The Veil

Chapter 5 The Voice

Amelia leans on Xea for support; all her worlds press on her. Amy notices the cot pushed into the corner as they enter her white room. Is her punishment over? Amy's delusions are claustrophobic as she settles on the edge of the cot. Amy wonders are Xea real or the others. Looking down at the bed beneath her, it never felt safe to her. 

Amelia, how are you feeling? Xea asks, a frown marring her nymph-like face.

Fine! I am just shaking off my hallucinations. Are you sure I cannot have more medicine? They are all around me today. 

No, Amelia, you have already exceeded your dosage for today. I think you should lie down and get some rest.  

Amelia scrutinizes the new Nurse; Xea seems to be a real person. Xea pops out from the background, like one of the purple flowers in her delusion today. In contrast, the others fade into the white room. Amelia watches Xea as she turns to leave. Both want to say something but do not, and it hangs in the air like the scent of loss. 

She instinctively brings her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms protectively around her body, she begins to rock. Looking around the room, Amy repeats to herself: I am here. This is real. The mantra plays in her mind like a record stuck in a grove.

Looking around the room, she finds the hole in the fabric of the white floor and focuses on this spot. She does not remember when she tore the hole in the material. She is not even sure how long she has been at the Institute. Time seems to have stopped. She has lost even the will to try and keep track of it. Time is just one more thing in her too full mind. Alone in her white world, all she has is her tiny hole, in the fabric of her reality, to keep her grounded here. She once again repeats her mantra: I am here. This is real.

The veil is always there, pushing at the edge of her senses, taste, sound, and sight. Focusing on her little hole, she stays present in this one spot. It became her reality as she pushed everything from the other side of the veil aside: her delusions, her hallucinations, her madness. She wonders why sanity is so much harder than insanity. 

As her mind focuses on her singularity, from across the room, she hears a voice; at first, she thinks someone has entered the room. The space is empty in reality. In her delusion, honeybees buzz around honeysuckle in a field that goes as far as she can see. She realizes the voice is coming across the veil. It whispers in her ear, like a mother cooing to a sick child,                                                             

Are you sure, Amelia?

Rocking to her mantra: I am here. This is real. Amelia cannot help but answer the voice. Yes, I am sure; Doctor White told me this is reality.

Sorrow fills the voice as it trilled into the room. Are you sure the doctors are real? Or even if they are, can you trust them?

Amelia curls deeper into herself and whimpers her response. Yes, I have to trust them.

The soft lipid voice fills the room, no longer a whisper in Amelia's ear. Yet it somehow is soothing, and for some reason, she trusts its syrupy sweetness more than Dr. White.

Amelia, does it feel like Dr. White is helping you get better? How do you feel?

Dr. White would tell her that the voice is just her unconscious mind voicing her doubts and feelings, but she doubts that answer somewhere deep down. And so, she answers the voice's question. 

My heart is like a caged bird, beating in my chest, my whole body aches, and my mind is more elusive than a stray cat. I feel like I have died over and over again.

The spot the hole in her reality that she made comes back into focus as the voice fades into the veil. 

That is your answer, Amelia. You are in danger here.

The voice fades further, and Amelia asks an empty room a question she does not want the answer to; are you a delusion, a creation of my mind to drive me further into insanity?