Page 84 of Fragmented Illusions

Welcome back, Fallon.

WHAT THE FUCK?

I shoot up in bed, a scream tearing through my throat as my eyes finally shoot open. My gaze lands on a solid bright white wall. The wall is devoid of any art, completely blank.

My hands shake at my sides as I roam my gaze around the small room but there is nothing to look at. Only four solid white walls and the bed I’m on.

My eyes burn as I glance down at myself. I’m wearing an ugly green hospital gown. I’m in a plastic hospital bed. I’m surrounded by silence and never-ending white walls.

I’m alone.

Back where it all started.

What thefuckhappened?

I scramble back on the bed, my heart thundering so powerfully I can feel it in my bones. My entire body trembles as panic ensues.

How could this have happened?

What’s going on?

Where am I?

My thoughts race at a million miles a minute as I try to remember what happened last night.

I remember very vividly what happened at the cabin. The woman… The blood… The sex… I squeeze my legs together and it’s then I notice the dull ache at my core. But I can’t focus on that right now.

I shake the thought of them away and concentrate on what happened after I was back home. I know I showered and threw my clothes in the wash with a lot of bleach. I can almost still smell it burning my nose as I poured it in, worried I wouldn’t use enough.

With the washer going, I opened my dresser and pulled out the pills I stopped taking months ago. I grabbed the bottle of amitriptyline and dumped two round, burnt orange pills into my hand. I tossed them back with a drink of water, then curled up with my blanket in bed.

The only reason I took them was so I could sleep. My entire body felt as if it weighed a ton, but my thoughts were racing between the woman, her blood, and Solomon and Spencer. I knew if I was going to get any sleep, I had to take them. My body needed the rest because the slicing and stabbing and the sex took a lot out of me.

I would let them consume my thoughts and my body tomorrow.

That was the last thing I remember from last night.

Now I’m in a hospital room. One that looks eerily similar to the one I stayed in years ago. But the real question is, how did I get here? And why don’t I remember it?

My body is shaking as I rock back and forth on the hard mattress, trying to force my sluggish brain to recall anything, any minute detail, but nothing comes to me. It’s all blank after I fell asleep, and it only worsens my confusion.

Blood rushes in my ears as my heart races and my head throbs painfully from how hard I’m thinking that I don’t hear the sound of footsteps until they step into my peripheral.

A scream tears from my throat when two different sets of shoes come into view. One, a pair of shiny black heels, and the other, dark brown loafers. I feel my brows furrow as recognition begins to creep in, but that can’t be right.

This is all a terrible night terror. I’m sleeping and I will wake up soon, back in my bed.

“Fallon,” a feminine voice croaks out, and all the blood drains from my face. No.

No no no no.

No.

“Dahlia, please, talk to me.” My mother uses my middle name like a curse on her tongue, spoken with disdain and inferiority, as she has for as long as I can remember. Her voice slithers across my skin like a deadly viper, depleting me of all my new oxygen, leaving me empty and dying without it.

I keep my eyes locked on the pale wall in front of me, refusing to regard at them. I don’t know what happened, but I know it’s their fault. They were the reason I was here in the first place, and I know, deep down, they are the reason I am here again.

I feel the hard bed shift from the weight of my mother as she seats herself next to me. She places her hand on top of my thigh and I flinch, scooting as far away from her as I can.