Waking

  Hope in God. If you have good hope and faith in Him, you shall be delivered from your enemies.

Diamond opened her eyes to darkness. The dream I had been chasing was a soft one, of a past that never was. Sweet, the flickers of something warm and heartening. I dreamt of the life I thought was mine, until my nemesis opened my eyes. Sometimes I can feel him whispering into my thoughts, and like a warrior in mortal combat I rage against him with all my strength, and yet I cannot expel him. He is insidious. He is everywhere. But He will not defeat me.

The dream was so vivid, and for a few moments I hold fiercely to the fading images. If only I could dream whilst awake, I would never let that vision pass. But my eyes began to adjust, bringing me back to a place familiar and comforting in the strange way that prison walls are comforting to someone too long behind locked doors. The room is small and dark, and sparsely furnished. There are no pictures on the walls, no knickknacks. The sheets of my bed are clean, but rough, and institutional white. I have been here so many times before, that I recognize this place, as if I belong here. And I do. And I do not. This is not my home, though I know it just as well as any home I have ever known. I stare at the ceiling, wondering if I might see the feathers of that dream again. I chase the last wisps of subconscious desperately. I know my efforts are futile, but still I try. I have to try, because I will not surrender. The dreams were full of color and as alive as any reality. More so even then this place, though I know it is not a dream. In this place, most everything that isn’t brown is white, and every line is straight. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be orderly, or simply dull. It withers the senses to be here and that is intentional. Hear my words and you will understand, as I unfortunately do. I push the sheets away and swing my legs down onto the plain brown carpet. I have a chill from the night. No matter the season, this place is always cold. Like a colony on a far away world, the environment is entirely controlled and completely separate from its surroundings. Only history tells me I am still on Earth. Plain white walls. Bland fresh scent. I am, in a way, home. I both acknowledge and rage against that thought.

There’s a small window that looks out on some shrubs and walkways. Even the outside doesn’t seem real. Too orderly. Too bland. The bushes could as easily be plastic as alive. I honestly don’t know for sure. 

Back within, and over at the small wood desk, is my companion, Candy, shamelessly reading my journal. She’s not the kind to ask, and besides, I can keep no secrets from her anyways. That is one thing I have accepted, and long ago. For better or for worse, she is my constant companion.

I hit the light switch, and the glow decimates any flicker of dreams and summons me fully back to reality. The fluorescent glow is harsh and cold, reminding me that I am not welcome here, no matter what pretensions are made to deceive me. And even the pretensions are few here.

I pull the sheets up and tuck them in. If Candy has noticed my awakening she doesn’t show it. My left hand finds my rosary on the small night table as my right smooths out the blanket. This rosary was a gift to me since before I appreciated it, since before I learned the value of faith. Those times seem as though they belong to another life, a life someone else lived and that she simply witnessed. But it was given to her by her mother. Whether her mother could have forseen the importance she would eventually recognize upon it, she couldn’t say. But she held it closely to her bosom with both her hands as she said her rosary prayers slowly one by one, her mind closed to thought and her soul uplifted to God. She could feel His presence more and more as she made her way through the prayers. Then she crossed herself and kissed the crucifix gently. She could never start her day without this ritual. Without it she felt distracted and lost. She placed it carefully back on the nightstand and headed into the very small bathroom.

As she was brushing her teeth she could hear Candy softly humming in the room, and soon she joined Diamond, leaning in the doorway. Candy was a lot of things Diamond was not, and she loved to tease her about that. Diamond had known her for about eight years now, and she knew the girl better then anyone. She was a collection of jarring contradictions. Her bright pink hair fell down to her shoulders, perfectly straight and smooth, almost silky. Her eyes were an impish green, full of humor and biting sarcasm. She never took anything seriously, whereas Diamond was serious about everything. Candy was fair skinned, but not as pale as her companion, and stood only 5’2” but was full of energy, though you’d never see her eat. She always wore multiple earrings on both ears and a tattoo of a phoenix on her belly. She was flashy and ostentatious to the max and always dressed the same, no matter the weather or occasion: cutoff jeans and a tank top, her nails always perfectly trimmed and painted something neonish. And, consistently, she had a mouth that never knew when to shut up. Though she liked to get under Diamond’s skin, her loyalty was bone deep.

The bathroom was just a dull as the rest of her quarters. It was floored in faded lime green tiles that crept halfway up the walls. She wondered if she was supposed to think she was at the ocean. If so, the designers had failed in that.

She rinsed and paused to accost her reflection. It was nothing like Candy’s. She had lost weight. Her hair was thick but coarse, and it took her some time to brush it into order, but once she did she had a serious look to her. It was somehow a regal bearing that sometimes caught people off guard. She looked like someone important. She only wished she felt that way. There were faint shadows beneath her cutting gray blue eyes. Her complexion was otherwise smooth (the acne of adolescence long behind her), but she was almost ghostly pale. There was a ferocity to those eyes though, an almost indomitable will shining through.

Who are you? She wanted to ask. What did you do with Sarah? When did that little girl become… this? 

That’s when she caught Candy giving her the look. She always tried not to because she knew that Diamond hated seeing it as much as Candy hated giving it, but sometimes Candy slipped. It was the same look of pity and regret. Candy immediately looked away, and the moment is gone. Diamond turned and twisted the shower knob roughly to the hottest setting, as if the steam could cleanse her of her thoughts. She stepped into the spray and closed her eyes, absorbing the sensation of all the little drops of scalding water hitting her skin. The intensity of the heat lured her mind away and for a few moments there was nothing… and it was a beautiful nothing, a nothing that was so much better then all the somethings that she almost smiled.

Her given name was and would always be Sarah Albrecht, but she had been going by the name of Diamond ever since... since then. She was 25 years old and a paranoid schizophrenic, pleased to meet you and how do you do, of course. In case you didn’t realize, Candy’s existence was limited to the extent of Diamond’s tortured imagination. She was a hallucination, nothing more, but that was something that at times slipped Diamond’s mind. After all, she had been with her companion ever since the day that she referred to, perhaps overly dramatically, as the day that Sarah died. For Diamond, it was as serious as cancer, and something that she was constantly aware of, even in the most carefree moments that her existence could contrive. Sarah was so many things Diamond was not and would never be. And no matter how many times people pushed her to release her fierce grip on her bitterness, it would always shine through… through and through.

She smiled as she pictured it again, smiled with fury. The day she discovered the truth about her mind replayed in her consciousness almost every single day. Well, it wasn’t that sudden for her, it was only sudden for the people that surrounded her, those who claimed to love and to KNOW her. And they learned that they did not really know her, not anymore. The day that the people around her discovered the truth about her mind was a crystal clear memory. She had been just a girl, just a normal girl, but by the time they found out she had been hiding it for… weeks? Longer? She was 13 years old when it all started. Sarah was popular, smart, and ambitious. She had a strong, loving family consisting of a doting father, a nurturing mother, and a big brother whose every accomplishment she insisted on doing even better. Her father was a manager at an engineering firm and earned good money. They had everything they needed, and they were happy. The future was not a question of whether good things would come, but, rather, which good things. In those days, the sky was the limit for her. She was an overachiever, envied -ENVIED - by her friends. 

The changes came slowly, quietly, at first. She didn’t know what was happening to her, nor what to do. For the first time in her life she was dealing with something she couldn’t control. And for Sarah, control was everything. 

It started quietly enough. Mere suggestions of thought.  Gentle at first. And then… not. Suddenly she felt paranoid, convinced that her friends were talking about her behind her back constantly. She would get angry and snap at people and accuse them. And then there was the voices, haunting her. 

It was three weeks after the voices started that she came home from school exhausted. Trying to pretend everything was ok was almost impossible and took all the energy she had, and even then it was easy to see that she wasn’t really fooling anybody. She had been sleeping a lot more and doing a lot less. She felt like a ghost, as if she had died and what remained was just a passing glimmer of who she had been. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all just a bad dream. She couldn’t make sense of it, and so it had to be a dream. She used to hate to dream. They were confusing and often frightening. But now in some twisted way she suddenly preferred my dreams to this reality.

She opened the door and almost jumped when she saw her mother sitting there waiting for her. She had this look on her face, a tired look of sadness. 

“Your school called today.” She sipped at a cup of coffee anxiously.

Sarah said nothing. It was obvious by her mother’s expression that something bad had happened. She thought of all the things that were happening, about how her life was crashing down, about how she was helpless to stop the anxiety, the suspicion, the voices. Whatever had happened, it couldn’t be any worse then everything that had already happened.

She dropped my bag and sat across from her, arms crossed defensively, not a word spoken. She just sat, and watched, and waited.

Her mom gazed at me for a few moments, and it struck her that there was more then a tiredness in her expression, more then mere anxiety. She was scared, and lost, and deep in grief. And then the tears came, welling up in her distant eyes.

“What’s happening to you Sarah? You’ve been acting so strangely, and with barely a word to say to any of us. You’ve been so hostile and lazy, and you’re sleeping all the time. Then today your school called and said you’ve been failing your exams. You’ve never failed even one exam before. Honey, whatever it is, please tell me what’s wrong and we’ll fix it together.”

Her mother’s words softened her a bit, and before Sarah knew it she had broken down crying. What’s happening? She wanted to tell her mother everything, like she had always done up to that point. But she couldn’t think of any words that wouldn’t sound insane. She didn’t want her parents to know what was happening to her, how she was losing her mind. She wanted more then anything to stay the Sarah they knew and loved. And so she turned to the best lies and excuses she could think of. She could tell her mother didn’t really believe them, but eventually she gave up asking, and that was where it ended… for a time.

That night found her crying in her room. She felt completely lost and helpless and didn’t know who she was anymore. She muffled her tears with her pillow, the door shut and locked. Before long she had cried herself to sleep.

When she woke she had the distinct feeling that she wasn’t alone. She had left the overhead light on, but now the only light was the dim glow of her desk lamp. She jumped when she realized someone was sitting at the desk, watching her. She had the playful green eyes and pink hair that was now so familiar to Diamond.

“I’m Candy” she proffered helpfully, as if that explained everything. Sarah stared at her. The girl sighed. “Don’t worry, people get used to me. I can tell you’re not a girl burdened by social graces. Maybe I can help with that.”

“Who… are you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Candy? Like the stuff they hand out at Halloween? Look, Sarah, you’re a bit of a mess. I can help you. Trust me.”

Sarah nodded, still staring. And that’s when it really hit home. She finally knew that the girl she had been, the life she had lived, was gone.

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