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“We’ll start at the ground floor and make our way up, skipping the boring levels on the way,” he says to me. His ability to completely ignore the situation that just happened is admirable. I can’t help but be impressed at how he took my comment and decided to completely ignore it. Professionalism at its finest. Only I’m not quite sure if that tells me if he’s in on his father’s manipulation, or not. “Ground floor, please.”
“How-” I begin to ask.
“Facial recognition,” he replies before I even have the chance to finish my question. “No one can enter here without authorisation. I am authorised, because-” he goes awkwardly quiet, and I understand immediately.
“Because you’re the boss’s son?” I respond dryly.
“And you are authorised, because for the time being, you are considered under my care.” He ignores my comment. “That means that, as long as I am with you, you will be able to travel in the elevators as well. Until you settle in, of course, then you should be able to get your own authorisation.”
“Right. That is kind of creepy.”
“You get used to it,” he says, smiling.
The elevator interrupts to tell us that it’s going down and starts to play some obnoxiously loud jazz music. I suddenly feel light in the head and lean against the side of the elevator. I don’t even have the chance to speak before my head hits the ground and I black out.
* * *
‘The young girl sits sorrowfully behind Albert Cunningham’s mahogany desk trying very hard to only look at her worn-out shoes.
“Now listen to me,” Mr. Cunningham’s voice is heavy with impatience, “I have had enough with your nonsense. How do you not understand? Do I need to spell it out? We-need-you-to-help-us. We just ask you some stuff, you lead us to some places and after that, you will be back home. You won’t even remember a thing.” He has a smug smile on his face that indicates he means that literally.
‘“You don’t understand,” the girl’s whole demeanour has changed. Something about his words has set her off and she is now looking at Albert dead in the eyes. “Why should I help you? You have taken everything away from me! You have killed my mother, tortured my friends, stole me from my own home. And for what? For some stupid ring that you can control people with? Everything I care about is gone,” her voice breaks, and she pauses.
She takes a deep breath and makes sure to pronounce every syllable in her next sentence very carefully. “And it’s all because of you.” She stands up and walks out the door. Mr. Cunningham slumps deeper into his chair and doesn’t even object when she walks out.
The girl strides down the plain white walls and the identical rooms that are side by side, till she gets to the stairs. She goes up a few flights, stops as if she is about to change her mind, then walks up a few more. She walks through a doorway and down an abandoned hall until she comes to a room that says, Emerson K. Clark. She enters.’
* * *
I feel like I have taken my first breath of fresh air. Like I am just being born. All this time, I had wondered if I was having nightmares about myself but assumed I would remember if I’d been here before.
I had clearly assumed wrong. Albert must have erased my memory just as he said he would in the nightmare. I must have given him what he wanted. But if I had done that, why hasn’t he destroyed the world yet? Why bother to take me again?
“Waffles?” my eyes spring open and I see Jasper’s concerned face inches from my own. When he sees me open my eyes, he jumps back in surprise. “Thank goodness you’re awake,” he says, “I had to rush you back here because you didn’t wake up.” His voice trails off but I’m not listening to a word he’s saying.
All this time, I’ve been watching some past life of mine that I didn’t even know existed. It’s like I’ve been staring at a screen, watching someone live out their life, but then the lines blur between the screen and reality and you are stuck wondering what’s real and what isn’t.
The realisation burns me like an explosion of flames. I am the reason all those school children died that day. The reason the soldiers were there was because they wanted me. Their blood is stained all over my hands, spreading through my body like a dangerous poison. The bodies lying on the ground. I remember them now, not from the outside perspective that I was used to, but as the girl. As myself. It’s. All. My. Fault.
Mum’s words from the day before thunder in my mind like the beating of a drum. ‘They told me they needed to talk to me. They told me that it was urgent. It was about-’
Me.
My past is finally revealing itself to me as if being in the place that shaped my childhood is filling all the missing holes in my life.
But the holes it fills, scars me with bullet wounds of hurt. If I was the reason that the soldiers took Mum, then I am also the reason Jerry and Angela Bunford are dead. Why Mum got kidnapped. Why my dad couldn’t bear to look at me. I understand him now, I can barely live with myself.
And I’m sinking…
Sinking…
Sinking… down into the deep pits of guilt. I clench my hands to my stomach, trying to counter the immense pain that grips me.
“Emerson?” Jasper says, his voice urgent. I hear him call someone over.
The woman looks stricken as she approaches me, she tells me to calm down, but I am lying completely still. Or maybe my body is shaking so hard, thrashing around, trying to free myself from the monster inside of me. I’m not sure which.
I feel hands holding my wrists down; Jasper is trying to stop me from moving. “LET GO OF ME.” I yell at him, spitting in his face.
