Blurred Lines

“Nana? Papa?” My voice echoes through the house, lonely and hollow like the building itself. I creep down the stairs, each footstep echoing with a halting finality. My eyes find the window; darkness snakes its way down from the middle of the sky, reaching its fingers toward the horizon. Mist flows from an unknown source, drifting across the lawn in swirled eddies. Through the window- a flash, there and then gone. A shiver touches my spine. After all this time, you’d think it wouldn’t bother me…

I reach the hallway, sinking into the hideous flowered carpet. I never liked this carpet. Its unsightly pattern flows down the hallway into the connecting living room, but mercifully stops at the kitchen. That’s where I go, partly to escape the grotesquely bright vegetation, and partly because I’m starving. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Nana and Papa are at the farmer’s market selling whatever they grew this year, and it gets worse when I’m alone.

I open up a cabinet door. No one’s home, so I can make what I always make: my comfort sandwich. Three slices of bread, marshmallow fluff, peanut butter, and the secret ingredient: banana. This is the stuff of dreams right here. As my masterpiece of a dish begins to take form, I notice a blinking light on the wall phone in the corner. I’m surprised I didn’t hear it ring. I press the button, and Nana’s sweet Jersey accent fills the room.

“Hellooo! It’s Nana!”

“And your Papa!” my grandpa cuts in.

"We just wanted to call to say we love you. Sorry you’re havin’ to stay home all day. I promise to bring you back one of those little pies you love so much. We love you!”

“Love you!” Papa adds, and amid lots of kissing noises, the line goes silent.

I smile. I love those pies… I stare at my completed sandwich, and then remember: my pills. I reach into the tattered gray backpack hanging on the chair, my hand identifying what my eyes can’t see. My fingers glimpse books, extra clothes, lots and lots of papers… no bottle. I shove both hands in and rummage like an animal. I upend the bag, contents spilling across the floor. My breathing hitches, then stops, the air clinging to my lungs and sticking inside my throat. It’s not here. I stand slowly, legs shaking, thoughts jumbled. Where is it? Home? Nana and Papa; could they get here in time? It’s coming. I can’t stop it. While my mind races, my heart stays strangely calm. I know I’m supposed to feel fear, but… I don’t. Then a dark shape darts in the corner of my vision, and the feeling comes.

Whispers. That’s all I had heard for that lingering half hour. Whispers and far-away squeaks and the sticking noise of my own bare legs against the vinyl chair. The door remained firmly closed, but voices still floated out to me from inside, the voices of my mother and the man in the white coat. My thoughts wandered aimlessly, like a person who knew exactly where they needed to go but didn’t want to get there. Much too soon, the person was forced to reach their destination as the door opened and the man in the white coat came out with my mother.

“Rosa, sweetie, will you come in here a minute?” Mama’s voice shook, her eyes ringed red.

I stood and walked in.

The room was an unpleasant shade of yellow, crammed with diplomas and certificates. A large, imposing desk took up most of the space, and little room was left for the two uncomfortable-looking chairs that sat in front of it. Those chairs were where my mama and I sat. Mine had a small stain on the arm, and I rubbed at it as the man who I assumed was a doctor sat back in his leather chair and folded his hands.

“I have some unfortunate news,” he began. Mama shifted uncomfortably beside me. “Your… hallucinations are-”

“I’m not hallucinating,” I interrupted. “It’s real. It’s always there, but it likes to come for me at night, when it’s dark, or when I’m alone.”

The doctor looked uncomfortable. “Rosa, that thing is not real. Your monster is just a figment of your imagination. It’s a side effect of a condition called schizophrenia. Do you know what that is?”

I shook my head.

"Schizophrenia is a brain condition that affects the way you think, feel, and act. Sometimes it can make you see things that aren’t there.”

I stared at the stain, willing it off the arm of my chair. It didn’t work.

“Rosa, do you understand what I’m saying?” he asked, leaning forward. The light glinted off of his heavily gelled hair, distracting me. “Rosa?”

I faced him.

“Things are going to be different from now on. We are going to put you on some medication for your hallucinations. I can’t guarantee that they will go away, but it is likely that you will be able to control them a little better now.”

His voice faded away as he droned on and on, talking about vitamins and therapy and positivity and discussing my feelings. I nodded occasionally, just to keep Mama from yelling at me. At some point, she started to cry again. I kept my eyes on the little red stain on the chair, convinced that if I rubbed it hard enough, it would go away.

That night I heard her crying in her bedroom, the soft words of my dad doing nothing to assuage her pain. I lay on my bed, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling. Moonlight filtered through the screen window in patches. I tried to focus on the advice the doctor had given me, setting goals for myself and confronting my feelings and all that crap. It didn’t work. Sitting up with a huff, I walked over to the window.

The stars flickered weakly, as if covered by gauze. Shadows stretched long across the lawn, deep and silent, unmoving… except for one. It slunk along the bushes like a predator, sliding in and out of the patches of darkness. My chest tightened and I backed away until the back of my thighs hit the bed. A cold finger of sweat slid down my spine. I listened for something, anything. But it was always silent. The only sounds were my ragged breaths and the soft chorus of the crickets. Where did it go? I forced my feet to move, slowly, quietly, toward the window. The lawn came back into view, the shadows, the bushes. Closer and closer I edged, until my forehead was pressed up against the glass. I didn’t dare breathe. Maybe it had been nothing…

A dark shape rose up from the bushes directly in front of me, and I screamed.

~

My hands are shaking. My legs are shaking. I don’t think there is a single part of me that isn’t convulsing right now. All of the doctor’s words are flooding my brain.

Stay positive. You have control over your “monster”. It can only get you if you let it.

Sense tries to worm a way through the chaos in my head, whispering, The phone. Get the phone.

I obey, forcing my wobbly legs to comply. They carry me over to the corner, where the home phone sits, oddly out of place in the old-fashioned kitchen. My shaking, sweat-slippery hands try to grip the handset, fail once, then raise it to my ear. I dial the emergency number.

“This is Bella, leave a message at the tone!” Nana’s voice fills the kitchen again, startlingly loud.

Beep.

“Nana, I left my pills at home and it’s getting bad. I really need to-”

Click.

Silence. I lower the phone, hold it up again, dial my mother’s number. Nothing. Not even a dial tone. It’s not working. My breathing becomes ragged. The phone lines have been cut.

Through the silence, an ear splitting screech rends the air, making me clap my hands to my ears in agony. It’s coming from the living room. I stagger out of the kitchen and somehow make my way into the parlor. The noise stops abruptly as soon as I walk in, but my stomach drops a thousand feet. On the glass window are four long scratches, stretching from edge to edge. A shadow flits beside the scratches, and a black hole materializes in my chest, sucking out everything but terror, which sits cold and heavy in my stomach. The shape turns to stare at me, face blank but for a cavernous mouth crowded with serrated teeth. It’s not real, I tell myself. It’s not real.

As if to challenge my frantic affirmation, it tenses, then throws itself against the window with a hollow thud that sets the glass rattling. I gasp and scramble behind an armchair, heart pounding. Another thump hits my ears, this time accompanied by a quiet crack. I flinch. No. This isn’t happening. It’s not real.

Thud. Crack. Thud. Crack. Thud. CRACK.

Then silence. My heavy breathing fills the space left by the noise. Is it gone? I hazard a glance at the window. Cracks spider web across the whole surface. It won’t hold much longer. But where did it go? I stare out at the fog until a dark shape appears from out of the mist and hurls itself through the window.

With a thundering crash, the glass gives way. Bits of shattered glass fly through the room and imbed themselves in the walls, the floor, the chairs, shredding the hideous carpet. A mirror on the wall shatters, adding to the carnage.

I yank myself back behind the armchair, but not fast enough to avoid the airborne razors, which pierce the flesh on my cheek and arms. I curl up and scream into myself.

From behind me, I hear a scraping sound. I peer into one of the fallen shards of mirror and glimpse the monster contorting awfully through the broken window. Bits of leftover glass scratch at its skin and all I think is, Now we’re both bleeding.

It’s fully in the room now, stretching its long limbs and swiveling its head from side to side. I’m surprised it can’t hear the frantic pounding of my heart. My head tells me I’m going to have to make a run for it; it’s getting too close now. The basement door is so close. If I can get inside and lock it…

Before I can think, my feet launch me up and toward the door. Toward safety. Toward life. But immediately a rough, long-fingered hand wraps around my ankle and yanks me back. I scream, long and loud, louder than the scraping, shattering glass, releasing nearly a lifetime of fear of this creature that will never leave me alone. Tiny bits of glass stuck in the carpet scour my skin, and streaks of my blood stain the carpet. I never liked that carpet.

Suddenly the hand releases, and flips me over onto my back. I stare up at the blank face full of teeth, the face that has stalked me and invaded my dreams for my entire life. I repeat the words that have occupied my mind this whole time, the words the doctor told me to repeat if I ever met my monster.

“You’re not real,” I say, though my voice sounds faint, and every sense I have tells me I’m wrong.

The monster’s face contorts into what could have been a smile in another world, and it lifts a hand.

“Oh Rosa,” it rasps, dragging a scaly finger along my bloody cheek and making my insides shiver. “Don’t you know that reality is relative?”