The process of waking up was slow. It was the sudden whirring of what sounded like an air conditioner from the other room that shook the girl’s unconscious mind from the edges of sleep. It was a low, rickety roaring, like an old car that struggles to start after a winter in a dusty garage. She felt hopelessly foggy, the remnants of her unremembered slumber sloughing way slowly like sugary molasses off skin. She felt uncomfortably warm, virtually covered in sweat she guessed, her breath forced deep as the unwelcome humidity around her became slowly overwhelming. She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelashes stuck together with the grainy crust of old mascara and restless unconsciousness. She reached up to clear her vision, and found her hands dripping wet and cold. She thrashed violently awake, sitting up with her back straight. Opening her eyes, she realized her startling predicament. She sat in a cold, white bathtub, most of her skin exposed, save for the chest and lower extremities made somewhat modest by thin washcloths wrapped around her. She shivered at the sudden awareness of the chill of the ambiguous room around her shoulders, the steaming water in the bath like fire in comparison. She did not know this room or where it belonged. The setting was strange, like something out of a film you’d dig up around the Halloween season and shove back into the movie cupboard after the month had passed. The room exhibited a pair of double sinks, white porcelain in grey marble, but no faucets, murky blue tiles along the floor sparkled like a deep ocean, and a great, gold framed mirror hung on the wall across from the bath where she now sat. There were no windows, and no doors, only a possibly 2 inch wide slit in the wall farthest from her toes. She noticed the feet of the tub, talons like a birds, which stood precariously with a few claws on each side piercing into the shiny tiles on the floor.

She felt like she had been asleep for a year. On trying to remember how or why she may have gotten to be where she was, she only encountered a confused, muddled fog of nothing in particular for days or maybe even months before waking up in the outlandish setting. She felt her heart swell to her throat, threatening to jump and slip right out of her half open mouth, and she knew she had to get out. She twisted her body slowly, limbs aching from disuse, and sucked in a sharp wheeze at the harsh stinging sensation that radiated down her back like a shock from an electrical socket. Her legs, weak like a newborn horse’s, gave out from under her and she slipped suddenly back into the scorching tub as the water sloshed out and onto the floor, colored almost black over the tiles. She forced herself back up onto her feet with strength from as far down as she could reach and staggered bleary eyed, one foot in front of the other, out of the tub. She grabbed clumsily for the sink counter as her head began to feel squeezed and her vision blacked from the outside in before clearing again.

The stinging hadn’t stopped. It was now accompanied by an agonizing throbbing, as though her heart had vacated her chest in favor of the space between her shoulders. She let go of the grey marble countertop and gravitated sluggishly across the room towards the positively imposing, gold framed mirror that watched from the far wall. Every inch moved felt as though something clawed through the skin on her back, digging to reach inside. She saw herself for the first time in the reflection of the mirror, her hair matted down with water and inky trails of makeup smeared down her cheeks. She twisted her body as best she could, yelping at the suddenly aggravated pain from the unusual position. She choked for a moment, processing the sight that assaulted her eyes and her body.

Across her upper back was a sunflower, so utterly realistic she swore the muddy aroma of soil entered the room for a brief moment before disappearing back into the smell of sweat and kitchen cleansers from before. The yellow ink was frightening against her skin, a severe contrast with the grey, sickly tinge she appeared as. She shut in her throat a small sob. Someone had spent hours, maybe even days on the piece that covered the span between her shoulders. However the hurt did not come from there. Through the middle of the flower, a deep, jagged gash marred the thin skin, inches below her neck down to the small of her lower back. Irritated veins extended from the wound in all directions like tiny red snakes and she clenched her eyes closed as she choked down another unwelcome groan. She had to get out of here. She just didn’t know how.

"Call Me"

“Hey I-”... “N-...No, no, no he’s fine now its fine…”

“Yes he is!”... “Yes.”... “No, I didn’t, I-” … “I didn’t take him, no.”

“Why would I take him there!”... “I don’t care about that, they-”....

“He-Hey! Hey Listen to me! Listen! To me, George, they don’t know what they’re doing!”

“Well, apparently you don’t either!”... “Oh, but who’s home, huh? Not you!”...

“Well, you couldn’t even be bothered to call? This is what it takes? I swear I-”...

“Just shut up for a second! I can’t get mad, he’ll hear.”... “Upstairs right now.”...

“I took the door off.”... “Well what if he tries to lock me out?”... ‘N-...No I-I…”

“No, I can’t do that, that’s not…”... “I’m not gonna send him away! I can’t risk it!”...

“We can find one up North! They’re everywhere up there a bit, we-”...

“I can handle it, George, stop it! It’s fine!”... “Well he didn’t did he?”... “Don’t you dare threaten me!”...

“Yes, I know what I’m doing, god dammit!”... “Ha, I’d like to see you try!”...

“No, he doesn’t he’s fine!”... “9 hours? I don’t know!”... “George! George, Geor-”...

“Don’t you hang up on me! We don’t need you! Hey! George! George!”... “Ugh, what the hell.”