Whirling around the girl stands in the middle of my room hands clasped behind her back as the glances around. "How plain," she says "and white." Glancing at the slightly yellowed tone white walls and white carpeted floor I shakily watch the girl as she continues to inspect the small room. "Still the same huh changed nothing from when we were six?" She glances at me her eyebrow raised.

Gulping I shake my head "the bed sheets are di-di-different a-and things are organized b-better." Clasping my shaking hands I stay rooted in place my legs shivering.

She scoffs "maybe, that shelf is also new," she nods to the black shelf holding my art supplies.

"Ye-yeah-"

The girl claps her hands "alright enough of the small talk let's jar those little memories of yours...well ours but I didn't forget them." She skips towards me, circling around my form like a vulture does its meal. "Now how do we make you remember?"

Pulling my arms tighter to my body I fold in on myself trying to get as much distance from my look-alike as my frozen form can.

She snaps her fingers making me flinch "I got it, as we were taught, the best way to make someone remember is to demonstrate. So dear Jara stay right there well I go find our demonstration. Don't worry you'll love it once you can remember what it is."

And she vanishes and I am alone again. My legs give out as the pressure leaves the silent room. Gasping I clutch at my arms eyes wide as my body shakes uncontrollably. The tremors that I can usually keep hidden came in full force. I sit here on my knees body shaking as an uncontrollable need to be let out, pulses throughout my body.

Digging my nails into my arms I choke down my screams holding myself tightly so as to not make any noise.

"Why are you on the floor?" the girl's voice rings into my ears.

Glancing up the girl's body blocks the small bits of sunlight just starting to peak over the horizon and through my window. The sun shouldn't be coming up yet it's still six in the morning.

"Have you been sitting there this whole time after I left it's almost eight your clock says so?"

I open my mouth to speak but she raises her hand.

"No matter how nice it would be to hear your voice directed at me after all these years but now's not the time. It's time to rattle that age-old mind of yours to make it more like mine." She chirps skipping over to my bed and sitting on it. "I wasn't able to find what I needed to demonstrate for you but the others came up with a really good idea to help you remember and they are working on that now from what they said if I talked about the memories to you they can do the rest of the work."

She grins crossing her legs. She pats the spot on the bed beside her. Seeing that I had no intention of moving she shrugs "if you are comfortable on the floor then so be it you just need to hear me."

What she doesn't know is that I once again can't feel my legs.

"So were to begin. Well why don't we go from the start, I am not a very good storyteller so bear with me. Hmm well uncle Johnny J-O-H-N-N-Y, don't ask why he spells it like that last time we did he beat the screams out of us. Now let's continue." She rubs her hands together bouncing on the bed excitedly. "Oh, this is soooooooo exciting and such a dream to be talking about this. Is this what it's like talking to your girlfriends about girl things? Man talking about girl things is soooo much fun. Uncle Johnny was sooo nice like he may have chained us up a few times and whipped us but it was all for our own benefit like it's not like we could die from being whipped a few times he just needed to train us and teach us. Like he said the best way to make someone remember something is by demonstration."

"Soo he demonstrated what it would be like for the people we needed to make remember. And I mean like come on he succeeded we never failed after a few demonstrations we always did it right. And he rewarded us I mean like look." The girl takes off her shirt showing the large and very red scar tissue all over her back and arms some still look to be open and bleeding. It does not look like the back of a seventeen-year-old, like any human just lumps of scar tissue.

"See aren't they pretty like rubies? Anytime we did something good he would reward us with a new set, the better we were that day the more we got. Sadly you can't see any of your own you were such a bad girl that you never got a reward."

Gasping at the array of scars on the body of my look-alike, the searing pain of each one echoing down my spine. The more I stare the more I can see dripping blood and shredded skin...screams...pain...I can feel it all each strike of the whip burning. Tears stream down my face my breath coming in small gasps.

"When we got old enough Uncle Johnny let us reward others the same way for being good. We taught them how to remember and how to recall memories. They screamed so much in happiness as we made them remember they began to cry in joy as they too got to keep their rewards for being so good."

My skin crawls as the hair on my arms and neck stands on end watching the pure joy and exhilaration on the girl's face like that of a child speaking about their favourite toy. Slowly with each word my room begins to distort, the white walls and slowly brightening window fade into a dark grey with one yellow LED light in the middle of a cold concrete room, bare with one metal door.

A strange feeling, like this, is my room but not. Where the window would be a fake picture of a landscape sits. My closet was filled with metal whips and wooden sticks. My dresser was a wall of chains instead, and my bed a single empty spot of red. All I can see is red, a drain in the middle and blood pooling as it goes inside. Blood splatters coat the concrete walls making them darker.

Chains clink, and screams...such terrible screams of agony are covered with the sound of metal on skin. Over and over again the sound of blood gushing and skin splitting. The worst was the laughter so joyous and exhilarating, but haunting, the manic laughter of a man and a little girl.

I want to puke but nothing is there, my hands are cold, probably white but I can't see anything other than the room. Even when I close my eyes the room is all that I can see. Stop...stop...STOP...make it stop please make it go away I don't want to see this I don't want to feel this agonizing pain as my skin splits and my blood warm so very warm gushes out along my skin tainting it and coating the floor. I don't want to feel this joy as the whip hits my skin.

Or the joy of the whip in my hand.

Gasping, for air, cold sweat drips down my back coating my neck, tears stream down my face or at least I think it's my face I can't tell where I am...am I at home? Am I safe? Am I in that dark room? Where...where...where...who?

..?

Who am I?

How old am I?

What am I called?

What's my name?

Where am I from?

What am I?

A human?

No...?

No...?

No.

..?

?

Cold.

I am...cold.

Empty.

What's empty?

Shaking.

I am...shaking.

Why?

Why am I shaking?

Sleeping.

Am I sleeping?

No, I can't be sleeping.

How long have I been sleeping?

It doesn't matter let's keep sleeping I am very tired, this makes me tired. Thinking.

Taking a deep breath I slowly open my eyes. The room is normal nothing different, nothing red, but white. My eyes feel tired, and sticky from all the crying. Sitting up I lean against my wooden door, cold but not like metal, warm from the sun streaming through the window. Rubbing my eyes I watch the girl on the bed and she watches me back.

We stay like that watching, no words are spoken but none are needed. She knows I know and I know she knows, that there is an Uncle Johnny and he taught us how to remember in this room and how to make people remember.

I don't want to remember thinking about it makes me feel cold, and makes the shaking grow stronger. But after I remember I can't forget. That our skin was once coated in red, and that redness sticks, it stains.

Standing up I reach for the door handle.

"Uncle Johnny would be happy," the girl says.

I turn to her, standing behind me eye to familiar but different eye. "He always loved teaching you more, till I came around and you went away." She grins walking toward me and then through me. Not like a ghost where people say it feels cold like an icy wind, it feels like nothing she walks forward then she is gone. "Hope we can speak again soon," she says now behind me. "Don't forget like last time."

And she is gone again.

Looking into my room the red concrete room flashes in front of my eyes for a second, I shiver as a cold sweat coats my skin. Closing the door behind me I go downstairs, to the nap couch in the sunroom. Grabbing one of the eight blankets on the main floor I wrap myself tightly laying down on the couch and sinking into the brown cushions.

Closing my eyes the red concrete room appears again, this time faded in my memory but the pain of the whip follows me into my sleep.

~

Rule #3 everything you feel is n-

Comment, vote, and share