“I don’t want to see,” I whisper in horror as my trembling hand reaches for the doorknob.

“You need to see,” Lily insists.

My fingers brush the brass knob. A jolt of heat shoots up my arm as I turn it and push it open. Light spills over me. Screams pierce my ears. Something flies at me that’s heavy and strong. Pain. Heat. Tears. Blood. My insides feel like they’re ripping out of my body.

Fire!

Fire!

Fire!

Burning!

Burning!

Burning!

Help me!

Help me!

Help me!

“You killed me.”

Lily

I’m not sure where I am. Lost in Maddie’s mind? Perhaps, but I’m not sure. All I’m certain of is that I can’t see anything. I’m drowning in the yelling. The anguish. The darkness I’m accustomed to. So I think. A lot. Make up stories that feel more real than anything else in the world.

There once was a little girl who lived in a fictional world but the little girl didn’t know it. What was hidden under the blindness, the incredibility was ugly, raw torment. What she couldn’t see, couldn’t hurt her. What she couldn’t feel, couldn’t sting her. What she couldn’t remember, she could make up. She could be anything she wanted to be, not what she was taught to be.

But over time the girl forgot, what was real and what was made up.

She became lost.

Hiding in the darkness of her own fears.

Letting the real girl be forgotten. The one that changed her. The one that trapped her. The one that created her.

Maddie

When I open my eyes again, I feel so cold. So empty. So disconnected. Nothing makes sense. Why I’m waking up at all. How did I even fall asleep to begin with. Where am I?

My eyelids flutter open, half expecting to discover that I’ve fallen asleep in my room. That everything was a dream. That maybe I’m even still young, then I remember everything. That I’m the good girl I’ve constantly been told that I was. But as the last thought crosses my mind, I don’t feel as calm as I should. I feel gross. Disgusted.

The disgust only increases when I fully open my eyes and take a look at my surroundings. At first I think that maybe this is a dream. Or that the red splatters are merely paint. That in another world, in another life, I was a painter and this repulsive creation before me was simply an illusion. But the longer I stare at it, the more I realize the red misshapen dots on the white wall, the lines running downward that look like crooked water, the large spots staining the carpet are blood. Blood everywhere. There’s so much around me that the air smells like pennies, so potent I can taste the vileness.

I immediately jump to my feet, trying to ignore how the carpet squishes beneath my fingers, the warmth of blood spills over the backs of my hands. Once I get upright, I nearly collapse to the floor as a spout of dizziness rushes through me. I refuse to buckle though and fall back into the blood again.

“It’s everywhere,” I whisper to myself as I turn in a circle. The bed. The sheets. The walls. The window. The closet doors. Splattered like raindrops. Frayed ropes are fastened to the headboard and a blindfold lies on the blood soaked pillow. There’s only one thing missing from the madness. A body, but the strange part is I can picture the body there, pallid skin, blood in her hair, her lips slightly apart, frozen from when she took her last breath. I’m not even sure who she is, but I think at some point in my life I’ve witnessed the scene before.

Swallowing the bile burning in the back of my throat, I make my way over to the closet door. There’s bloody fingerprints smeared on the handle and I try to ignore how well they match up to my own as I turn the knob and pull the door open. It’s empty inside. No body. No blood. I breathe in relief, although I don’t know why. Blood like this had to come from death—I can practically smell it in the air.

It takes me a moment, but I manage to get down on my knees and check under the bed. It’s the only place in the room where there could be a body. Again, it’s clean. Except for a single red button. Even though I know I shouldn’t, I have to pick it up. Collect it. A tiny little memory forgotten in the midst of sheer terror. My fingers clasp around it and I stand back up, trembling as I stare down at the oval shaped button that matches the one I have at home in my button collection. The mysterious one I found on me the day I found Sydney’s as well.

“No.” I shake my head, uncertain at what I’m even saying no to. The truth. But what is the truth.

I stand there for what seems like forever, trying to put the pieces together. What happened when I opened that door? I heard screaming, saw light, but that’s it. There doesn’t seem to be a bump on my head, just blood on my hands. Did I blackout and Lily took over? Did she kill someone? Did she kill Bella? But if so, where’s the body?

The longer I try to sift through my thoughts, the more confused I get. Something snaps within me and suddenly I lose it. I start tearing the room apart, throwing clothes out of the dresser and closet, scattering papers that are in the nightstand drawers. I tear the bloody sheets off the bed, leave my fingerprints everywhere. If the cops had their suspicions about me being a killer before, I just gave them all the evidence to convict me. That is, if there’s a body.

Go. Before this gets worse.

I start to turn to leave and step on a white shirt. The pressure of my weight makes it press against the carpet and stain the innocent fabric with blood, along with the red, oval buttons, two of which are missing. I don’t even know why I do it. I’ve already left my fingerprints, DNA, and every other mark about me all over the place. Still, I pick up the shirt, let my fingers get stained with more blood as I examine it. It has to be Bella’s, but then why did I have the button in my pocket that night?

I drop the shirt to the floor like it’s made of coal. Then I take off, wanting to get the hell out of the house. But it’s still somewhat light outside and I’m covered in blood. So instead of running out the front door, I hurry into the bathroom. It’s the most sickening thing I’ve ever done. Well, maybe. Depending on what happens when I blackout. But I still do it, take a shower in Bella’s bathroom and wash the blood that might be hers off my body. Then I put on some of her clean clothes that I find in the washroom. A black skirt and a white shirt, very similar to the one I left to be forgotten in blood on the bedroom floor. I leave my damp hair down and take it one step further, finding a tube of red lipstick and mascara in the medicine cabinet. I stare at my reflection for a moment, looking for evidence that maybe the eyes staring back at me aren’t my own anymore. Who is this girl in the mirror? A sinner? A good girl who’s just gotten lost? A girl who’s lost her identity?

Suddenly I see a face appear behind me, a body of a girl that looks just like me only has long blond hair and piercings covering her face. She smiles at me through the mirror and I whirl around, only to find that she’s gone.

“Lily,” I say with my hand pressed to my racing heart as I recollect seeing her take my hand and guiding me down the hallway before I passed out. “Is that you?”

The only response I get is the quiet.

I hurry out of the bathroom and to the backdoor, ready to slip out of the house. As I’m rushing through the kitchen, I spot a piece of paper on the countertop. I’m not sure if it was there or not when I walked in, but what catches my attention is the bloody handprint on the front of it.

I pick it up and flip it over, my heart trying to escape my chest before I even see what’s on the other side. It’s like I already know what it is and when I see the picture of myself, I’m not even that surprised. I’m not even sure when it was taken, probably before the accident since in the picture; my hair is blond and long like how the detective described it. I look rougher, piercings in my lips, darkness in my eyes, and an ‘I don’t give a shit’ smirk on my face as I flip the camera off. But the real icing on the cake is scribbled in the corner is the name Lily Asherford.