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As she moves slightly beside me, I gingerly take her broken hand into mine to let her know I’m not asleep as she’s assumed, but allowing us both a much needed rest.

  Unfortunately, all good things really must come to an end, and this has gone on longer than it needs to. Her body is almost completely broken and stripped of flesh, but her mind is much fucking stronger than I hoped for.

  Perhaps a walk into a couple of the other rooms to face her demons will show her it’s not worth the struggle she’s so valiantly putting up. Maybe if she sees how bad things can truly be away from my side and guiding hands, she’ll finally accept her choices.

  20

  I need my pills now more than ever. I wonder how long they’ve been corrupted for, and how long it will take for their effects to disappear. I have to get the medicine inside my body before he decides to move from his place on the bed and attempts to strike his death blows.

  It will surely take more than one to destroy me, and I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he realizes what he’s done to us both.

  The fact that he can’t see just how intertwined my fate is with his yet will be his downfall, but if these are to be my final hours on this Earth, I will happily drag this demon back to hell with me.

  He wants to take me into the other rooms; I know he does. He wants me to understand he’s the easiest to deal with―that things could be worse had I chosen another tormentor or a different door―but there is no other worse than him because he haunts me more and more each day.

  He’s stirring against me.

  He’s ready to begin.

  And I’m ready for it to end.

  You’re awake, aren’t you? I hate that you weren’t able to find some peaceful moments in the quiet hours we just shared. It’s what’s meant to be then. No more fighting me now, little girl.

  Up onto your feet when you’re ready and I’ll show you the worse of the other rooms. Then, we’ll return, and I’ll be over before you know it.

  Is that what you want? For the end to come swiftly? I won’t forget to attempt to reattach your tongue, because I need to understand you when I present you with your choice.

  Why … why are you smiling like that? I’m trying to help you, you know. I want you to crossover as intact as you possibly can, and you’re smiling at me like this is some kind of goddamn joke.

  You find no solace in my promises, do you? You think I’m nothing more than a fucking liar, and I don’t appreciate that. In fact, I won’t give you the option to attempt to speak again because you have a tongue of silver, and that’s why you’re really here, isn’t it?

  You’re no better than the liar down the hall who burned their parents’ house down to the ground in a fit of rage. You’re worse than the bitch who slipped oleander into her grandmother’s tea one afternoon and watched her die an agonizing death over the course of the next few days. But you know all of this already, don’t you, little girl?

  I have no need for serpents’ tongues, so you’ll come with me now and I’ll show just how lucky you are to be with me, and not the others.

  When we return, prepare to breathe your last breath.

  Forgive Me My Sins

  21

  The first door he takes me to has marks crudely scratched into it. Four of them from right to left, corner to corner, and I know them well because I made them.

  “Look inside,” he whispers hotly into my ear, taking a step back and waiting for me to open the door. And I do. I open the door widely and take one cautious step inside because I know the monster in this room.

  It’s a fourteen-year-old girl who’s spiraling into madness and doesn’t quite understand what’s wrong with her. She doesn’t comprehend that her mind is rotting slowly and that her parents are trying to help her, so instead, she makes sure they’re asleep when she douses the curtains in the living room with lighter fluid. She makes sure they’re deep in slumber when she nails as many of the windows shut as she can. She makes sure their bedroom door is barricaded and before she leaves, she makes sure there is no other way to escape the flames she’ll watch consume them before she runs away. I watch her as she opens the front door and strikes a match, considering for just a mere moment that there may be a different way to save herself from the pain she feels, the pain no one else can understand or hear, before she lights the matchbox she’s holding and tosses it at the pool of liquid underneath the curtains.

  She runs outside and with the last of the nails and the only hammer she could find, proceeds to nail as much of the door as she can shut. With any luck, they won’t wake up, but that’s not what the voices in her head are telling her and she believes them.

  She believes them because they’re the only ones who understand her as she lingers for just a few moments on the front lawn of the house as the structure becomes quickly engulfed. Then, she turns and runs right past us, laughing happily as she disappears into a door down the hall.

  “Follow her,” he commands me, giving me a gentle push down the hall.

  Without hesitation, I walk toward the third door down and smile slightly at the beautiful flowers etched into the wood. I know what’s behind this door already, but I want to make him trust me, so I open it and take one step inside.

  A happy sigh escapes me as I watch the kindly, elderly lady sitting in her favorite rocking chair by the window. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the young woman, a faded representation now of the murderous adolescent, approach her with her favorite teacup. She hands it to her and sits on the couch almost directly in front of her, and listens to the old woman prattle on.

  She’s drinking a toxic tea. Where sugar should sit is mostly crushed foxglove, not oleander, like my demon insists, but she’ll never notice the taste because the young woman has masked it with a spot of honey. The elderly lady in the rocking chair always took a spot of honey in her tea. She told the young woman for what seemed like the millionth time that it’s good for the immune system, and the youth smiles tightly. She’s had enough of this person who doesn’t understand her pain, and she’s ready to see her come to an end.

  It doesn’t take long before the pills she’s also crushed to a fine powder begin to sedate the old woman, and that’s when she drags her to her bed for an afternoon nap, the last she’ll ever have, but she’ll go peacefully because she was kindest to the young woman.

  She doesn’t linger long enough to watch the poison take effect. Instead, she goes back into the living room and rummages through the old woman’s purse before she takes her leave.

  “One more door, little girl,” his breath, hot upon my ear, warns.

  The one I don’t want to go into.

  22

  When I reach this final door, I can feel an ache inside my heart growing strong enough to drown out the voices. He seems to fall away from me as I take a deep breath and gently run my hand against the carving. It was never supposed to claim another life, this fucking illness inside me, especially not one that never got the chance to see the light of day.

  He reaches around me and pushes the door open.

  “Go in. See what you’ve done. See why you’re here, and then come back to my arms,” he says in a softer tone.

  “I don’t want to,” I whimper in a barely audible voice.

  “You must,” he says, giving me a gentle push inside.

  It takes a moment for me to see her. The woman of no more than a few months ago, sitting crumpled in agony on the cold, wooden floor. She’s cradling her stomach and sobbing like the world is against her, because it is. In one hand, she holds the longest shears she’s been able to find, and in the other, she cradles her unborn child still incubating inside of her, unaware of the present danger.

  I try to go forward to stop her, but there’s an invisible force holding me back, and the more I struggle against it, the louder she cries.

  The wail is of pure anguish because she knows she doesn’t deserve this. She knows she should never be faced with a decision as terrible as this, because she isn’t worthy of c
arrying another life when she’s taken so many.

  “Please,” I beg into the hollow room. Through her tears, she cocks her head slightly and glances up. It’s almost as if she’s heard me, and when we lock eyes, I know she has. I quickly start waving my hands at her not to do what I already know will come to pass, and she smiles through her sadness. She smiles at me with anguish dancing in her eyes and raises the shears over her head and brings them down with enough force to break the skin of her stomach and murder the innocent life inside.

  I turn and run out of the room, past my tormentor and down the hall. I won’t be able to escape, because each room only holds a memory worse than the last and we both know it.

  I have no choice but to return to the room where it all started and where it will all end, and await the fate that will bring us both to our knees.

  Strange, isn’t it, when you’re faced with your past transgressions and no way to escape them?

  It’s time for us to see this to an end, little girl, but I will give you your choice now.

  Allow me a moment to dress properly, because if you choose the way I’m hoping, I don’t want to make a mess on myself.

  It’s very unbecoming to walk around with the blood of another on their hands, but you wouldn’t know that, would you? You think everything you’ve done was a blessing to those around you, when the only life you should have taken was your own.

  And that’s why I want to help you.

  Ah.

  Thank you.

  I’m ready now. Look at me, please, and choose wisely, as you only have one shot at this.

  These pills? The ones you’ve been so desperately looking for? I’ve had them this entire time and you’ve never known it because, as usual, you’ve been too wrapped up in yourself to fucking notice anything else.

  Don’t look away―not now, and not ever again.

  This bottle holds the medicine that quiets the voices, doesn’t it? It’ll be what sends me back to a quiet retreat until you find another life to destroy.

  I present you this choice now.

  Take the bottle from me and take your medicine. Silence all the monsters that have truly tormented you your entire life, or let me end you now and save all the innocent blood you have left to spill.

  I await your answer.

  23

  He’s right.

  It is all in my head, and I don’t quite understand how I’ve let it get this far. Depression is the biggest of my demons and when I feel like the world is crashing around me, he comes to me and shows me all the things that could be if I simply slip the proverbial blade into my veins.

  Maybe he does understand now. He’s beginning to finally realize how we’re intertwined if he’s willing to retreat until he’s ready for me again.

  I don’t deserve to live any longer, but I cannot see this end in this way. My life isn’t mine to claim, and those that do have a stake on it are not here for their bounty. I also don’t deserve to grow to an old age like my grandmother, and I never deserved to be with child like my parents.

  Yet, I feel like there’s something more.

  “The bottle,” I say, through a bruised mouth as blood begins to poor again.

  He chuckles slightly and sighs. I can see the disappointment on his face as he shakes his head and pulls the cap off for me. I won’t be able to do it in my state, and even now, when I don’t deserve it, someone else is putting my needs in front of their wants.

  “I’ll be here when you need me,” he says quietly as he slips the apron off over his head and returns it to the hook beside the door.

  I shakily pop a couple of the pills into my mouth, and my body almost instantly becomes numb. I can feel myself surrendering to sleep as I fall to the floor and wait.

  It’s been three days since I’ve stared my depression in the face and won. It’s been three days since I woke up and realized that the entire fucking thing was the voices, the hallucinations, trying to drag me down and make me kill myself.

  I would have deserved it and I wouldn’t have been faced with him again when he comes like a thief in the night. Eventually, the pills will run out again and their wonderfully magical powers will stop working.

  And he’ll come back for me.

  Will I be able to fight him off again? I don’t know; I really don’t. As I walk back to the bed in the shitty motel I’ve been holed up in when this all started, I look at the scrap of paper and begin to cry.

  It’s a warning and an omen all at the same time. A promise to return when I’ve thought I’ve won the battle.

  Always remember that it’s all in your head, Alice.

  About the Author

  Yolanda Olson is an award-winning and international bestselling author. Born and raised in Bridgeport, CT where she currently resides, she usually spends her time watching her favorite channel, Investigation Discovery. Occasionally, she takes a break to write books and test the limits of her mind. Also an avid horror movie fan, she likes to incorporate dark elements into the majority of her books.

  You can keep in touch with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.