Chapter 13:
I walked in from work at about seven in the evening. I was completely exhausted. I threw my purse and my apron on the couch and flipped on the light in the living room. I walked down the hallway to my bedroom and opened my closet to retrieve my pajamas. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than a hot shower to unwind.
I walked into the bathroom and turned on the light. I folded my pajamas neatly on the toilet seat and turned on the shower. I peeled off my work shirt and shorts as the water heated up. I jumped in the shower sighing as soon as the water hit my skin. The jets of heat released the tension from my shoulders. I could feel all of the day’s worries falling from me. All of the rude customers and all of the stress of the Friday night rush just disappeared. After this I looked forward to a nice hot cup of chamomile tea and a couple hours of reading before calling it a day.
After I was done, I shut off the water and reached for my towel, drying myself off thoroughly before throwing on my old maroon pajama pants and tank top. I was just about to leave the bathroom when I stopped short in my tracks, noticing that the mirror had gone black in my peripheral vision.
I closed my eyes and rubbed them, counting to ten, not wanting to believe it. It had been so long since I had any hallucinations. I was doing so well. Why would I have one now? My stomach tied in knots and all of the stress that had been released in my shower was working its way back through my muscles triple fold.
I opened my eyes. A gangleus appeared with Andrew in its arms. Andrew was in a blue plaid pair of boxers and an old grey T-shirt. The circles beneath his eyes made me guess that he had been ripped from his sleep. I shook my head in disbelief. There was no possibility that this was real. After considering my options, I turned to walk away and force myself to go bed. I was doing too well now to give into some ridiculous illusion now.
“Where do you think you are going?” The gangleus said in its gruff voice. My feet left the floor and I was turned to face the illusion once more.
“Torey, what’s going on?” Andrew asked; his voice somewhat shrill and frightened. Sweat was beginning to form in beads on his forehead and his silky brown hair was starting to mat against it.
“I am hallucinating, that’s what going on. In a few minutes, none of this will matter and I will probably be on the floor screaming somewhere,” I replied, following with bitter laughter.
“What are you talking about? Torey, this is real. Trust me. Go get help!” Andrew retorted in a panicked voice.
“Well, that won’t be possible. That’s not the way things work in my nightmares. That evil fellow who has you hostage there won’t let me go do that now will he?” I said in a mocking tone. The ganglees laughed and I found myself being sucked through the mirror. The only words that came to mind were, “Here we go again.”
Within moments we were in the dungeon cell that I had dreamt up previously. The wet floor still reflected the torchlight that came from the hall. I could see the cuffs and chains on the wall where I had imagined being before. The gangleus laughed as it looked us over one more time. He locked the cell door and floated away, no doubt to let one of the other figments of my imagination know that we had arrived. Andrew sat dumbfounded in the corner, looking like he was on the edge where sanity and insanity meet.
“Do you know where we are?” Andrew asked, his eyes wild with fear.
“Welcome to my worst nightmare sweetie,” I said sarcastically, “This is the dungeon of my subconscious I guess. It hasn’t even come close to the worst part yet. I will lose you in some fucked up twist no doubt. You will disappear. I will wake up screaming, or crying, or bleeding, or god knows what else. I’ve grown so used to it that I don’t even think I can be surprised anymore.” I said, clearly disinterested in what was happening. I have been here before and I knew the real deal. Andrew was back at home, safe, with his perfect little young brunette. I apparently was just some nut bag that was unable to accept the fact that things had changed.
Andrew stood up and walked over to me, crouching beside me. He took my face in both of his hands and stared deeply into my eyes, “Torey, listen, this is real. I am telling you this is real. You are not dreaming. I am not sure what you know about where we are at, but it doesn’t look like we’re in a good situation here and something tells me that every moment counts.” He kept hold of my face and I tried to resist it. He was so real. It was all so real. The again it always was so real. That didn’t change the fact that it was all in my head.
I rolled my eyes, “Fine. We are in the Black Fortress in the Ganglesh mountains, which is some fictional land that my brain made up to deal with your marriage and the loss of you. That creature that had you is a gangleus. The gangleus are Queen Ameda’s henchman. They are magically inclined and as far as I can tell they are undefeatable. She is probably going to have the gangleus bring both of us to see her, at which point she will kill or exile me, and keep you. Then again why should you care? This is just a dream and Ameda is your girlfriend in real life anyway, so you don’t get the raw end of the deal,” I explained bitterly.
“How do you know all of this?” Andrew asked in disbelief.
“I have had this dream before. I thought it was real before. The day I slit my wrists was the day I had this dream. I will not be fooled again.” I replied, my voice full of resolve.
Andrew looked completely lost and in shock. I wanted to sympathize, to tell him that it would all be ok, that I would work to save him, but my dreams never worked out positively and the pain of giving in to the illusion just wasn’t worth it. I tried to block his presence out, but failed miserably over and over again.
I sat with my chin resting on my knees as Andrew paced restlessly back and forth across the cell. His large bare feet now were completely covered in filth from the murky wetness of the cell’s floor. I felt completely numb. What was there really to fear? I had already lost in the real world. There was nothing more to lose here. I would wake up and be in the same situation that I had been in before this nightmare had taken place.
Shuffling came from down the hall and I stood, awaiting what I knew came next. The gangleus reappeared in front of our cell. Andrew froze where he stood, “The queen would like to see the both of you,” he said, moving his arms in the door opening motion from my previous dream. Both of our feet left the ground and we were floating after the gangleus once more. I looked at Andrew with an “I told you so” glare and he looked back at me in helpless terror.
We made our way through the dungeon. The cells still held the same creatures that grunted, whinnied, and snarled as we passed. Andrew’s face was frozen in the same horrific expression. His eyes looked as though they might jump out of his skull. We floated up the same spiral staircase as before. As we went through the decadent hallways, everything was exactly as I had imagined before. The scent of magnolias still radiated from the candles, the art was still beautiful. The statues were perfect, just like before. I was no longer impressed, I actually felt bored. I looked over at Andrew and his expression had changed as he gazed at everything through wide, child-like eyes. His mouth was hanging open in awe.
Just like before we took a right into a dark hallway, draped in burgundy chiffon. The same scowling faces peered out from the paintings. The same black ornate candleholders held the same burgundy candles. We approached the grotesque mahogany doors that had sent a shiver down my spine before and they opened at the wave of the gangleus’ hands.
The room was exactly as I had remembered. The plush burgundy rug sat in the center of the room with its four couches. The stained glass windows still portrayed the same horrific scenes. Next to the large round mahogany table is where she waited for us, this time in a navy blue satin gown with silver heels. She had her hair back in a ponytail, the strands hanging in ringlets. Her red painted lips were twisted into the most gloriously evil smile. The scroll was already in her hand. I waited for what had happened before to repeat itself.
“Ameda?” Andrew called out from the side of me. He soun
ded truly confused.
“Not quite,” the queen said, laughing. “We can discuss that later though. Right now, we need to discuss more important things,” she said giggling the same evil child-like giggle that she had in my previous dream.
“Can we just get a move on with it,” I sighed impatiently. The quicker that it was over with, the quicker I could wake up to my miserable life. It was enough to have already been through this little charade once.
The queen smiled at me, looking slightly taken aback. “Your wish is my command,” she replied, giggling once more. Andrew looked over at me with a glance of utter disbelief and disgust.
“Andrew, I am going to give you a choice. You can go home. You will be completely unharmed, but there is a price.” she paused to add to the dramatics. Illusion or no illusion, it still made my blood boil to listen to her toy with him.
“Basically, if you leave she will kill me, but leave you unharmed. If you stay, she will let me leave unharmed,” I snarled, rolling my eyes.
“Yes, thank you Torey. I wasn’t going to put it so bluntly, but that is the gist of it. So, what do you think Andrew? Which would you prefer?” She beamed over at him.
Andrew looked completely dumbfounded. He looked from me to the queen and back again. If this were reality I could see where he would have been confused. After all, the queen was of course the spitting image of his girlfriend with the same name and I was just floating there calm as ever, waiting for my doom.
“Torey?” Andrew called to me. His eyes looked tortured. It was as if he wanted me to make the decision for him.
“It doesn’t really matter you know. Either way, I am going to wake up screaming. Go ahead, let her cut me up and bleed me dry if she wants. Decide to stay here if you feel the need. I am imagining all of this anyway. Nothing changes the fact that we won’t be together when I wake up,” I explained harshly. I wondered which way the nightmare would go this time. Maybe if he chose for me to die, I would wake up more quickly. After all, didn’t everyone say that you could not die in your dreams?
His face crumbled as he shook his head in disbelief and he began to cry. “This is real, Torey! Right now this is real! I can’t let her cut you up. I can’t let her bleed you dry. We may not be together, but I care about you! It’s the same as I tried to explain to you in the hospital. I wish you would realize that this isn’t a dream!” He looked at my face searching for some sympathy or some kind of understanding.
I was already starting to fall apart. The desperation in his voice ate at my insides. The look on his face was tearing apart my heart. It was if my mind would not be satisfied until the dream had completely broken me. It was as if I was not allowed to wake up with any shred of dignity or sanity left in my grasp.
“How sweet of you Andrew. You are so caring towards someone who deserves it so little. I can’t say I am displeased though. I would love to have you here. So, are you going to stay?” the queen asked, tilting her head to the side, her bell-like voice conveying her impatience.
Andrew took a deep breath and then said, “Yes.”
Things proceeded exactly as they had before. At the snap of the queen’s fingers another gangleus appeared with a knife. Tears streamed down his face as they pricked his finger and he dotted the line like he had in my last dream. This time there would be no intimacy to wait through. I wouldn’t be put through the torture of kisses and embraces like before. This was very cut and dry. Before long she would snap her fingers and I would wake up feeling disturbed. Yet somehow I almost wished that we did have that one more imaginary evening. I was a very sick girl when it came down to it, I supposed.
“Any last words you would like to say before I send her home,” the queen asked in a mocking tone. She folded her hands in front of her and started to pace around Andrew, eying her new prize.
He looked into my eyes and I could see so many things there. There was fear, love, sadness, remorse, anger, and helplessness fluttering in the golden brown and green. His lips quivered as he began to speak, “Torey, just know I loved you ok? I did, even though it didn’t work out. I know it is a lot to ask, but could you tell Ameda I love her too? I am sure she will be worried sick. Tell my family what has happened. Tell everyone I will miss them. Take care of yourself and know that if you harm yourself then you spit on what I have done today. Just do that for me ok?”
My heart broke for the illusion. I unraveled and tore apart at every seam. This dream was going to cause me suffering and I knew it. I gave in as I nodded and whispered, “I love you and I miss you. I miss you every day. I know this isn’t real, but it doesn’t make it any less true.”
The queen laughed her evil maniacal laugh and smiled at me. “Goodbye Torey,” she giggled and then snapped her fingers.
My eyes opened to my cream tile floor once more. I slowly stood up and looked in the bathroom mirror. I was still in my pajamas. I still looked the same. I had returned to reality once more. I decided that I would make no mention of my newest hallucination to anyone. After all, I had come too far to have to start over now.
Sadness filled me as I walked into the bedroom and crawled under the covers. I let my head sink into the pillow and closed my eyes, wet with new tears. The images of his distressed face danced behind my eyelids. Within minutes I was asleep. I slept deeply and though I may have dreamed, I did not recall any of them when I woke.
I was sitting at my breakfast table drinking coffee, staring at the walls as my mind wandered when the first call came in. I looked at the screen of my cell phone to see an unfamiliar number. I flipped my phone open and put it to my ear.
“Hello,” I answered in a drowsy voice.
“Torey?” the bell-like voice replied, full of panic.
“Yes?” My mind traced over faces, trying to match one with the voice. I knew it from somewhere.
“Please don’t hang up, but this is Ameda. I really need to talk to you.”
My stomach twisted and my pulse accelerated. What could she possibly want from me? She had stolen my entire life and everything I worked for. Was that not enough? Maybe she and Andrew were having problems and she wanted the ex’s perspective. Wouldn’t that be rich? I rolled my eyes and laughed internally.
“What do you want?” I asked, making my tone as acidic as possible.
“Andrew is missing! I have called everyone and no one has talked to him. He was in bed when we laid down last night and then I woke up and all of his things were here, his car was here, but he wasn’t. I thought maybe he might have gone to see you or called you. As angry as that might make me, I am just really worried. If he’s over there, would you please just go ahead and tell me?”
My mind played over last night’s nightmare. I felt as if I would be sick. What if it had been real? I tried to mask the rising panic in my voice as I went to reply, “He’s not here. I haven’t spoken to him since that day in the hospital. If this is your number, I can call you if I hear from him.”
“Yes, I would appreciate that. Sorry to have bothered you,” she said and then hung up, not waiting for a reply.
I sat there stunned. Every second of what I thought had been an illusion played back through my mind. His tortured gazes, my short and cruel replies, everything made me sink further into my despair. We had really been there and I had scoffed at him. I could feel my growing self-hatred in every fiber of my being. I had not moved to comfort him. I had not said a kind word to bring down the terror. He was out there somewhere in a parallel dimension because he had saved my life. How I wished that he would have let her cut me into pieces.
More panic moved in as I wondered how I would ever tell anyone. No one would believe me. It would be just as before. Everyone would assume I had lost my mind. Everyone would work together to have me locked up. The reality of it all crashed down on me and crushed any hope of peace ever returning again.
I got up off of my bed and ran back to the bathroom. I stared at the mirror in disbelief. Why? I didn’t understand. Why couldn’t my nightmare end? Why cou
ldn’t it have just stopped with me? I crawled up onto the sink and stared at myself in the glass; tears streaming down my face that looked like it had aged overnight. I lifted my hands to the glass and started bawling.
“Please take me instead. Give him back. He has a life. He has someone worrying about him. Why can’t you just torture me? Why can’t it just stop with me? Why?” I sobbed and I waited, but there was no reply. It was just a mirror and I was alone in the bathroom, alone in the world. I wanted to rip my own skin off, not being able to stand being me. I had lost him again, only more than before. No one would ever see him again. No one would ever see the way his smile reached his eyes and made them glow. No one would ever hear his laugher, or see the peaceful way he looked when he slept. He would never go on to make children and be the wonderful father I always knew that he would be. He was forever gone and I hadn’t lifted a finger to stop it from happening. It was enough to make me lose my mind.
Months passed by and nothing happened. There were no more blackened mirrors, no more hallucinations, no more anything. It was just me and the unbearable despair that ruled my life. The local news had done a report on Andrew’s disappearance. There were no leads, but no signs of foul play either. He had just vanished without a trace. People speculated that he had maybe broken the law and was on the run or that he had met someone and was too much of a coward to face Ameda and get the divorce. I knew the truth though. I wanted to be locked up in some stocks like in medieval times and be stoned to death.
Ameda had decided to move out of town. I guess she could not handle the memories. I probably would have left too if I thought I could ever outrun the feeling. She could restart a life somewhere. Maybe her nightmares would fade in time. That would be a luxury that I would never be granted.
When I got the news that she was leaving I called her up and I told her the truth. I had to at least try to keep my promise to Andrew. I told her of what had went down that night, about the world that existed through the mirror, about how he had asked me to tell her that he loved her. She had called me a crazy bitch and told me I was cruel. She had hung up the phone crying. I never heard from her again and neither did anyone else I knew.
Over time people forgot. The phone calls stopped, the search stopped, everything just stopped and life went on. That is, life went on for everyone, but me. Every day I wake up to the same thing. I go to work, I come home, I sit in the bathroom and wait for something to happen, to have the chance to set things right. My own reflection taunts me and drives me mad. I know that I should give up, but I can’t. He had saved me and I would sit in front of that mirror until the day I die just to know I didn’t miss the opportunity to save him.
I shut out everyone. I quit answering my phone. I quit answering the door. I felt dead inside and I lived as if I was. I did not want anyone to know me. I did not feel that I deserved to be a part of humanity. I was a monster and no matter how sorry I was, nothing was going to change what had happened. I went through the motions. I smiled at the customers who came into my work, I paid my bills, I ate sometimes, I slept when possible, but that was all that existed for me.
The nightmares had become worse than ever. There was never a morning where I didn’t wake up screaming or crying. Strangely enough it was just the same thing over and over. The night replays and I never do anything different. The guilt was more than unbearable. I wanted nothing more than to bleed myself dry and write I am sorry over and over again on the white walls of what used to be our bedroom in the blood that had betrayed him, but as he had said I would be spitting on what he had done for me if I hurt myself and I knew he was right. I could not end it. There would never be any relief and time was making no difference. I could not bring myself to believe that I deserved anything more.
Years had passed by. Everyone was gone from my life. I stopped going to see family when the holidays came and they had given up on calling or inviting me anymore. My friends had given up long prior. The sounds of their concerned voices no longer rang out across my voicemail. There were no more urgent text messages asking me if I was ok, if I was healthy, if there was anything they could do. What could I say in return? I was beyond pretending that everything was ok. I was beyond pretending that anything in the world held any joy or interest for me anymore. The world, my friends, my family, they were all better off without me.
The stress had taken its toll on my appearance. When I looked in the mirror, I no longer saw myself, but just some old dried up ghost of the person I used to be. Stress lines mapped across my face, telling stories of the horror I had seen, of the utter loss that I felt. I could not even remember how to smile, or how it had felt to laugh. All of the good memories had faded away and all I could remember was the look of his tear stained face. That face still gnawed at my insides every time I remembered it. The wound never healed, the pain never lessened.
I would spend my afternoons in front of the mirror wondering often if he was still alive. What had happened to him on the other side of the mirror? I wondered what kind of life he led and if he had ever found a way to be happy. I hoped somewhere in his heart of hearts he was able to forgive me for what had happened, for the way I had acted. Then again, how could he forgive me when I was unable to forgive myself? No one would ever know.
This was then end to my twisted fairy tale and there was no happy ending. I was living in a perpetual nightmare that cycled over and over, never to end. I would live life alone, and the secret would go with me to my grave. Andrew was gone because of me and that was to be my own personal hell until the day that the breath left my chest and my heart ceased to beat.
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