harder he tried to disengage his body from hers, the more desperately she clung to him. Kaila refused to let him go because she didn’t know if she would ever feel this again, so complete, as if a secret to a part of the universe had been dropped into her heart.
“Kaila, let go.”
Norm’s voice was laced with panic now and Kaila couldn’t understand why. Didn’t he feel the magic in that space of time where everything slipped out of existence except for the two of them, the two of them…
“Kaila, that’s enough…”
More flies buzzing, and mosquitoes too, she shook her head, unwilling to let it go, as if it was the last breath of clean air in a room filled with smoke.
“No,” she said, holding, pulling, squeezing…
“Kaila, fuck…I can’t breathe…please…”
Then the spiders came, racing across her body. Norm disappeared, tugged away by the tarantulas, black widows, poisonous, and household spiders too, a million of them in all shapes and sizes, legs and ichor filled bodies covering her. And every body that she plucked away from her skin was replaced with another, because they had taken over everything, they had stolen Norm away and they would never bring him back. And when she thought she would drown or go mad from it all she felt one sting her arm, felt its venom pulse through her veins, and then she was falling into a dark place, somewhere safe, where the spiders couldn’t follow, where only Trillian and she existed.
CHAPTER 6
Kaila woke up in the White Room. She knew that three days had passed when she glanced down at the date on her watch, the only piece of color in the depressingly bland room. Outside the White Room she would have read the clues, but it was for these moments alone that she wore a watch; time couldn’t be measured by happenings in the confines of this place.
The date sadly confirmed that time had passed that she had no recollection of. It wasn’t her first time there, a space reserved for those who lost all sense of reality, who the facility deemed a threat to their own wellbeing, but it was the first time she had lost three full days. Before then she had lost a few hours here and there, the very most eighteen of them, but three full days was unimaginable.
Kaila swept her gaze across the room. She realized on closer inspection that this room that appeared the same as the ones she had inhabited before, was marginally different. The bed for one wasn’t a bare mattress on the floor, but a real cot with a metal-frame and a substantial mattress. She also had blankets and even sheets, a pillow too. The double-sided mirror was the same, yet its location was not. Instead of the right side of the room it was on the left side. The door that opened into the room was in the wrong position as well. All clues said that she was in a brand new area. A surge of panic raced through her, but she worked to push it back down. She was more than ready to be out of this White Room and knew that letting her anxiety get the better of her would not hasten her exit.
Another brand new addition to the list, that was growing ever so long, was the intravenous tube trailing from her left hand. It was taped in place with a flesh-colored Band-Aid. A long plastic tube that linked to a half-full bag of clear liquid, dangled on a metal pole. Without hesitation Kaila ripped at the tube, pulling it out with a rapid snapping motion. She allowed herself the luxury of a few seconds to study the foreign body that had been inside her. Kaila pushed at the tip of the cannula of the intravenous device, marveling at the fact that only a few heartbeats before, the small piece of plastic had been a part of her body, feeding her fluids and whatever was contained in the bladder shaped bag. Drops of the fluid dribbled from the intravenous tubing in a steady trickle that had been perfectly calibrated to deliver exactly the right amount of fluids that she had needed.
Though it was the first intravenous device
“Kaila, let go.”
Norm’s voice was laced with panic now and Kaila couldn’t understand why. Didn’t he feel the magic in that space of time where everything slipped out of existence except for the two of them, the two of them…
“Kaila, that’s enough…”
More flies buzzing, and mosquitoes too, she shook her head, unwilling to let it go, as if it was the last breath of clean air in a room filled with smoke.
“No,” she said, holding, pulling, squeezing…
“Kaila, fuck…I can’t breathe…please…”
Then the spiders came, racing across her body. Norm disappeared, tugged away by the tarantulas, black widows, poisonous, and household spiders too, a million of them in all shapes and sizes, legs and ichor filled bodies covering her. And every body that she plucked away from her skin was replaced with another, because they had taken over everything, they had stolen Norm away and they would never bring him back. And when she thought she would drown or go mad from it all she felt one sting her arm, felt its venom pulse through her veins, and then she was falling into a dark place, somewhere safe, where the spiders couldn’t follow, where only Trillian and she existed.
CHAPTER 6
Kaila woke up in the White Room. She knew that three days had passed when she glanced down at the date on her watch, the only piece of color in the depressingly bland room. Outside the White Room she would have read the clues, but it was for these moments alone that she wore a watch; time couldn’t be measured by happenings in the confines of this place.
The date sadly confirmed that time had passed that she had no recollection of. It wasn’t her first time there, a space reserved for those who lost all sense of reality, who the facility deemed a threat to their own wellbeing, but it was the first time she had lost three full days. Before then she had lost a few hours here and there, the very most eighteen of them, but three full days was unimaginable.
Kaila swept her gaze across the room. She realized on closer inspection that this room that appeared the same as the ones she had inhabited before, was marginally different. The bed for one wasn’t a bare mattress on the floor, but a real cot with a metal-frame and a substantial mattress. She also had blankets and even sheets, a pillow too. The double-sided mirror was the same, yet its location was not. Instead of the right side of the room it was on the left side. The door that opened into the room was in the wrong position as well. All clues said that she was in a brand new area. A surge of panic raced through her, but she worked to push it back down. She was more than ready to be out of this White Room and knew that letting her anxiety get the better of her would not hasten her exit.
Another brand new addition to the list, that was growing ever so long, was the intravenous tube trailing from her left hand. It was taped in place with a flesh-colored Band-Aid. A long plastic tube that linked to a half-full bag of clear liquid, dangled on a metal pole. Without hesitation Kaila ripped at the tube, pulling it out with a rapid snapping motion. She allowed herself the luxury of a few seconds to study the foreign body that had been inside her. Kaila pushed at the tip of the cannula of the intravenous device, marveling at the fact that only a few heartbeats before, the small piece of plastic had been a part of her body, feeding her fluids and whatever was contained in the bladder shaped bag. Drops of the fluid dribbled from the intravenous tubing in a steady trickle that had been perfectly calibrated to deliver exactly the right amount of fluids that she had needed.
Though it was the first intravenous device
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