All in my Mind

XXXII.

It starts as a feeling that festers the way infections do. First it's subtle. It's apathetic really. Its harmless.

Then it's a thought. It's just a silly little thing that you think sometimes. It's a harmless thought that's very much about harm. It's a comforting thing you lean into when things suck. It's a safe place, even though it's scary. It's just a thought.

But it becomes an urge. It becomes a tugging sensation in your gut. It's like something you have to do, or else. And you don't know what the 'or else' refers to, but you have a couple of nauseating and dangerous ideas. You feel it in your nerve endings. You see it when you blink, like flashes of a sadistic movie.

For the last bit of this story, I'm going to tell things my way. I'm going to tell you about it from my perspective, the way I see things. I'm not going to dumb it down for you to be gentle like I've been doing. It's time to be completely honest.

Welcome to my world.

I don't know what day it is or how many days have passed since my mom came to see me. I do know that I've been floating the entire time. I've been flying around the building like I've got helium in my pockets. It's like we all live underwater and I'm simply swimming through the halls. Everyone still speaks, but we're under water. It's muffled and I can't hear a thing.

I'm also a victim of the cameras. I know I've always mentioned that paranoia of being watched; the very real and pressing concern of 24/7 monitoring and surveillance. It's more than that though. There's eyes in the walls. Everything is alive with a desire to observe me. I'm an animal in a zoo of inanimate objects.

I can feel their eyes boring into me. Every time I change my clothes, they're watching. They want to see me nude, undressed and vulnerable. They want to see the things I'd otherwise try to hide and nothing I do can stop them. Especially not at a place like this, where the entire system is structured to survey and control me. I'm helpless. I'm trapped.

That thought alone can be enough to send me hiding under the covers of my bed indefinitely. I could lay there and not move for days in fear of the watching eyes in the walls, but instead I've settled for not changing clothes. I haven't changed for days.

I would have stayed in bed, but the next thing that matters is that Addison hasn't left my side since my mom left. I know I don't normally call her that to you, but I'm just being honest now. The honest truth is that I can call her 'the girl' or something else non specific like that, but that's who she's always been. That's how I've always perceived it. She's a mania, a ghost consumed with insanity and anger. She's my friend Addison and she's dead and she's suffering. That's why she's so cold towards me. That's all it's ever been about, and that isn't her fault.

I was the one that didn't run like I was supposed to.

"Your fault," she kept whispering to me. "You did it. It's your fault."

I believe her. I always have. Her patronizing and aggressive way of being is the truth. That's what makes it so hard.

So I've been walking quite a bit again. I've been racing around this building like a fucking Olympic level walker. Did you know walking was an Olympic sport? It is, and I'd definitely win if given the chance. I've been walking all over this building for days, discovering new hallways, nooks and crannies I'd never bothered to notice. I found Lily's room again even.

If you're wondering, it's empty now. It's already been cleared out. Her drawings were gone. Her clothes and her sketchbooks and that dumb stuffed rhino I noticed on her bed once were all missing.

Lily was dead and it had taken them mere days to erase her.

"You're fault," the girl reminded me. "How did you not notice her get so bad?"