Page 64 of Deliria

My mind is a canvas wiped clean. The colours and shapes of my past have been reduced to indistinct blurs that all merge into one chaotic mess.

I want to remember, to claw my way back to the person I was before this moment, but every time I reach for a memory, it slips through my fingers like smoke.

I glance over at Vincent, who’s watching our exchange with an unreadable expression. His presence here is a puzzle in itself. Why would Vincent be in my hospital room, discussing plans and strategies with my husband?

Has something happened with their business too? Or does he have a more sinister reason for being at my bedside?

Maybe the drugs are playing tricks on me, because none of it feels right.

There’s a dissonance to the scene unfolding around me, a sense that I’m missing crucial pieces of the puzzle. But every time I try to focus, to grasp at the threads of clarity, the pain in my leg flares up, a stark reminder of my current state.

Alex sits beside me, his hand never leaving mine. He talks to me in gentle tones, telling me that everything will be okay, that he’s here for me, that we’ll get through this together. But his words are just background noise, a distant hum that fails to penetrate the wall of confusion and fear that envelops me.

I close my eyes, trying to shut out the world, trying to find some semblance of peace in the chaos that has become my life. But even with my eyes closed, the darkness is not a refuge.

It is a void, a chasm that threatens to swallow me whole.

It’s a lie.

All of it.

I wake with a jerk, with such force it feels like every piece of me has chosen violence.

My eyes can’t seem to focus. My head feels like I’ve smashed it repeatedly into a wall.

I can see his face, my father’s face. How it’s morphed into something awful, something horrific.

“Daddy.” I scream the word, the name. I’m not meant to say it. Not meant to speak it. That was part of the agreement, part of the deal. He’s dead. He’s gone. That is what the world thinks, that is what the world believes.

And I am trapped here, locked away, waiting until they kill me.

But I don’t want to die. I don’t want to…

I spring from the bed like a thing possessed.

Help me, daddy. Help me.

Only, he can’t help me. No one can. I came here, I agreed to this… no. I’m not even meant to think of it. To acknowledge it to myself. This was the plan. This was what we agreed. It is necessary. Necessary.

But I can’t do it. I can’t do this. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be here. To let him and his father do what they’re doing. To pretend that I’m this docile, stupid, idiot. I don’t want to. I don’t…

My body feels like it weighs a ton, and yet is as light as a feather all at the same time. I have a pounding headache that makes it hard to even think, but that quickly dissipates into such a feeling of weightlessness that nothing seems to matter.

The air that felt so stale suddenly tastes fresh. The dull light feels like it’s full of crystals, all sparkling and spinning.

My feet move. My body moves with them.

I open doors, I spring from one staircase to another with no care for where I end up. How I don’t break my neck I don’t know, but I’m also not feeling fear. It’s like that emotion has been torn from my consciousness.

And then I’m outside. Gravel bites into my feet. That stormy wind swirls around me and I dance with it, I entwine myself with it. I become it.

Laughter fills my ears. I don’t know if it’s my own or someone else’s, but it’s there like a song, beckoning me onwards.

I’m running, racing, chasing after the sound that’s echoing in my head.

Everything feels light, dreamlike, as if gravity has loosened its hold.

My feet barely seem to touch the ground as I twirl along the cliff-top edge, arms outstretched. The rough stones beneath my bare feet register as distant sensations, like echoes from another world that I no longer have to care about.

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