Prose: Underlying

27 February 2007

Ellen stood on the dock gazing into the lake with almost hypnotic concentration. A frail child of 15, her soft curls gently shifted in the night breeze. The moon had been suddenly ambushed by clouds and seemed unable to escape them.

She stood there poised, tense as an arrow. Then with no warning, she plunged into the bobbing liquid. She felt no fear; the water that surrounded her blanketed her so comfortably. She let herself sink lower into the inky water. She began to swim away from the dock to the light. It beckoned and seemed to reach out to her. 5 minutes later she saw the source of the unnatural light. A giant eyeball, as big as her house, stared at her anticipating her approach.

As she neared the giant eyes glance shifted over her from top to bottom. It eyed her again and again until Ellen felt she would either throw up or go insane. She knew it was stripping away her clothes mentally, and she forced herself not to try to cover her under-developed breasts with her hands. She stopped when she was 6 feet away from the eye. What are you?, she wondered. The eye immediately focused on her eyes with ill-disguised lust. I want to see the twins, it said greedily. The twins! The twins! I need to see them now! And she felt herself being drawn towards the eye with a sudden force.

NO! ,she screamed in her mind. Let me go, She pleaded and whimpered. Shut up Ellen, it replied. Shut up and get away from me you filth and she felt the force push her to the door. It seemed to float above the ground and wasn’t attached to anything. The gray metallic door looked ominous and she struggled even more fiercely against the force pushing her towards it. I won’t go back, I won’t, she said to herself grimly. But it was all in vain. She had now reached the door and the force shoved her against it hard trying to persuade her to turn the knob. She resisted until she knew she had begun to bleed. She turned the knob, choking on her sobs and entered. The force immediately left her and the door disappeared.

The room if that’s what it could be called was white. A pure, bright and blinding white. Whichever way she turned she could only see more white. Her eyes began to water but she rubbed at them viciously.

In front of her, creeping softly towards her was whiskers. The little blue stuffed bunny came up to her and she could hear it saying something but she couldn’t make out the words. She snuggled whiskers and listened. Whiskers continued to chant in a harsh whisper, cut him into little pieces, cut him into little pieces, cut him… On and on it chanted the mantra and soon Ellen was chanting too. Her voice no more had fear or surprise. She simply chanted stolidly with her face buried in whiskers soft head. Every time she uttered them she felt stronger and happier. She began to shout hysterically, CUT HIM UP INTO LITTLE PIECES, CUT HIM UP INTO LITTLE PIECES… She began laughing, a high pitched shriek of a tortured child. She laughed and rocked herself and whiskers.


Nurse Odetta hurried towards Ellen with a syringe. Ellen, a 27-year-old patient in ward 4b was now shrieking wildly and laughing in her sleep. It was 3 in the morning, and Nurse Odetta knew the doctor would get mad if Ellen woke the others patients up.