Deliritas Hospital visits are Monday through
Saturday 7:00 AM — 10:00 PM and on Sunday
11:00 AM to 7:00 PM. If an emergency occurs,
these hours will not apply.

-Deliritas Hospital General Information, page 2

~~~~~

I awake to yet another room that blinds me with color (or lack thereof), this time white, with puffed leather squares adorning the walls. It's rather bland and quite ugly.

I guess I was never an optimist. I prefer the term, realist.

I release an inhuman shriek and pound my fist upon the door, sealed tightly, blocking me from the outside world, where it seems so natural and full of life, but in here, it's just me and my thoughts, which frightens me immensely.

Sweat breaks out on my forehead and my knees wobble, sending me crashing to the ground in a heap, just like Snow did.

First, there is sickness, pain beyond compare.

My head starts to feel fuzzy, as I become disoriented, crashing into the nearest walls as if they're a destination I am intent on arriving inside.

Then comes insanity, watching as you lose your mind.

I know death is near, considering the brief time of and between the symptoms. Death is even nearer for Calum, I presume. His symptoms began way before mine and now have lasted far longer.

Where even is Calum now? The Community probably disposed of him, but I come to the conclusion that I will get no information on his whereabouts, at least not from any trustworthy doctors that hover around the room like vultures.

I'm supposed to remain sterile, though it wouldn't seem as though I could contain germs in my mind — but I guess it's possible. That's why the government created the Outbreak.

A whole disease to enslave the minds of their Citizens, people who confided in them as a refuge, who poured their life into accommodating the needs of their home that feeds off of their hope, hope, until recently, I believed to be placed well.

The Community is ruthless, though. They'll stop at nothing to achieve their goals. They split people apart bit by bit, like crumbs falling from a cookie onto the floor, where a domesticated house animal will surely pick them up and transport them elsewhere, until what was yours is no longer recognizable. And I suppose it happened to Peter. The anguished swallowed him whole, as I sat by, helpless, without a clue that there was anything going on inside.

Peter Sparrow.

My stomach flares, bringing me discomfort at the highest level. Sweat breaks out on my forehead, though I feel terribly cold, goosebumps forming on my arms.

I rub my hand over them, familiarizing myself with the curves rising on the terrain of my skin.

"How did Calum endure this?" I shriek to no one in particular.

It's just me in here, alone to my own thoughts. The mere concept of it is enough to send chills up my spine, though I bet it's the sickness doing that.

I do believe there is a point where we stop caring. Where everything is numb. Where we touch, but we do not feel. And that's scared me the most about insanity, that I will have no sense of self anymore, that I will lose my links. It's not necessarily the mental physique that we fail to uphold, but rather the fact that there is nothing.

I have found that point. I told myself I wouldn't let go, but it all seems so simple now.

There is no daily struggle, only the screeching sound of my food being relentlessly squeezed through the door, then flushed with antibacterial sprays that require me to fold my torn shirt across my nose to filter the toxic air.

So, in fact, I am numb.

Peter is dead, and I protest the removal of that thought, through weary limbs, eyes circled with red from the lack of sleep and even hours of internal wailing. He's gone. I let go from him and now I know a mundane truth: every day I wake up and he's not there. He'll never be there. There is no denying it. Not enough kicking and screaming will bring him back and soon, I'll be six feet under, with an unmarked grave, miles from Peter's.

Criminals don't get tombstones. Director Damon made sure of that.

~~~~~

Death is so rude. He takes everyone I care for, but refuses to take me.

He makes a fool out of me. I persist in conversing with them, but the doctors only whisper about how I'm getting worse, occasionally throwing worried glances my way as I rock back and forth, clutching my knees like they're the only things I have left — which, to be fair, is incredibly accurate.

Well what do they know? I aspire to be the one who goes down swinging when the rest of them have fallen, the one that stands tall after all the bloodshed. But my posture sucks.

Why are you so hard on yourself? he'd say. But he doesn't understand. No one does. That's okay, though. At least I have my knees.

~~~~~

One of the doctors pays close attention to me, more than usual.

He's young, with raven black hair and eyes the color of the sky on its most beautiful day.

He seems genuinely concerned with my health, but I can't trust him yet, though I desperately want to.

This particular doctor stays close to the door the whole time, sympathy flashing across his face. None of the other doctors even talk to him, like they recognize that he doesn't want to be disturbed, but he never comes in.

It's almost like he knows what it feels like. It's almost like he knows my story.

~~~~~

The strange doctor finally came inside today, to my utter disbelief.

I'm starting to get suspicious of him, like he sneaked in here and even the other doctors aren't sure he's supposed to be here. The way he acts suggests a difference in background, but it seems somewhat familiar.

I can't make out the letters of his name tag, though it's prominently displayed in my focus. The disease the government injected me with blurs my vision immensely.

"Take it."

A torn journal with pages poking out of every direction rests in his hand. I soon recognize it as Peter Sparrow's. A gasp rises in my throat and I quickly snatch it from him, saying my thanks with a slight nod of the head.

"I figured you'd make a lovely set of poems to record inside it."

However, I have no intention of filling it with anything other than tears and the scarlet blood that pours from my skin when I scratch myself too much.

"I wish you could be free." A sad smile plays on the doctor's lips.

"Me, too." My voice breaks as I gaze longingly at the messy book.

Nostalgia hits me like a tsunami, the first tear of many splashing on the cover. I watch it acutely, tracing my eyes over ever fold, ever corner, every line marked in the leather.

"I'll leave you to rest, or whatever it is that you do." He takes one last melancholy glance at me before spinning on his heel and slipping through the door.

~~~~~

There was once a girl who pondered death as I sat and read across the small, shady tree named after some old guy that I pretend to not know the name of.

She said if someone knows how they die, an angel will come and take care of them, give them unimaginable gifts. Bless them with endless splendor, shower them with affection, nurture them like their mothers did before they stressed about finances and other such problems, the things that come after retirement but still stick.

She led me to believe that conscious presence was important and we could find out way to a flowery meadow if we were good.

But where is the flowery meadow now that all the plants have died? She didn't say it would burn. All I see is fire.

Help! I would plead, but no one listened. No one was there. No one cared.

No one understood how much it hurt, and if they did, they didn't do anything about it. The fire searing into me, branding me as its own was enough to drive me crazy. I hated it, I hated it so much.

The flowers only became black piles of ash, falling like rain. And I came with them.

~~~~~

It's Calum's fault. I know it now. If Calum hadn't wanted to have more useless insight, Peter would be alive.

We could've been out of here, could've even gotten out of the Dome and returned to our own Provinces, totally evading our prior mission.

Calum's plan was useless. It was a sound possibility that we could've escaped our boundaries and totally avoided the headquarters, going our separate ways and returning to our families, however limited.

We could have been jovial at all times — or at least how happy someone like me can be, but, regardless, it's more exceptional than the life I'm currently living.

Hate winds its way through my mind, turning every memory to acrimony. I can't help but let it control me. With my lack of energy, it's all I can do to stay viable.

Calum did this to me.

~~~~~

Calum means dove. I remember learning about names in school. I told myself that if I ever had the fortune of meeting someone named Calum, I should cherish his resilience, but I knew it was a shot in the dark that I ever should find such a person.

My teacher said that we would have to dig through his reticence, with care and tenderness and welcome him into our arms.

"Be careful with fallen leaves. There could be a butterfly trying to hide," she had told us.

But where is he now? Is he soaring above the trees, or is he stuck on the ground with a broken wing?

~~~~~

My life feels like infinity, but not in the way that most people would expect — that it goes on forever — but in the way that where it stops in unknown.

But everyone wants it to end. They want to place a number to it. They want to keep it controlled, with a desperate urge.

Life is infinity. And I want mine to end.

–Peter Sparrow's journal

~~~~~

A blurry figure appears in my sight, materializing bit by bit. Soon, I can see that she is wearing a crystal blue ball gown. The dress fans out in the skirt area, creating a grand hoop effect. Her hair looks like it was curled professionally, a massive mountain of dark locks on her head. It seems like she was on her way to a palace from the fairy tales when she was interrupted to be brought here.

Snow.

"Hello, Florence," she says, smiling the same smile I know to be hers, before she was brutally murdered by her mother and her forces.

"How did you get in here? Weren't you dead?"

Snow chuckles cheerfully.

"Aren't you supposed to be sane?"

My face contorts furiously, but she brushes it off like it was a joke, but I, however, don't find it amusing.

"You're one of my hallucinations, right? I've been having too many of those lately, voices in my head as well."

"Why would you think that? Don't you want me to be real?" Snow's tone sharpens, as she leers at me.

"Of course, but I'm not so much able-minded. You're just a side effect."

"Side effect?"

"You're not even like the real Snow. You're my imagination."

A lamp that wasn't previously present is now clutched in Snow's hand, with her nostrils flared at the maximum rate. It surprises that me that such a climax could be reached. She grips it tightly and lobs it straight at my forehead. By some force, its path is averted to the wall behind me, erupting into blue smoke, which happens to be her favorite color, though I don't suppose it was a coincidence — it's something Snow would do, an unavoidable detail.

Snow shrieks wildly and disappears in a flash of green lightning — Peter's favorite color, though once again, not by coincidence.

I rest there for a moment, catching my breath.

She wasn't real.

Though somehow I know she could've been.

~~~~~

Peter is okay. I can't remember how, but I know he is.

No, he's not, one part of me lectures. I will myself to ignore it, but it defeats me, like always.

You killed Peter Sparrow, and now it's going to kill you.

~~~~~

The walls of my cell are now covered in one simple word: dove. Written forward, backward, with different letters, with them all jumbled around, size varying drastically.

Hours of dragging my fingernails into the cushion material have led to the same message clawed over and over and I'm beginning to really like the improvement.

I'm sure the doctors will notice.

~~~~~

Fear has me in a choke hold, but I haven't the faintest idea as to what I am afraid of, but it is there; and it is real.

I have no perception of reality anymore. Everything is a blur.

Time is fluctuating. Days are expendable. Days are useless. There is only alive and not alive. And that is important.

–Peter Sparrow's Journal

~~~~~

There is a wolf in my room, large, with jet black fur and icy blue eyes. Though his body resembles an effort of grooming, his hair remains to appear wind-blown, like he's trekked through the desert to find me.

I try talking to him, but I receive no response. He only watches, like he's waiting for something. I have nothing to give him though.

"Can I help you?"

The wolf remains still. It blinks now and then, but continues to observe my movement, however slight.

My previous suspicion that wolves can sense fear now turns to dust, for the creature only cocks its head to the side at each small development.

If this were at home, a wolf would be a terrifying abnormality and would most likely advance aggressively. The officials would get called in to take care of the disturbance, watching as the Citizens all scream hysterically and flee in fear, but I'm not scared of him; he gives me no reason to be.

I cast my eyes away for a moment, but when they return, the wolf's fur is shiny and matted with the dark blood trickling from his brain and passing through his ears.

The wolf begins to whimper uncontrollably. I cannot bear to look, so I turn my vision away, stuffing my fingers into my ear canals to block it out.

Please, no, please stop. Why are you bleeding? Please stop. I can't take it!

The whines become louder, earsplitting, with the ability to shatter the hypothetical glass, until they disappear completely with an abrupt stop.

I peer over my shoulder to find the dead body of Calum resting on the floor. He looks so peaceful, like he's merely sleeping, but I can tell he's gone forever.

Blood seeps from his head, pooling in a puddle like a halo as it swirls and mixes with his black hair, turning it to an insulting shade of brown.

My gaunt face reflects faintly in the small pond of metallic liquid, eerie and frightening from the ordeal the government has been putting me through.

I shriek, stumbling into the far wall, torn with my clawing excursion.

Curling into a ball, I rock forward and backward, attempting to drown out the horrid sight, biting my arm to alleviate the anxiety and trepidation plaguing my mind; it's all I can think about.

When I open my eyes and escape from the position, I find the sterile room as it usually is, Calum's body no longer present, leaving behind the pungent smell of toxic chemicals sprayed onto my food.

These are your worst fears, Director Damon says inside my mind, and we have brought them here to you. Enjoy your stay, Florence.

It's the disease at work, not you.

Oh, are you so sure about that? She cackles and vanishes from my brain.

With the technology the Community possesses, it is highly possible that it's Director Damon, but the thought is rattling; however, I can't seem to kick it away.

Just when I think all is well, three wolves appear right in front of me: one with a mix of black and brown fur and hazel eyes, one with brown fur and green eyes, and the one from before.

The brunette wolf frightens me the most, its gaze digging the deepest into me, messing with my rationality.

Emerging from behind the three comes another wolf with brown fur and eyes, sleek and daring.

She approaches me, her nose an inch away from mine.

I can see the universe in her eyes, like fire and anguish mixed together. I feel like I should be appalled, but I only stare deeper, intrigued.

This is the most penetrating thing I've seen in a while, clouded in self-hatred, for she has seen what I have seen; she is a reflection of me. And that is a rattling thought.

Water cascades down my cheeks, but I cannot control it, and I know not what provoked them, only that it is necessary to understand this creature.

"You've seen so much," I whisper, stroking the wolf's muzzle.

She nods solemnly. The other wolves have their heads bowed, their eyes now shimmering with the same image of the galaxy and those beyond.

I press my fingers to the wolf's forehead and a bright light leads me to shield my face with my hand.

In an instant, the wolves are gone and only the padded room remains.

Deep, snarling sounds fill the space and I clamp my arms over my ears, but I can't block it out.

These are your worst fears.

Blood rises from my leg, a bite-like incision now profusely visible. More of them appear on my whole body, revealing the bone on certain ones. Excruciating pain is all I can think about as it sears its way into my judgement and all I want is for it to end. For all of it to end.

I screech maniacally, but the sound doesn't rebound off the walls like I expected it to. It merely stays inside my own head, repeating over and over, but no one else can hear it.

The hatred of your friends really digs deep, doesn't it?

"Stop!" I cry, but the agony proceeds.

I swat at the invisible creatures, but it's no use. Tears well up in my eyes, spilling onto my wounds, which causes immense stinging, stinging beyond compare, stinging that I only want to be free of.

"I know what you are and I'm not afraid!"

Immediately, the growling becomes inaudible and the injuries seal back up, a sight so gruesome that I wouldn't mind forgetting it.

My, my, how courageous.

"You're not real, just a reiteration inside me."

You're so quick to jump to conclusions. Give me a moment to dazzle you.

Foreboding knots in my stomach, my heartrate hastening swiftly. Butterflies fly all around, like animals trapped in a cage, violently attempting to escape — like they've been in there for far too long.

Color flashes before me, a view of Calum gripping a small handgun, his whole body shaking with fear. The sleeves of his shirt are stained with dried blood and his eyes are pitifully heavy.

No, no, don't do it.

He raises the weapon to his temple, squeezing the trigger slightly, but not enough to fire. He seems gravely nervous, scared to shoot, but scared to remain in this world. Calum straightens himself out and presses the muzzle closer to his head. He squeezes his eyes shut, saying one last goodbye.

A loud noise erupts and Calum's body falls limp and motionless to the ground with a loud thud, a sound I've always known as tragic, after the incident when I was young.

It happened so quickly.

My heart beats rapidly, pushing Calum away from my thoughts with all the power I can find.

Now wasn't that truly spectacular?

Instead of Director Damon's voice, however eerie, it molds, shifts, changing into something I recognize to be my own.

Stop, I reply.

As you wish. I'm getting tired.

All the terror deteriorates in an instant, but I still can't help but wonder if that wasn't a hallucination.

Can the government see inside my brain?

Ideas spiral through my head, mostly unkind, of what the Community will do to me and those who are remotely close to me.

This is not a healthy life. I just want to go home.

Tears slip from my cheeks and land on my dirty clothes.

I liked the place where I could be free, where my mom would always be behind the screen door to the house, and my dad would always be cooking in the kitchen.

I like the secretive places.

~~~~~

The images I have seen today are beyond compare.

Director Damon showed me my worst fears. But, in fact, it is not the individual occurrences that terrify me — it's the realization that the Community can create them in front of my eyes.

Calum could be dead.

Through all of my dreading, my unsolicited terror spreading through my whole body, arresting me in an instant, Calum could be zipped up in a body bag, then taken and thrown in a six-inch hole.

I could be the only survivor of this war.

I sink against the cushions of the walls, letting out a dubious sigh, laced with parlous lamentation.

After all I went through to protect Calum, Peter, and Snow, they could all be gone. They could be singing each other melancholy lullabies to make them fall asleep, because after the terrors they've found, rest is rare.

I can't decide if they want me to survive — an act of vengeance against the Community's kyriarchal values — or if they want me to let the Community poke and prod at me like an unsuspecting ragdoll.

I suppose they've had enough of that by now. But then again, they could be angry because I never got my turn at paroxysms in intervals inside the Dome.

Now that they have me trapped, I'm not sure what else they desire. My head on a platter, perhaps? How quaint.

~~~~~

Dreams are so different from the truth, I come to find.

One moment, I could be saving the world from mutant ants, then the next I could be walking through the unfamiliar cobblestone streets of the outlying countries. Improbability is virtually nonexistent.

Dreams are a universe that belongs to us, and us alone. No one tampers with them and I'm safe until I wake up in the morning, or maybe in the middle of the night for some unknown reason and I'll spend a long while trying to fall back asleep.

Dreams are imperative for imagination. Dreams are my escape.

Sometimes, however, I encounter nightmares, chilling experiences with a dread–filled base.

Very rarely, there are lucid dreams, where you know that you're asleep, where you realize that everything is fictional. That, of course, is the most adequate place for nightmares to occur, but unfortunately, mine don't.

The truly terrifying aspect of nightmares is not necessarily the event that transpires, but how real it feels, like a test to observe if you know yourself well enough.

My worst nightmare was simple — a robber broke into my house through my bedroom window. Most everyone dreams about that scenario.

But I could hear my parents talking downstairs, with the television playing, but both were the exact volume that I remember them as.

The sliding of the window was the same as I had heard repeatedly when my parents suggested that I get some fresh air from outside circulating in my room.

The robber's footsteps were the same volume I expected them to be. He was my dad's height and size, so obviously he sounded the way my dad did when he tucked me in at night with a hug.

The radio I keep on at night was playing faintly in the background at the precise amplification that I always set it to, even performing the songs that always play on my favorite radio station.

The diplomacy of it all was thrilling, petrifying more like. The way the dream went on, it was so realistic. It wasn't the type of dream that makes sense when you're having it, but you wake up and question the verisimilitude of it. It was the kind that should be feared because of its naturalness.

Is this a nightmare? Because it seems real. Everything is acute, just the way I feel life should be.

Just the way that should be dreaded.

~~~~~

"What if babies run everywhere because they see something chasing them?" I ask Chess, looking up at her with hopeful eyes as I fiddle with my clothing.

"I suppose it might be possible," she replies, crossing her arms across her chest, getting dangerously close to her stomach wound. "Babies don't possess the ability to communicate clearly to us, so how would we know?"

I shrug, my face contorting into that of a thinker. "I was thinking that when they become older, the monster assailant gradually becomes kinder and kinder, until they transform into what parents call imaginary friends."

Is Chess an imaginary friend? She appears real, but her whole existence could be illusory, just like everything I've been witnessing in this room. I haven't yet mustered the courage to reach out and touch her arm, validate her credibility, so I am left with more questions than answers. She scares me more than the real Chess.

"When they reach adulthood, or a state where they grasp the concept of tangible acquaintances, and maybe have a few of their own, the monster disappears from view and burrows inside them, turns into their developed personality."

"I had an imaginary friend once," Chess comments, her voice falling lower than I've ever heard it. "She called herself Fleur Dellafoi. I always thought it a weird name."

The idea that Chess could've ever experienced a fictitious best friend is stunning to me, for some reason. She always seems so...independent.

"My brother, Ezra..." Chess' words skid to a halt, "he didn't approve of Fleur. He always thought of himself as my protector, even though he's only a year older than me.

"Truthfully, Fleur taught me some things that shaped whom I am today. I'm glad I had her, even if Ezra wasn't."

"I wish I had an imaginary friend," I murmur, sliding my thumb over each finger individually like some kind of harrowing task. "Someone who exists only inside my mind." I glance to Chess, whose eyes are tracing the stitching keeping the cushions fixed to the wall. "Though, I suppose I have that now."

Chess's gaze swoops to me, locking me inside like the room in which I am trapped with her. Anger and questioning burn on her face, painting her portrait with a brush of vivid experiences, a brush of hallowed stories. The blood from her stomach taps to the ground in a puddle as though the remnants of a sink's apex. The room is still. "What you have, Florence," she spits out my name with such malice, her tongue pressing against the back of her shining teeth to lace each syllable with poison, "is someone to keep you company. Now I'll go out on a limb here and suspect you're in need of someone to catch the echoes rebounding against the chambers of your head. You're in need of me."

The cell is quiet, lonely ghosts of her words darting back and forth, running circles around my dirtied feet, seeking refuge in my ears.

"You're right, but that doesn't change the fact that you're not real."

Chess winces from the impact of my accusations. She turns her vision away from me, towards the red mark streaking down her front that compels her shirt to stick with it. "I don't appreciate what you're implying."

"You and I both know you're not supposed to be here. I don't know if you're my imagination, or if you're actually Chess, and, by some miracle, are standing in front of me when you should be seeking medical attention."

Chess doesn't respond, merely stares at me with her mouth drawn in a tight line of apprehension and contemplation. Her jaw clenches while her eyes search the room for something to hold her focus.

"I don't know what your expressions mean!" I wail, tears jumping to my aid. "I can't decide if you're a piece of me or not! I'm so indifferent towards everything that I don't really care what happens to me — it's all just a black hole of one existential crisis after another. I don't even feel sick anymore."

In my attempts to differ my hallucinations from reality, the pounding headaches and nausea have faded, hushed into the isolated corners of my brain in a trick to assert dominance, though the fluctuating temperatures have remained prevalent, acting as a reminder of feeling so frigid when rage is still rushing through my veins.

"There's nothing left. So while I waste away in my own bitterness and phlegmatic outlooks on life, I'm greeted by you, holding a knife to my throat and looking for answers which I cannot give."

"Metaphorically—"

"I don't even care. Everything's so literal in presentation and so fictitious in perception. I'm done fighting with you. I'm tired. Of everything."

Chess nods, solemn.

"I'm waiting to go home."

~~~~~

What truly is the end of darkness? It is never revealed, for darkness is limitless, abstract.

A hand can slice right through it, though sometimes the hand cannot be seen. It will vary, for darkness has shades.

Darkness is like a blanket that covers reality. We can't view anything in it, but we know something is hiding.

It makes us afraid. In fact, we are all still children with the belief that there are monsters in the dark. And I suppose there are.

The monsters are us.

–Peter Sparrow's journal

~~~~~

Apparently, it's been two days already. The doctors came in with warm water, hard rice, and stale, brittle bread, a sign to restart my jumbled forty-eight hour count.

One, two, three four.

They pull the door closed softly, eyeing me the whole time, as if they can't simply view my actions on the cameras planted in the corners of the ceiling, a rare discovery from yesterday.

Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one.

A sharp pain fills my head and I count more rapidly, a way to possibly soothe my nerves, though I haven't been doing so well.

Forty-seven, eleven, sixty-nine, three hundred ninety-two.

It's out of order! I shriek inside my mind, but I can't think straight. Everything is mixed around.

On the inside, it's hectic, but on the outside, I cannot force myself to move.

The doctors cannot hear my screams.

~~~~~

The thing about insanity is that no one knows what it looks like, what it feels like. The only person who knows the experience is the one who is conditioned to a mentality of pandemonium.

Most would believe it consists of agonized wails, it's not so much the noise that turns you; it's the silence — the real reason why we scream. Days of sitting in an area, where there is nothing.

The doctors only observe. They refrain from assisting me. They can't hear the silence.

But silence is not the lack of sound. It is much more than that.

Silence is the pounding in your head, the kind you can't hear, but you know it's there. It's the emptiness you feel inside your chest, the cries for help that never pass your lips.

Silence is insanity.

~~~~~

I don't know whom I am. I have no recollection of what has been, what will come soon, or what is transpiring currently.

My eyes are flooding and I hate it. I don't know what it is. Make it stop.

Who are these people who surround me? Where am I? I want to go home, wherever home is to me.

Am I going to die?

~~~~~

In the end, all but one of us questioned our sanity. Calum was first, then Peter, then, finally, me.

Snow was the only one that was spared. A tingle of respect compliments Director Damon, even from her agrestic schadenfreude.

She killed her daughter, but she didn't watch her daughter kill herself by tearing her life apart piece by piece, like tearing the wings from a butterfly.

~~~~~

Metal grinds upon metal as the door to my cell swings open with a screech when it bangs against the wall. It damages my ears, makes me want to pull my hair out, but it's either my sickness or a sensory overload — I'm rather hebetudinous, though that's entirely the Community's fault.

What are they doing? It hasn't been two days yet. Why are they in here? Did I do something wrong? What's happening?

I've grown accustomed to assuming I've done something or the doctors need me for tests when that door flies open off-schedule. The way I think now has waves of bursting anxiety rippling through me.

I throw my head around rapidly, attempting to collect clues, but it's only me for the time being, though not for long.

Pan steps through the tall frame and halts. Upon taking a quick look at me, his eyes wrinkle with sadness.

"It's about time," I murmur to my hands.

Pan's countenance isn't as disheveled as my own, but it comes strangely close. His body appears pale, like an ivory shade of white, though he assured me it would never be possible ("I'm Japanese — I don't turn the color of snow, weirdo.") and his cheekbones are emphasized by his lack of proper nourishment. He is no longer a confident person, but a distant shell of a being, or perhaps a nazzard, which seems to be his favorite term. He looks like me without a mirror.

The Community did this to him, didn't they? Pan should've known not to trust these people, chiefly after they manipulated him into murdering an innocent person and expected him to live with himself like it was nothing.

"The sight of you makes me depressed," I admit. "Almost. I think the whole thing going on inside my body makes up for it."

Stomach pains and paroxysms keep me busy during the day and all through the night. I rarely acquire the means for sleep, but the doctors decide to interrupt me whenever possible, sleep-deprivation an asset to their studies.

"You're about to die," Pan reminds me. "Stop making jokes."

He's right — this isn't a time for jocularity — but I really couldn't care less. After all the trauma I've been through, I deserve to have a little fun through insinuation.

My eyes flick sharply up to Pan, rage leaking from them. "Take pleasure in my existential nothingness like you did before."

Pan cringes, shutting his eyes tightly as if he's about to be hit, like my words are a tangible force against him.

"Look, I didn't want to—"

"Coward." I draw out the syllables as much as I can, to increase the pain I inflict on him; it's only fair, after all he's done.

"Is your ego damaged yet?" I ask grimly. "You care so much if you're emasculated. It's funny really. Couldn't see you at any time with lipstick on, even if your life depended on it."

Pan fumbles for the correct words to say, but ends up choking on them, as his eyes search my face desperately for answers. He doesn't get any, of course. He's slipping.

"Why are you acting like this?" Pan finally croaks out. "All wicked and malicious."

"Find out," I reply, running my tongue over my teeth, trying my best to intimidate him, like it's a game that we're playing. I deduce I'm winning, by the state of his angst-covered face. "Find out," I repeat. "Find out." I say this over and over, until it becomes a chant; the volume increases each time, like I'm slowly losing my sanity with each word.

Pan backs into the wall, grasping the handle of the door furiously and shaking vigorously. I've terrified him. I hope he knows the monster he's created. I hope he realizes that the same thing will happen to him. I hope he never returns here again.

I suppose he thinks I'll make a leap towards him, but I refrain from it. The chanting alone is enough for him to run like his life depends on it.

Eventually, an administrator unlocks the door and Pan trips over his feet in his mission to get through, topping it off by slamming me inside for another day in solitude.

He leans on the outside of the cell, breathing heavily, while the administrator gives him confused glances. Pan looks as though he could be the one being given the disease, but I think he's content with the way things turned out — he's getting his comeuppance, just like I had planned.

"Are you all right, son?" the administrator questions, fingering a plethora of medical tools to implement on Pan (in the occasion that he is, in fact, the patient), who gives a quick and confirming nod.

"Begin the memory wipe."

~~~~~

The morning after the fearsome encounter with an old friend, Director Damon pays a long overdue visit to my quarters.

Today, she's dressed in a sea foam green pantsuit, reflecting on her character — as I see it — immensely. It appears as though her office threw up on her; too bad the antiques didn't fly into her face though.

"You have proven very useful in our studies, Ms. Mayfield," she praises, taking my bony arm in her hand and leading me outside, "but we need you for one last thing."

I had been given a change of clothes last night and my white gown now swishes when I walk, to my liking. With my spare hand, I smack the excess material back and forth. When I notice how much it annoys Director Damon, I increase the rate and volume of my wambly exercises.

"As you know, memories can be easily altered." I listen attentively, though I couldn't care less. "I advise you to keep yours relatively close." She chuckles. "But then again, this next part wouldn't work!"

I laugh hesitantly. "Great, great."

"So we're going to wipe your memory of this whole experience."

I do a double take. "What?"

I had read about standard procedure for criminals in first grade, but I had never seen anything about memory wipes. Did I miss the paragraph? Am I not an ordinary criminal? Or is this just new?

"We cured you this morning, so you should be ready for the procedure." After spotting my petrified gaze, she adds, "Don't worry; it won't hurt a bit."

"That wasn't my issue."

I feel a dart puncture my neck — still painful — and again I fall to the floor.

Here we go again.

~~~~~

Calum visits me on the operating table, but I can't make out if it's reality or not, but he looks completely fine, like he's well-fed and hydrated. His ebony hair sticks up in places after just getting out of bed, or whatever it is he's sleeping on. He smiles, with a face marked with lines from resting on a textured surface for too long, but I can't help but wonder if they're actually scars.

His eyes grow with concern, approaching one of the doctors to ask me one simple question. "How are you, Florence?"

"I'm okay." Finally, that's the truth.

I don't know if it's better to forget. I've seen too much; the turbulence of war through a child's eyes, loss beyond compare, the turning of a sane man into a nervous wreck.

Twice.

Is it cowardly to accept this as my fate and be glad about it? Probably. But I don't care. I stopped caring a while ago.

It seems so realistic that I should never return to the time I spent in the Dome. How could I lose sight of the ferocious girl trapped in a petite body? Or the kid with hidden secrets who was more courageous than I have ever known? Or even the sarcastic British boy who took a turn for the better?

Tell me I won't forget.

Tell me I won't forget the bravery and sacrifice they have shown, trooping through the heartbreak of their lives.

But I have to. The last piece of me is burning bright, and I shall not douse the flame. It will stay until the light leaves my eyes, until I am weak and fragile.

The spark is growing. And he is called Dove.

~~~~~

A/N: lol peasants this is the end (but there's still an epilogue wowowow)

if you enjuninced, please comment, vote, share, etc. please thank you, hobgoblins

~Dakota