have known.

We were stronger than other kids our age. I was anyway. She could have been, but she didn’t realise her potential until it was too late. I’m talking about what happened three years ago of course. That was my fault. Mostly. I’m still hoping that everything is where I left it all those years ago. I hid all sorts under the floorboards when we moved to that house. After they promised us everything and took those liberties. Did those things… That’s in the past, but it’s part of our future, however much she tries to deny it.

Our Mother is sitting awake, reading a rather discoloured magazine. Even the bubble-gum writing has faded. The other me is making us stare at the blinds covering the windows. Boring. I’m bored. The shadow of that cop lingers outside our door, the rattles of the mess I made last night having died down. Get it? Died? Okay, okay tough crowd tonight. I can’t believe it’s taken them this long to put this place on security lock down. What I don’t understand, what I never understood about them, was why they never locked us up from day one. Why they let things get so out of hand. Call it being on a budget, call it stupidity. What happened three years ago was their fault. The blood is on their hands, not mine. Sort of. It’s hard trying to avoid the blame when I know I’m the one at fault here. Or at least I think I am. If I’m being honest with myself – and I rarely am – I don’t remember what happened either. I only pretend to know things, like everyone else does. Fragments of memories linger, but not enough for me to figure out who I was before. Who I am supposed to be. See, what the other me doesn’t grasp is that whatever I did or think I did, I did it for us. I had to protect us. Why else does she think I exist? I never would have awakened in her mind, in her genes, if she hadn’t needed me. But she did. And like it or not, she still does. I can feel her mentality emptying of thoughts, like a crowd of city-goers diffusing off a bus. She settles, breathes out.

After that, it doesn’t take long for sleep to claim both our minds.

Me

I’m going home today, a lot earlier than I expected.

The cops have advised the hospital to release many of the recovering patients in my ward for their own safety. Mum wakes me up at six, tells me that I’m returning home in an ambulance. Safety reasons. Besides, I’m not sure I can muster the strength to heave my body into a wheelchair. For some reason, I fear that they’re going to sedate me and kick up a fuss. Obviously, that only brings the Doctor to drug me quicker. The prick of the needle seems strangely familiar, as if my veins are greeting the drug as an old friend. My world short-circuits, but I remain conscious – just about. They wheel me out of my room on a gurney into the corridor, cops lining each side of the steel railings. Grabbing my hand, my Mother rushes along with them. For some reason, I’m thinking of a fancy-dress party I went to when I was six. I don’t remember much beyond the party’s opening, only that I ruined it. Or she ruined it. Maybe we both did. Everything she’s done, she’s done using my body, my face. Thanks to her, I ruined my own life. No more. Mother breaks away from me and I panic, the drugs gradually weighing my system down like anchors hanging on my blood vessels. I catch her last few moments of conversation with Doctor Steele.

“I’ll be coming around personally to check on her in a few days, but for the long term…” I lose track, only catching ‘him’ and ‘light’ before the words, the blankness, and the scraping of being loaded into the ambulance fades away.   

I don’t dream much anymore. My conscious mind hasn’t been used in so long my subconscious doesn’t know what to do either. That white room appears again, like a friendly ghost inside my head, but the doors to it are wide open. Maybe she’s just trying to scare me, the remnants of her at least. Whatever my other-self was, she’s nothing now. Non-existent. Sometimes I think I created her, but then I’m reminded of my disease – or so people call it. It’s like everyone knows that I shouldn’t be here. It’s like they’re saying I’m wrong. Perhaps it would have been easier having a nice dual personality, instead of one that gravitates to murder the first chance she gets. Once, when I was being tested at the hospital, a woman in a white coat – all the people in my life wore white back then – said that dual personalities were influenced by your subconscious even though they use different parts of your brain. She said they appear as a defence mechanism. It doesn’t feel that way. In a sense, I was just as much like my alter ego as she was like me. At the time I refused to believe her, but now, now I know that I must have secretly wanted her to exist. Wanted to her protect me.

I should have been more careful about what I’d wished for.

Light burns my eyes and the rocking of the ambulance eventually brings me back to life. My Mother is holding my hand and peering down at me.

“We’re nearly there now, don’t worry”. She speaks slowly, or maybe it’s just the drugs making my surroundings freeze. I want to call out to her, to ask her why she let them drug me. Like I’m a problem child. I guess I am. The sting of antiseptic prickles at my nose, forcing my mouth to scrunch up.

“Are you alright sweetheart?” Mum gives my hand a squeeze. I am now. Moving my mouth takes some effort, in fact moving my whole body feels as if I’m trying to deflect a meteor. Finally, my mouth obeys. 

“Who’s the man that Doctor Steele was talking about? Back at the hospital?” Mum blinks in surprise, as if she’s already forgotten.

“Oh, Dr. Light. A psychiatrist”. Someone else to analyse me. Not even a friend or a therapist who could at least try to understand. Another scientist. Someone made to study people who have been deemed freaks like me. Whether we want that label or not.   

“I heard he went to Harvard you know”. That means nothing to me anymore. It might have done once, when I’d had a future in education. When I’d had the scratchings of a normal life. Not anymore. No university would accept me – it was hard enough trying to get into high school. I think I did. It’s all a little fuzzy, like static on a television or being caught in a blizzard. Most of my memories are obscured. I’ll be lucky if I can remember my name. I’m sure I will. Part of me feels like it’s already been said, but I’ve chosen not to hear it. An ME pokes his head through a window that separates the front seats from my gurney.  

“We’re here Ms.”— Again my mind cuts out our last name and I can hear the whispers of my alter – that’s what the doctors called her - spitting lies in my head. But she’s gone. The echoes of her voice linger, but they’re only echoes. They can’t hurt me anymore. That’s why I’m special, I suppose. Not many people with my condition can communicate with their personality. Typical. I’m even abnormal to people classed as abnormal. What does abnormal even look like? Anything different, I suppose. It’s ironic, how people claim to want to help us and, in the end, all they want to do is eradicate impurities. Stick us in separate groups or schools, away from the ‘normal’ kids. The ambulance glides to a halt and the ME yanks open the backdoors and starts to unload the gurney. As I’m pushed carefully down the ramp, the Canadian sun hits my face. Simultaneously, a blast of cold wind tears through me and I’m almost overwhelmed. I can’t remember the last time I felt the sun on my skin or the wind on my cheeks or anything. All I felt was nothing. Sometimes I still feel that way even with my Mother by my side and the prospect of returning home. Despite everything I still feel numb. In that white room, I’d tried to convince myself that it was better this way. Now I miss being able to feel. I think I, no, I do. I want to feel again.

Craning my neck, I stare up at my home.

Her

It hasn’t changed much, but I swear I totally forgot we were rich. Well, they’re rich. Before they came we had nothing, but we had everything as well. Then they came along, saying they’d give us everything, but instead they took it all away. I’d rather be poor and free than rich and trapped. The house – because I can’t call it a monster without feeling like Bram Stoker – is a grand, ornate structure, with a mixture of woodwork and bricks holding it in place. A ramp has been installed in the entrance, and as we’re wheeled up it, I glimpse the number locks on the doors. More complex than I remember, although I can’t imagine them proving much of a problem. Not for me anyway. The ME pushes me into the hallway, where the other me gasps at the chandeliers and the thriving houseplants seated by the great wide windows. The floor is a deep mahogany and is that a Ming Vase? When did that get there? Yikes, these people don’t know the meaning of the word ‘budget’. Or ‘realistic’. Placing me in this showroom is supposed to stamp out my suspicions, not provoke them. The other me smiles with that typically naïve expression I’ve grown used to over the years.

“Is this place really my home? It’s amazing!” She’s grinning like a moron and I’m half tempted to mentally slap her in the face.

This was never our home and it never will be.

Me

My Mum has brought me a change of clothes as the hospital gown is starting to itch. I slide off the gurney, while Mum thanks the ME for his help. He smiles at me before wheeling the bed away. I wouldn’t be lying if I said I was glad to see the back of that thing. My life has become a revolving door of hospital appointments, gurneys, evaluations, so to wash away the white of the ward is enough to make me smile. Mum’s carrying clear bag of pills, all of them a sickly red in colour. Red like blood. Blood on her hands, my hands. I shut my eyes. Open them. No blood. Just hardwood floors, topped with intricate patterns. Just Mum. The pills are hospital issues, most likely to help me sleep.

“I’m just going to put these in the kitchen. Why don’t you get changed? You remember your room, don’t you? The last one on the left”. She points up the oaken staircase, with snake carvings slithering all over the banisters.

‘That’s fitting’, she snorts inside my mind. There’s no use telling her to shut up. She’ll go away in a minute, she’s just a figment now. Just a figment.

“Oh, Doctor Steele said it would be better if you didn’t eat anything until the sedative’s passed out of your system. I’ll make you some toast if your desperate though”. I regard her with a frown. I hate toast. Besides, I’m not hungry. I still feel a little light-headed from being sedated. From waking up three years after my life ended. Being forced back into the fray.

“No thanks, I’m fine”. Stopping to peer at the landscape paintings on the walls, I make my way up the stairs. I honestly don’t remember living here. How could I forget something so beautiful? But if I had a room here… I’m sure I’ll remember it soon. The stairway veers onto a landing, one with a huge bookcase – almost bare – standing opposite. It’s like I’m in an episode of Murdoch Mysteries. That’s something I just about remember at least. Mum said my room was the last one on— I find it immediately. It has more of a modern feel to it. An Xbox in the corner, a TV. White carpet instead of hardwood. My bed’s a king-size, but the covers match the carpet: plain white. So much for leaving the ward behind. This must be where I stole the room from, the one in my head. Stumbling, I frantically turn away. It is the last thing I want to see right now. 

“Are you alright up there?” Mum calls from downstairs. I answer with a calm voice, the calmest I’ve ever pretended to be. Then again, I haven’t had to pretend to be anything for a while. Except okay. I’ve pretended to be that from birth. I wonder if I ever switched personalities as a baby or if it was something I developed over time. Aren’t all babies supposed to be a little evil? The bundle of clothes in my hands starts to shake so I begin opening every other door on the landing until I find the bathroom. It’s old and musty – like the rest of the house – but the facilities are new. Somehow, I find myself expecting a hose and a bucket. The floorboards creak unevenly and one of them nearly springs up and hits me in the face. After I change out of the gown, I venture downstairs to find my Mum in the kitchen drinking coffee. Her face is haggard, and her eyes are more bloodshot than mine. I have already forgotten what I saw when I looked at the girl in the bathroom mirror. A scraggly witch, thin as a rake. Not me. It all passed by in a blur. These two days have both passed by in a blur. Waking up, murder, coming home to a world I barely recognise, it’s all happened too quickly. I want to hide in my so-called room, but it seems impolite. Even though the woman I’m starting at is my Mother, I don’t feel as if I can be myself just yet.

“Doctor Steele phoned up while you were getting changed. I told him we’d made it back safely. He says Dr. Light will be arriving at lunchtime tomorrow, so you can have a good lie in”. I don’t want a lie-in. I’d rather throw myself out of a window than waste more time asleep. I’ve already spent so much of my life in the dark. Too much. 

“Dr. Light,” I begin. “What’s he like?” Mum shrugs.

“I’ve heard he’s very focused, top of his class. Not much older than you”. How old am I? The number of things I don’t remember is starting to make me feel ill.

“He’s not going to be here long, is he?” It’s not a fun experience to have an outsider poking around in your head. I just want to spend time with my Mum, maybe regain those three years. But I guess the world won’t let me.

“Dr. Light will be living here for a few months, just until Doctor Steele officially clears you”.

“Why here?”

“I thought it would be better having someone you can trust staying with us. Someone who can help you”.

“I trust you, not him. Why can’t you do that?” A lump appears in my throat and it takes me much longer than I wish to swallow it back down.  My Mother cups my cheek.

“Oh, sweetheart, you give me far too much credit”. When I gaze into her face, her eyes are almost…sad. Hastily, she turns away, revisiting her nearly empty coffee mug.

Unable to face her again, I bite back my tears and make my way once again to that white room. I—

Her

Oh, it is good to be back. I’m standing on the stairs, right where the other me just stopped. Hopefully, I can control our neural pathways enough to make sure she doesn’t figure out what’s happening. I’ll keep the memories in clusters, the ones that build up in the brain. I’ll divert the neurons which connect experiences and memories. That way I won’t be interrupted. A man said that to me, another man dressed in white. I smile. That’s what happens when you say a villain is dead: they rise again feeling even more fabulous. Which I do. Obviously. Flexing my fingers and toes, I stride up the stairs towards the bathroom where the dodgy floorboard is. As I lift it up, I find the same note I left three years ago, pinned to the underside of the wood:

The Ceiling of The Beast Has Many Secrets

It’s of course referring mostly to my Mother’s room, but also mine. In fact, it’s probably referring to everywhere else in this house when I think about it. I wasn’t exactly in the greatest state of mind when I wrote this. Ceiling could mean cupboard as well as floorboards. I think I know where the important stuff is anyway. Knife, money, letters, notes. A gun maybe? Pretty please? Before replacing the floorboard, I rummage around behind the bowl refill tube in the top of the toilet until I find the pile of nails my past-self had left for me to use in case everything went pear-shaped. Taking out the nails, I replace the board, and, with a grunt, I shove them one by one into their perfect places until the board becomes immovable. It takes a lot out of me, that’s for sure. My strength really isn’t what it used to be. But it’ll get better. Heading back into my room, (I can’t even begin to wonder why the other me hated the décor), I head over to the wardrobe. Ah, there it is. Exactly where I left it, in a hole next to the hanging rail. My Mp3 player. It’s a pretty old thing and I honestly have no clue why it still works. It’s the one bit of my life that I own. It’s paused at ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go Go’ and the song feels like audio ambrosia as I slide my earphones in. There’s movement downstairs, so I can’t risk fishing around too much tonight, but I can do something. Last time, they figured out my hidey hole and destroyed it. All my resources, my evidence. My life. Their mistake of course was thinking I didn’t have a second bolthole. My mistake however, was that I don’t have another bolthole. Guess I’ll just have to improvise. The prospect of a psychiatrist living here dogging my every step certainly isn’t going to help. If I kill him I’ll blow my cover and more importantly, I won’t get to manipulate him when he psycho-analyses me. Emphasis on the ‘psycho’ part. That’s what everyone thinks I am, why prove them wrong? Why not just prove them right? I rip out my earphones, shove them in my bedside drawer.

Looks like it’s game on.

Me

There’s no passage of time linking my pause on the stairs to my new position of sitting on the bed. At first it seems normal, but then I’m overcome by an overwhelming sense of dread. This is how it started, how she infiltrated my life and ripped it apart. I close my eyes, try to find a rhythm of breathing. It is that exact moment when a memory chooses to seep through. I’m walking up the stairs, staring at a vase, and with a backward glance, I make my way to my room and stop at the threshold. A moment later, I enter and sit down. I’m probably just a little disorientated. I’d sleep, but I don’t think I can. Not in here, not after sleeping for so long. I can’t even try. Dr. Light is coming tomorrow, that I do know. I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do about that. Having a complete stranger staying with me isn’t exactly going to help. I haven’t interacted with anyone close to my age since she… She tried to kill the school bully. I remember. We might have been provoked, we might not, but she tried to kill him all the same. That I can say I had no part in. Killing isn’t in me. Hurting people’s feelings isn’t even in me. Especially not now. I brace for the tears. I miss school. I miss learning and I think I even miss getting detentions for forgetting my homework. It’s strange that they still gave detentions despite knowing about what I was. Knowing what I could do. I can picture a lot of Calgary, a lot of Canada for that matter. Toronto stands out in my mind, a bright beacon of towering glass and concrete. Funny that I don’t even remember going. Perhaps I haven’t been there yet. Perhaps I saw it on TV. I’d like to go. I’d like to go a lot of places now I think about it. Toronto. London. Paris. All the major cities in the world. How do I know about them, remember them, but not my name? What the hell am I supposed to make of that? For a while I sit on the bed, convincing myself that I’m alright and that everything’s going to be okay if I give it a chance. It doesn’t work.

A knock on the door breaks the silence, and my Mum enters carrying a glass of water.

“Are you having trouble settling in?”

“No. I’m okay”. She smiles.

“You don’t have to pretend with me sweetie, I know everything’s a bit disorienting for you at the moment, but it’s all going to be fine”. I want to scoff at her, but I somehow manage to keep my mouth shut. I’ve got to pretend with her; she doesn’t understand how I feel. I don’t know why I expect her to.

“Thanks mum” is all I can say in the end. She passes me the glass of water and I suddenly feel thirsty. As soon as she leaves the room, I take a big gulp and set it down. My hands are shaking. Whether it’s from fear or adrenaline, I don’t know. I think I’m scared, but I’m not quite sure. Not yet. I’m worried about Dr. Light, whoever he’ll turn out to be. I can’t have someone dissecting my brain like I’m a lab rat, not again. Again? Why did I…? Sighing, I rub my eyes. I thought I wasn’t tired. Never mind. Sleep, for once in my life, sounds kind of good.

Blackness comes quicker than ever before.   

Me

I’ve always been a fan of crime dramas, as it turns out.

At least that explains where my fond recollections of Murdoch Mysteries come from.

I’m watching grainy murder mystery re-runs on the television, while my Mother is in the kitchen washing up. I slept long and hard yesterday, even if I hadn’t meant to. Still, I feel a lot better today. I’d even dare to use the word ‘fine’. Or ‘sane’. The only thing bothering me is the butterfly-like tingling in my stomach, due to Dr. Light’s imminent arrival. Will he be intrusive, understanding? For some reason, I find I’m not used to the latter.  Hopefully, he’s not one of those olden-day professors with bushy mutton-chop sideburns. I decide I have definitely been watching too many 19th century murder mysteries. Until he arrives, my mind remains a lake, calm and quiet and undisturbed. If I had inner demons before, I certainly don’t now. The creak of the doors opening draws me from my permanent-since-9:00am state of couch-potato towards the entrance to the living room. It’s fusty – basically the one word I’d use to describe this house – but unlike the disinfectant scented hospital room, this room holds patchwork blankets and has an overall homely feel about it. Even though I don’t remember living here. The television is seemingly the only modern edition. There’s quite a few books on the shelves, most of them old leather-bound volumes of Sherlock Holmes. Maybe that’s how I got into crime and murder.

‘Poor choice of words’.

“Shut up”. I shake my head, as if my other persona is a little ant wriggling in my ear that I could dislodge. If only it were that simple.

‘Hey!’ Smiling, I block her echoes out – something I’ve never done so easily before – and carry on. With my life. My life. Thanks to her, I’ve missed the beginning of Mum and Dr. Light’s conversation.

“I’m sure you’ll be quite comfortable here until my daughter is better. Doctor Steele is coming to check on her in a couple days”.

“Yes, I spoke with him on the phone. She sounds like quite a wonderful young woman”. Dr. Light’s voice merges in my mind like the words of a Shakespearean Play. Profound, but layered. Rehearsed, but somehow spontaneous.

I peer around the doorframe as his eyes lock directly onto mine. His build is slender, but well-muscled. He like a designer suit, or a hand-crafted blade. Sleek muscles, slim overall appearance. All too soon, my eyes are drawn to his hair and it’s psychically painful trying not to laugh. He has a shock of white-blonde hair, and the brightest green eyes I’ve ever seen. I want to ask him what comic book he’s from, but I don’t think that would make the best first impression. Besides, I’m not like that. I don’t have that spark and I don’t think I ever have. When your life is a masquerade of people in white telling you that you’re wrong, self-doubt easily becomes commonplace.  

“Hi,” I whisper, so quietly that I have to clear my throat and repeat myself.