I wrote this in, like, 20 minutes. Enjoy... or not. There’s no pressure.
“Careful. It may be... difficult.”
Difficult? Funny. You know what’s really difficult, you moron? Going through the stomach content of someone who just ate a half of McDonald’s. And I know what I’m talking about because I’m a pathologist. Wait... or I was a pathologist? Can’t say. Everything seems so unreal.
Am I alive? Is the ceiling white or I just imagine it’s white? I hear voices, lots of them, but sometimes I think they’re just in my head. A face pops in the range of my eyesight once an hour. I know several of them. But most of my memories are blurry.
The last thing I remember? Christmas. But... I think I was younger then. Sixteen? Am I sixteen?
No, I’m a pathologist. I’ve studied medicine. Unless I am a genius, I can’t be sixteen right now.
“She’s been drugged with a LSD dosage so high it’s a miracle she breathes on her own. She should have been dead.”
That would explain a little.
“Well, except for the effects of the overdose, of course. She’ll be fine in a couple of weeks. Physically, at least.”
There are two voices but I can sense a third person in the room. I know they’re out there but I can concentrate mostly on the ceiling.
“How do they know? She’s bloody catatonic!”
Weasley? Was his name Weasley? No, that was from the book... the book I’ve read in high school.
“She’s catatonic because LSD racked up her mental stability. The doctor said she may never be herself again.”
What does it mean - being yourself? Seems to me like nothing. Where am I? Where is this me persona everyone keeps talking about? Am I me when I cut people of the slab? Is it me wearing a new lipstick to impress a guy? I am perfectly sure I’m being myself right now. So... what myself are they talking about? People tend to use meaningless phrases because they think it makes them sound so wise. And how can they know me at all? Are they my friends? Have they spent at least a minute of their valuable time to really get to know me? To find what my favourite cake is or what my morning routine is? How can anyone say they know anybody?
I’ve been drugged with the most dangerous narcotic there is. I am damaged beyond repair. I’m the best post-LSD traumatized person I can be.
“Why did she do it to her?” someone whispers.
“The same reason everyone does anything. Because she wanted to.”
I’m sure I flinched. But that must have happened in my head because they would notice. That voice makes me shiver inside. I feel heartbeat starting to race as fast as possible. It’s a good thing I lie down, otherwise my knees could have not keep me in a straight position.
That voice comes from the back of my head.
“I know, Sherlock, but even Eurus must have had an ulterior motive.”
Sherlock. I want to gasp but my chest goes up and down calmly. What’s a sherlock and why does it trigger a panic attack?
My eyeballs go from one side to another. There’s a dead silence in the room for a while and then I hear soft footsteps approaching the bed I lie on. I finally get to see a face: skinny, with sharp cheekbones, blue eyes and dark, curly hair. He stares at me intensively, seemingly looking for something on my own face - a sign of life, maybe.
“It’s a punishment,” he says.
Another person comes up; he has grey hair, wears a suit. Looks like a police officer. I notice a badge clipped to his belt.
“She’s lost her mind,” the first man cuts in before the second one can finish the sentence. “She’s denied most of her memories. Her brain is permanently damaged. No one really knows how much she remembers. And from the movement of her eyeballs I’m guessing she doesn’t recognise me. None of us, to be exact.”
Another man comes up; he also has grey hair but is visibly shorter than the previous two. He looks really worried, keeps glancing at the tallest, the curly one. The curlyhead gazes at me, studying my face very thoroughly. What does he expect to find?
“She doesn’t love me,” the dark one replies to the shortest. “It means the only person who loved me unconditionally is dead without being really dead and I’m forced to look in her empty eyes, knowing I am no one to her.”
They all fall silent. Love him? He is, of course, quite handsome, but to love him? He seems arrogant, the way he keeps cutting in everyone’s sentences.
“And this is the punishment?”
“Yes. The punishment for all the years of pain I’ve caused her. Now I’m the one who said ‘I love you’ and will get nothing in return.”
A memory flashes to my head. This voice haunts my brain. I’m sure I’ve heard it before but it seems to be hidden behind a thick wall. I look at him but his face remains cold. I try to ask him what does it all mean, does he love me now? I’m lost in this conversation.
Will get nothing in return.
The two others leave the room. He leans over and places a kiss on my forehead. He flashes me last sad and coldly furious look, and shuts the door behind him. I see a slide show: the morgue, the lab, the thoroughly packed little present, the man falling behind the window, the voice saying: you.
I want to scream but I can’t.
