Into the dark

I have no memory before this exact moment. My eyes wince at the intense brightness and attempt to adjust. I feel the sensation of cold and look down. Bare feet stand on the tiled floor. Before me is a brushed metal counter, no, more like a long shallow trough. A series of faucets are set above it. Above that is a mirror that runs the length of this room. I look into it and see nothing I recognize looking back at me. A stranger’s face, a stranger’s eyes, reflect someone gaunt, tired, miserable. Those eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed. I raise a thin hand to feel hot swollen cheeks damp from tears, I think. My body is wearing some loose coarse woven long shift. It is plain, off-white, and shapeless. Upon my head is lightly pinned some near-transparent pale iridescent scarf. It’s so insubstantial that the pins seem to barely hold it to my hair. It might float away on its own if not anchored. This scrutiny does not help me understand who I am or why I am here.

Also reflected in this mirror is a bank of cupboards behind me. Largish cubes are stacked three rows high to the ceiling. A wheeled ladder is trapped in a track before them. Its only function is to serve this bank of storage. All of this is odd, sparse, and terrifying.

The door to my left opens and a woman lightly steps in. She wears the same clothes. Her movements are nearly weightless. She does not even register that I am here. Her face, though holding a beautiful smile, is vacant. Her eyes are sightless and empty. The woman is pregnant. She moves to one of these cupboards, opens it, and curls up inside of the cramped space. Her eyes would have met mine as she closed the door. If they had anything, any humanity behind them I did not see it. Only that odd saintly smile slipped away as she closed herself into the dark of the cupboard.

I feel my breath start to quicken. A shudder runs through my bones. A sound, a small limp thud, comes from another of the cabinet doors. Moving from the space I was standing in takes a monumental effort. I feel like my entire body is weighted by a gravitational pull that loathes each inch I gain. When I reach the cupboard that the sound came from, it takes another year’s worth of seconds to raise my hand and open it.

A smell pours out of the space before I can register the body inside. It is blackened and nestled in its twisted limbs is a softly glowing orb. The glow flickers and intensifies. Then I see the face of the woman that is in this confined space. Skin, like tanned leather, creaks as the gaping mouth tries to move.

The sluggishness is gone. I dart for the door, not thinking to save whatever it is that I’ve just seen, only to be gone. Beyond the door is an oddly slanting floor. Concrete slopes downward into pitch-black darkness on my left. To my right, there are narrow slits of light as the floor raises to an abrupt angle. Silhouetted in that light is a man. His broad shoulders and block of a head swivel toward me as I leave the unbearably bright room. I can feel his menace from yards away. He is now moving swiftly towards me.

I turn to the darkness and run with everything I have. The veil that had tenuously covered my hair escapes and flies into the face of the pursuing man. I look back as it catches there, onto his face. Both obscuring and molding to his features. Only his growling mouth escapes the fabric. Its twisted hatred bellows out. I turn to the darkness and know nothing more.