I looked like a little monster at that time, too. I was a monster just like them.
Tears run down her cheeks. Black, inky tears.
A chill crawls down my abdomen and straight to my ribcage as she mouths something.
I squint, trying to make out what she’s saying.
“Help. Me.” She mouths over and over again.
My heart jolts in its cavity, but before I can do anything, a dark figure snatches her from Ma’s arms.
Ma shrieks and I shriek, too, when the dark figure throws little Elsa in the lake’s water.
The dark, murky water swallows her whole.
“Help me!” The voice screams in my head.
I wake up with a hoarse cry, tears streaming down my cheeks.
* * *
For a second, I’m screaming so loud, I can’t recognise what’s in my surroundings. For a second, I feel like I’m in that water, hauled in its inky depth.
I’m floating. My lungs burn with the need for air, but the hand won’t let me be up.
I can’t breathe.
My name will be forgotten, too.
It takes me some time for other voices to filter back into my consciousness.
A soothing calming voice.
A familiar non-threatening voice.
I blink twice and Dr Khan’s blurry image comes into view.
I swallow past the ball in my throat and my choked breaths.
“I’m not in the lake,” I say, searching my surroundings.
“No, you’re not.” He offers me a glass of water.
I gulp it down in one go letting it soothe my scratchy throat.
However, I’m still searching for the lake.
For the little girl who asked me for help.
Dr Khan sits opposite me, watching me intently the way I imagine a researcher would watch his lab rats. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know,” I choke out.
“Do you feel like you got anything out of your subconsciousness?”
“Yes.” I meet his gaze through blurry eyes. “I think I’m not normal.”
“Not normal how?”