Fan Fiction ❯ White Rabbit ❯ Chapter 4

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

White Rabbit
by Marie Lesure/Odango In Black
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>Everything got darker and darker, and soon her world consisted of nothing but shadows. Blurry shadows, awaiting her coming. . .<

After that night, my paranoia reached new highs, levels that I never thought could have existed. I stayed holed up in my room, I locked my door, I locked my window, pulled down the shade, and refused to let anyone in. Occasionaly Mom would come knocking, offering me food, or water. At first I refused, certain that it was another trick, and that if I opened my door, -she- would be standing there, waiting for me. After a day and a half, however, I was dizzy from dehydration and I couldn't stand my thirst any more, and finally agreed to open the door when Mom brought me some water. I cracked it open, grabbed the glass, and slammed the door shut again, and stood with my back leaning against it as I shot down the water. It was the most wonderful thing I had ever tasted, and it was gone in only a second. My mouth grew drier. I needed more. After a while, I opened the door, peeked out, looked around for anything suspicious.
I saw nothing. The TV spoke softly from the living room.
The tile was freezing against my bare feet. I heard rain knocking on the roof, asking for entrance. I inched my way into the kitchen and catiously went to the cupboard, grabbing the biggest glass I could find. When I turned on the faucet and the water came pouring down, I could see every color in existence, more colors than I'd ever seen before. The water sloshed into the glass, crawling back up the sides and splashing back down into itself, and I watched as invisible specks of dust fell into it, floating, swimming, drowning. The glass filled to overflowing before I turned the faucet off, and it fell over the sides and washed down over my hand, oozing between my fingers. I leaned over the sink and chugged it down.
I repeated this procedure probably fifteen times.
I let out a deep, content sigh as I placed the glass down onto the counter. The TV set was getting louder and my head began to pound.
Turn it down, I shouted.
No reply.
With a groan I stumbled out to the living room, muttering to myself about the annoyances of living with a younger brother, as I was certain that it was him. When I reached it, no one was there. I arched an eyebrow at the couch, and then turned to the coffee table and grabbed the changer. It turned off with a press of a button and that odd whrrp-ing sound that TVs like to make. I dropped the changer and it fell to the table with an angry thud. As I left, I hit the light switch. No point in having a light on if no one's there.
On my way back to my room I passed the pantry. My stomach hurt. I had to turn my head away from it, afraid that if I were to become involved with any type of food that I would surely be sick.
I rubbed my temple with my index and middle fingers and pushed my hair back with my other hand as I walked. My hair was stringy and greasy and dry; I hadn't showered in a week. It crunched between my fingers. My feet felt as if they were slamming against the floor.
There was a click and the sound of static. I paused and turned back to the living room. I froze.
She was back. I knew it. I had let my guard down, and now she was back.
All of my thoughts and every nerve my body screamed at me to run, to get away. If I didn't, she would try to kill me. And she would succeed. But I'd never been one to listen to my impulses, so I fought down my fear and slowly made my way back.
Maybe it was just Toby, or Mom, or Dad, coming out into the living room to watch some TV.
There was a form on the couch, curled up and shadowed, the TV sending light dancing across the body.
Hello?
The head turned, but it didn't speak. We stared at one another. Finally it spoke.
What?
I sighed, and a relived smile spread over my face.
Hi, Toby. I laughed a little, and turned to go back to my room. The couch crinkled behind me as he sat up a bit straighter.
Are you all right, Diana? His voice was concerned. I nodded.
Are you sure? he asked. You're shaking.
Yes, I murmured. I'm fine.
Who did you think I was?
No one. I shook my head and began to walk away.
His voice changed. Did you think I was her? I whirled around. My hair hung in my eyes, and my heart pounded against my chest, threatening to explode. I could feel my veins pulsing, blood screaming through them, growing thicker and thicker.
What did you say?
And then he smiled. He fucking smiled.
She'll come back later. Right now, it's just me. He giggled. My eyes grew huge, like wheels, and I backed away, my feet shuffling on the cold tile.
And then he was gone. He was just gone. No fireworks, no smoke, no dramatics. Just gone.
I ran back into my room and slammed the door shut, clicking the lock into place.
He was one of them. I had trusted him, and now he did something like this to me. I had known him his whole life.
Was he always just an illusion? What about Mom and Dad? They had always known about him. Would that make them illusions, too? And my house? And my school? And my friends? Was I just a crazy woman living on the streets, imagining an entire life? Was any of it ever real? Was I?
Who was I? Where was I? Was I ever here?
My shoulders spasmed and my throat closed. I squinted my eyes halfway shut and they melted from my head, sliding down my cheeks, catching at the corners of my mouth. I flicked my tounge out to the side.
It tasted like silver. Mercuial rain. My heart stopped beating, then started pounding, then stopped beating again. I couldn't breathe.
Warm blood rushed into my cheek as I brought my hand smashing into my face. I took in a gasping breath, and my heart started to beat again. My eyes sucked back into my face, leaving behind them a trail of tears and slime. I let out a squeal when I hit the other cheek, hand closed into a fist this time. I coughed and felt something in my mouth. When I brought my fingers back from inside my cheek, they came out red.
I never knew that I could punch someone, even myself, let alone draw blood from a hand alone. But it didn't matter. It hurt. It burned. This was pain, and it was real.
No one could take that from me.
I coughed and gasped and cried over the blood, reveling in the taste, my tounge dancing around the liquid as it mixed with my saliva.
Yum.
Eventually, my breathing slowed, and the tears stopped. I noticed that I had been crying a lot more recently.
Now, however, there was no more laughter. There was no more joy. There was fear. There was a desperate, primal need for escape. I was caged inside my mind and the ransom for my heart was my sanity.
I had to decide which I needed more.

I still hadn't slept, and I had lost count of the days. They all just sort of blurred into one big, long splurge of wild emotions, of fear and saddness and exhaustion. But it was different that night. All of the nights before, I wanted to sleep, I wanted it more than anything, I wanted to run away from this fucked up world and do nothing but sleep and rest and dream. This night, however, I was afraid to even close my eyes. I was afraid to blink. If I did, I knew that one of them would get inside, not just my room, but my mind. They would take over, and I would become one of them. I would become just another illusion, and my whole existence would be snuffed out like an unwanted birthday candle. My suffering would have been even more unnecessary than it already was.
I refused to let that happen.
I sat in the corner of my room in front of my closet door, staring at the locked door handle, watching for any sign of a break-in. The slightest shuffle, the slightest scurry caused me to jump. I saw things in the shadows. I saw the gates of heaven and hell opening in my window, I saw demons fucking angels. The latter liked it even more than the former. Feathers slowly floated down from the ceiling and hung suspended in the air, like snow. Eyes made of glass and mirrors glowed from the walls.
I held the chunk of glass from our family portrait in my hand. It cut into my palm, but I didn't care. It was all I had left of my life. It was all that linked me to the past.
I knew that eventually my thirst would get the better of me, just like it did earlier that day. So this time, I was smart. Dad would always buy huge boxes of water bottles from those discount-buy-in-bulk-from-a-warehouse stores, usually three at a time, so that he and Mom could take them to work to put in the fridges in the lounges. A bit earlier, I braved the rest of the house to go out into the garage to lug one into my room. I knew I risked seeing -them- again, but better once a month than five times a day.
It was the bravest thing that I had ever done.
I had the huge box halfway in my room when I heard her giggle again. I tried to ignore it, to get the box into my room and lock the door before she could touch me, see me.
I did.
I was the luckiest fucking girl in the world.
But now, I knew that she knew that I was in there, and she knew that I wasn't coming out. She was trying to find another way in. Whenever I heard a scratching outside the door or a scurrying outside the window, I knew it was her.
So there I sat, against the closet door with a godawfully gigantic box of water bottles beside me, my head drooping against my chest and my eyes dried up from crying too many tears. I remember blinking.
I guess I didn't open my eyes. Not for some time.
I saw her. I looked up from my slumped position and saw her sitting on my bed. It was covered in grass and little tiny miniflies hovered around her, like dust floating down to a green carpet of cactus needles. She sat with her legs crossed and one hand on either knee, sitting up perfectly straight with a jaw cracking smile on her evil little face. Her hair was in two braids that wrapped over her shoulders and down her chest like twin snakes. I stared at her, trying to back away, but the closed door behind me wouldn't let me through. I brought my arm up against my face, cowering away from her, trying to melt into the floor. My shoulders shook and my chest heaved. I heard her whisper my name.
Diana.
Go away. Just go away, I whimpered. I just wanted to be left alone. I just wanted to get away from this little hellspawn. That's what any normal person would have wanted, right?
There was no noise for quite some time, so I peeked out from behind my arm. She still sat there. She opened her mouth up wide, unhinging her jaw, and rats poured out. Rats. Huge rats. They were all colors, they were black and white and brown and grey and speckled and sandy. I heard them squeaking their anger and their little claws yanked on the carpet. Their teeth were long and sinister and stained yellow and red, and their eyes were small and beady and popped out of their heads. They scurried around the room haphazardly, up my bookshelves, around my cactus colored bed, over and under my desk, up into my computer, into my lamp, behind my dresser. Their squealing was like listening to myself die.
Some of them started toward me. I scrambled to my feet and backed against the wall. One of them ran across my foot. I screamed. I screamed the scream of the damned burning in everflaming hellfire. Then another crossed my foot, and another, until they swarmed all over me. I kicked wildly, trying to shake them away from my feet, to keep them from crawling up my legs. I kicked one so hard that it slammed into the opposite wall. There was a crack over the squealing, and it fell to the ground with a wet thump. All of the rats near it swarmed over it, tearing at its furry flesh, sending splashes of blood over each other. The red started to creep up the wall. The rats still swarmed over my feet. I kept screaming.
I kicked and kicked and kicked, but they kept coming. They started to bite, like huge, dull novelty pencils stabbing into my skin. My fist dropped the shard of glass, and it thumped before my feet. Everything froze. The rats fell silent and motionless, staring at the glass between my feet. One took a ginger step forward and reached out to sniff at it. There was a spark, and it jumped back. The rat sat back on its haunches and started batting at its own nose as it made a high pitched whining sound.
The other rats all began to back away, and started to scramble up the redstained wall to the window. The shade blew forward slightly and a light came from behind the edges. It made a strange, indescribable whooshing sound. Their little, evil claws tore at the fabric as they scurried beneath it, furry lumps of Satan squriming under the fabric before melting away.
The girl still sat there, and she closed her mouth. I stared at her smiling eyes.
And then, like my brother before her, she was gone.
When I opened my eyes, there were slivers of glass embedded in the soles of my feet.

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A/N: Hey. Sorry it took me ten hundred thousand million years to get this chapter up. Thanks to Nicole for beating me until I did it. *bows* Next chapter won't be up for a while, even though it's half through, because some pretty rough stuff is going on so I won't be able to write for a while unless I'm really lucky. I'll try. I promise.
My lips are chapped, so off I go.