Sitting down in an odd position, in the middle of nowhere, a girl was thinking.

About what ? Well, she wasn't sure she knew.

She knew, however, that there are some days, days like this current one, in which she hated this place more than anything in the world. When she finds herself in such a mood, she can't help but wishing she simply was somewhere else, anywhere ! If only it was that simple...

"Di !" Says a voice behind her, making her jump "I've been looking for you everywhere !"

The girl turned around towards the origin of the voice, making her wheat-colored hair tirl in the process.

"As you can see, I'm here."

"Was that a hair flip ? Show off !" "Anyway, can you just stop vanishing like that ? It's not funny !"

"You don't need to be concerned, even if I wanted to, I could never get away from here. Like, ever."

"Oh, Di..."

"What ? That's the truth !" She said, almost in a growl. "Whatever we do or say or even think, we're trapped here, forever !"

"We need to stay positive, I know sometimes it hurts more to hope and-"

"Stop doing that ! We will never escape this... Whatever it is ! Let's just face it."

"Well" she changed her approach technique and sat down right beside her while doing so, "It's not so bad here..."

"It's not so good either." She rapidly answered. "Look around, do you see anything real ? Any natural light ? Everything is artificial !"

Right above where the two girls were sitting, the ceiling was entirely painted in black, or gray, but did that matter ?

"It's made of glass !" She continues, outraged "Can you believe it ? Why is it made of glass if we can't even see through it ? Why just not build everything out of wood ?"

"It's so dark" she says in a whisper.

She came to talk to her friend, to try to make her come to her senses, but she had to admit, she was defeated. The blonde one was a hundred percent right. Nobody can deny that.

"Exactly, and, do you know what frightens me the most, Billie ?"

Said Billie kept the silence, she had absolutely no idea of what was coming next.

"I still have some flashbacks of younger me, running in the middle of the snow, smiling to the sunny days, being happy. I'm forgetting more and more details each time I'm trying to remember." Tears were filling her eyes. "I'm scared, Billie. Scared that one day, everything just disappears from my memory, that every last happy moment I experienced would just... Go away. I'm afraid that some day I won't be able to remember my life outside of here, what it was like."

"At least you had one."

Everything she knew about the sun, the snow, and every "outside element" like they would call it, was what her sister by choice told her about it.

"Believe me, it's so much better to not know what one's missing."

There was a blank, quickly shattered by the voice of a Billie who was hating seeing her best friend in such a state of despair. More than anything, she was hating herself for starting to lose hope.

"You really think... We'll never get out of here ?"

"I don't know." She sighs "A part of me keeps repeating that there's gotta be a way, but the other is fed up with nourishing fake hopes, over and over."

"Sometimes I ask myself why, why are we still here ? It's been so long, and yet..."

"I've been doubting his so-called intention to protect us. To protect us from what, anyway?"

"He says we're special."

"What good being special is, if we don't even know what makes us special ? I'm under the impression that we'll in fact never know, at this pace..."

"One day, you'll see, we will lay down, just like that, under the stars. The real ones."

" Don't fly too close to the sun, you'll burn the tips of your wings."

"That's deep."

"I don't know where I read that."

Before arriving to what she is now used to nickname "rat hole" in her mind, she was a literature passionate.

She loved to read, to analyse fictional characters actions and motives, and have endless discussions about different topics, but mostly books, with her internet friends.

She also was following a lot of quotes accounts on different social medias, as she was fascinated by them. She used to be unbelievably amazed by how some authors could really convey so much emotions in just a bunch of words. 

Billie, on the other hand, didn't really have a life before ending up here. Or at least, she doesn't have any memory of it.
For as long as she can remember, her best friend have been repeating that she was lucky, because she can't regret a life she didn't have. At her contrary, she who was literally living an idyll, and lost everything.

"Girls ! Dinner time !" They heard from afar.

The blonde one was the first to get up, before offering a radiant smile to her dear friend.

 "Come on, let's go !" She said. "We'll think about all of this crap some other time."

18/06/2022