Chapter 25

Dear Diary,

It's too dark where I am. I do not know how it is possible to write some words in this place devoid of light, even so, I can barely see the lines of your pages. Scared would be a word as short as the sanity my mind has left to describe the current state of my body. All I can think of is «Where am I?» because I honestly think I'm going to go crazy if I don't get an answer.

However, I don't think I will ever get one. There is nobody here. It's just me and all this darkness around me. The fear surpasses the levels I was used to and I feel every one of my bones shaking. I wish I was with Mom so much now that I would be able to sell my soul to the highest bidder to spend —even if only— a minute snuggled next to her.

A small drop of salt water slides down my cheek as I remember all those wonderful moments I spent with her. Then, a sad little smile shyly appears on my face. I still remember when we bake a cake for Grandma's birthday. It was strawberry and vanilla frosting. I remember we left the kitchen in a mess, while we played who would smear each other's faces with the frosting. I had a lot of fun that day, you know? Oh, also when we celebrate Christmas at grandparents' beach house. In the morning we went swimming, me next to my pink donut-shaped float, while Mommy filmed me with the camera. I remember a crab got dangerously close to me that day, it was too scary, I thought it would hurt me, but then mom cheered me up saying we could have chocolate ice cream after lunch. I laughed at her wit and took her hand to go home. At night we prepared chicken with puree and some lettuces that looked like balls of green wool. I remember Mom confronting me for not wanting to eat the salad, but in my defense, those brussels sprouts looked so big that I was afraid of drowning from one of them.

Now I don't have to worry about possible killer cabbages. Anyway, I begin to believe that I will die in this dark void —and completely alone. Where are you, mom? Because, if there is an explanation, I wish you were here to calm me down and hold me so tight until I forget I'm crying in the dark. In the middle of nowhere.

The last thing I remember is the nightmare I had before waking up in alarm, with rapid breathing and tears falling down my cheeks. As usual. Sometimes you get used to your own fears, which makes you shiver to the bone and buries under your skin every night when the last of all the switches click and there is no light that can show you the way of salvation. Just like now. Now I don't know where I am, or how I got here, I just know that there is no light in this lonely place. It's just you and me, my diary.

As I was saying, I woke up from that nightmare. I don't really remember what it was about, I just collide with some kind of metal while walking through this place. At least I know that it is not just my being that exists in this void, as I recall the course of that dream. My reflection..., she didn't look so happy. Why did she always hate me? It's one of the questions that eat away at my mind when I'm not sleeping. I was trying to escape from that hideous white room. What kind of injury is that! You know as well as I do that the bathroom would be the last place I would walk on the planet. No. Best in the universe. So cold, so silent. As here, as in this void. It's just like this...

I start to feel like crying again and vomiting everything I have inside, maybe my panic would also come out of me if I did. But I can't do that. I completely refuse to do something like that to my mother. I must be strong. That's what she would tell me, probably. I must take courage from where I do not have and save myself from this abyss. For me. For her. For the future of both. For us.

She —my reflection— told me that she would never allow me to go away, not without her permission, and she threw me to the ground. I still can't explain how she was able to throw myself from the bathroom window onto the floor, but that's what happened. It took me a while to react and when I did, I noticed that I was not able to get up. I moved my head a little to put my gaze in the mirror and opened my eyes in panic. It was terrifying. It was... —honestly— disturbing. She —with that mocking smile and casting fire from her eyes, looking like she could burn an entire city— parted both lips and dropped a kind of thick, dark saliva. She slipped out of the bounds of that beautiful white frame and fell to the floor. Her eyes no longer glowed red and turned entirely black, as did the saliva gushing from her throat. Even though she was away from me, it felt gross.

Neither my arms nor my legs reacted to flee, but that was no longer of much importance. That substance began to approach me and when I least realized it, it was entering my eyes... my nose... my ears. By depriving me of anything that happened around me. I drowned, I really drowned, I died in that dream, but just like the other times, I woke up.

You were at my side, as I had left you before I fell asleep. And next to you was my glitter pencil with a rabbit-shaped lid. I took you in my arms and opened your pink covers and uncapped the liquid ink pen. I started to write. But then I saw it from a distance. I saw it from the darkness of my room, although there was no lamp on, although the spotlight in the room did not illuminate any corner of the place. But there it was. One of the monsters —a slave of my reflection— with red eyes, full of fury and determination. Determined to kill me, without hesitation. He sprinted over to where I was, stomping on the wood aggressively, and when he was less than a meter away, he plunged that big horn over his head into my chest.

Red. Red was the last color I could see that night. Red in his distant gaze, the red of my blood staining the mattress, the red of his fur, and the red of the presence of death in my room. Everything was red around me.

Oh, the lights just came on. This... this is a factory. A factory of dreams apparently, but not of any kind of dream, but of nightmares. The metal bars are hanging from thick black threads, forming —in some way— rails so that the black bands can move. The control center is off, but that does not stop the factory from creating its own fruits. A solitary transparent cube rests on the edge of the black bands as I start to approach. It is uniquely beautiful and disquieting at the same time. I take it between my fingers and brush a part of its surface, it feels cold to the touch, so much that it seems to shiver when I give it the warmth of my fingers. A small storm appears inside the cube a few minutes later, scaring me and knocking the fragile object to the ground.

Oh no. It is shattered. But that is not all. There is a huge window on one of the walls. It is really beautiful, it is decorated with white wood, delicately carved, as in my... As in my bathroom.

—Elena

[...]

A little girl ran to the large window that cast a powerful light into that dark and cold void. She put her hands on the glass and observed what existed on the other side. It was her bathroom. There was the cream sink and the hello kitty glass that jealously guarded her toothbrush. There —too— she might be able to see her room. Or rather, her old room. Her stuffed animals were waiting for her on the pink bed and her star lamp was calling her by her name so that she would come back to her life. To her old life. She wanted to jump, she was determined to do it, to do anything to be the girl from before, but someone came —and appeared as if by magic— in that bathroom.

—It's really nice to see us again, Elena. Although I know you don't feel the same way. —The person she least wanted to see at that moment greeted. Elena frowned helplessly knowing that even if her reflection was responsible for this mess, she couldn't do anything to change her future. Or her present.

—I know you must have a million doubts now, but we still have time for that. —She said, and closed the bathroom door, latching it. —Your mother is not here, darling. Don't try to yell or ask for help. No one is going to listen to you, no one but me.

Cruelty. There was a gleam of anger and cruelty in the eyes of that girl in the white dress —clean and orderly. The tears spilled out, starting to roll down Elena's cheeks again and she let out a groan of pain. She was completely destroyed. She was alone and destroyed like a calf that is going to be killed in the barn.

—Why me? —She asked weakly, wiping the remains of that salty liquid off her face. —You said you had more girls, so, Why did you choose me?

A mocking smile and a laugh were the only things that the large window allowed to show that little and heartbroken girl.

—You were perfect, Elena. Just look at you. —She pointed her index finger. —You had no one and you never told your mother that you used to talk to me, not even what we talked about. You were so lonely, without siblings. But no, that's not the only reason, my dear. You are special. You are different. You don't know why yet, but then you will understand. I am only a way by which you will understand who you really are.

After that, silence reigned within those four marble walls and also within that dark void that protected Elena.

—So, What will happen now?

—The right question is what will happen to you? And answering your question, I hope you get used to what used to be my home. —She said it as if it were something common every day —Indeed, you are standing in the place where I lived. You will stay there until someone can get you out... but there's only one way to save you, Elena. Do you want to know what it is?

She didn't hesitate much and she nodded immediately, maybe her reflection wasn't so bad after all. But, after hearing her laugh, she knew that she was wrong again.

—Kill, Elena, you must kill someone and take everything that belongs to him, steal his life, and take possession of everything that was important to that someone. You must do to him what I did to you. Destroy. Murder. And steal. It's not that simple anymore, Is it? Knowing that you are as fragile as glass, I think you will stay there for years. But that's not my problem anymore, darling. My work here is finished. —She waved her hand, saying goodbye to her, and made the pretense of opening the door and leaving.

—Wait! Where are you going? I need to know what you will do now that you are free.

The reflection of Elena looked at her and gave her a mocking smile. —Do you really want to know? I thought you had more important things to do, like planning your way out of that beautiful white frame jail, but that's okay. I will not leave you with doubt. —She paused. —I will visit someone who was very important to me. —And this time, it was the final. The reflection of Elena left the bathroom.

That girl's mind was in an uproar. Kill... kill someone. If she murdered she would become equal to or worse than her monster —which was currently on the loose— but after that, she would get everything she craved. Get out of that void and go back to her life from before, that normal life. Then, she understood the hard way she had to walk. That factory was her home now and she must know it as well as the palm of her hand if she wanted to escape from it. She would have time to cry later.

❝There never was a cure for nightmares. There was never a cure for this goner.❞