Everything's the Same

The only sound is me, and my tapping foot. The silence wraps around me and squeezes and doesn’t stop. I wonder what the world will look like after I’m out, I wonder how the people have changed. The room dings, like the old bells they used to stick on doors in the shops, and I look up to the clock. Bright red numbers scream at me: 00:10.

I brace my hands against the metal bench I’m sitting on. My momentum carries me to the shut door in the room. I wait. And wait. Sweat begins to travel down my neck. My thoughts race. What if no one comes?

I glance at the clock--it reads -00:01? What is happening? “Hello?,” I yell. The strain on my voice makes me cough. “Hello!,” I yell, pounding on the door, doubling over hacking.

No one comes. The silence, after all the pounding, is the only thing that bothers to let its presence be known. I sink, tears pinging off the metal floor, my body shaking, the walls closing in.

I pound the floor, again and again, hoping it will break, failing to notice how warm my hands are, how golden light creeps up them, taking over the skin; failing to notice the crack in the floor that starts at the end of my fingers; failing to notice the twin crack that starts by my other hand. I only notice when the ground rumbles--when it roars from its very depths. I look down, not to my hands, but to the cracks. I scream, backing up, up, the cracks chasing me, spiraling out to the other side of the room.

My back hits the door, and in an instant there’s nothing behind me. I fall onto something hard. I can still hear the roar from the cracks, but I can’t see them. I look up and gasp. In the middle of the door, there is a giant gaping hole, metal dripping. Red heat glows around the sides, the size of me. I stare at it, unable to move, unable to do anything but wipe the sweat from my eyes. And that’s when I see it--my hands are the color of the sun; my hands that emit a glow, the color of rays.

I scream, a scream the rips my throat raw, a scream that bounces up from the ground and into space. I shake my hands--I want to throw them off. I want it to stop, just stop. I scramble from the ground, shaking my hands, running backwards and--

I’m falling, twisting. There's murky water below me--water full of who-knows-what. I don’t want to die and--

A funnel of light slashes the water below me. Light from my hands! My glowing hands! The light morphs into a tornado, twisting, turning, carrying me up, up into the air. I scream again. I just want this to stop. I wish this were all a dream, wish I was still be in stasis in that room.

Most of all, I want my hands back.

The air that’s carrying me up stops. I fall. Fall, scream, colors rushing past me--hard ground-- firecrackers--black.

**********

My eyes crack open slowly. The world is a blurry mess. I am dimly aware of something wet coating the back of my head. I groan, rolling over, my head still full of fireworks.

My vision slowly clears, and I finger the cobblestones beneath my hand, finger each intricate crack.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I sit up, the world spinning slightly. I glance around, and for a second I wonder if I wasn’t locked up in a room for a 100 years. Maybe I’m crazy; maybe I escaped some kind of hospital.

Because everything looks the same as when I left it. Exactly the same. Same cobblestone streets, same Target on the corner, same city, same Trader Joe’s by the target, same giant apartment complex near a furniture store, and a clothing shop.

(I hope I’m not crazy.)

Why hasn’t anything changed?

Memories come rushing back: visits with my sister to the clothing store, visions of my old life. Then I remember my hands. I remember falling. I bring them up to my face, scared of what I’ll find. But they're normal . . . normal human hands.

Maybe I am crazy. (I can’t be though, I can’t be.)

I shake my head, willing myself to forget about my hands, my predicament, forget about possibly being insane . Maybe this is all just a dream. Maybe if I go to my house, my family will be there, and I’ll wake up in my room, and my sister will be there asking me if I’m okay, because I was screaming in my sleep.

That’s what I’ll do then. I’ll go home. I stand up, and the world tilts a little. That’s when I see the blood on the ground where my head was. Slowly, hand shaking, I bring my fingers to my head, then to my face.

My hand is coated in blood.