Emilie
Dimly aware that my senses were decieving me, I crawled out from my hiding space. Just a narrow crack between the unopenable washing room door and the wall, it was a perfect place to hide my small frame when I wanted to stay hidden.
Now, it seemed about seven thirty, and as the sun outside had fallen to such a degree it shoked me how long I had been hidden.
I wipped my dusty hands on my long cloak and carefully walked down the hall towards the hospital wing, where I was supposed to be waiting for my inection half and hour ago. Surely the nurse would of grumbled about my absence and left by now?
I opened the door a crack, and sure enough she had gone. Hobbling to the end of the wing towards the entrance, I heard low moans and high pitched screams, throbbing in my earlobes. I hated the sound of agony. I screamed enough of it myself.
Making my way towards my upstairs turret I worried about my lack of injections. I had now missed five, and that was extremely dangerous with my condition, though I could not let another needle pierce me, I had sworn an oath not to and I would not let Emilie down.
Emilie had died two weeks ago, marking the start of my lack of ejections. She had died of luekemia, and even though that was common here, it still shoked me as no one had even known of her illness untill she threw up her insides and died on the way to the hospital wing.
I had long ago shed my tears and it seemed there were no more. I was not the kind to cry, but Emilie's death had saddened me to the extent that I had began to mutilate myself again; another reason I hid away from the hospital wing and the nunns.
I reached the spiral stairs that lead to the East and North wings and climbed them, closing my eyes as I climbed to ease the irrational sensation of vertigo I felt every time I walked up these stairs. It seemed stupid and unnecessary to feel this way, but I could not suppress this feeling, since I had long ago watched my cousin fall to his gloomy death.
I had been five at the time, he seven, and I had only just came to the nunnery orphanage. I had heard rumours of deaths by the flight of stairs, but these tales I dissmissed as lies trying to decieve my in thinking the worse. But when he had fell, I knew they had not been lies at all, but the grim truth.
I reached the corridoor that lead to the turret. I was on my own in the turret that I called my room, as long ago a young woman had been poisoned and had fallen to her death out of the wide window. Many previous occupants swore they could hear the womans cries as she fell into the ravine that lay below, and I did not doubt their claims. Unsettling as it was to hear a womans voice in the middle of the night, I dismissed this fright, as I was too busy consumed in my own voices and did not have time for others.
Now, inside my room, I shivered lightly as a cool breeze flew through my window, as though calling my name. I suppose the young woman had heard the call too and had followed it to her grave, but I never followed it, for it bore an eerie presence that I did not wish to follow.
I did not follow anyone but myslef. Sick as I was, I never followed the nurses advice. Instead, I wandered the endless fields at night, not feeling the cool snow lightly fall on my shoulders. Emilie had allways said I had a fire burning in my heart, but I never knew what to make of this claim. Was she mocking me? Or did she truly mean what she said? I did not know.
I sat gently on my bed, awkwardly sitting on my legs so I would not get too comfortable and fall asleep. I disliked sleeping immensly, it was a hatred I came to familiarlise with. I did not know who I would be without it.
Emilie had lived to sleep. All day she had worked as hard as she could so at night she could lay her head as soft as a feather on her pillow and drift off to sleep in eaze. I was allways cooped up in the library, and so I dreamed enough in the daytime. I was never really tierd in the night, sleeping away through books when the characters were sleeping. I was never really hungry either, as I seemed to absord the food the characters ate and convinced myself that I had eaten it too. Of course, this was not a wise thing to do, as I was dreadfully thin. But I did not worry. I ate enough at supper to last me the whole next day and if I ever got hungry I could eat a candy house or a gingerbread man.
I liked that: the fact I could pretend I was eating something when I really wasn't, I liked the fact that I could imagine the taste and my mouth chewing the food slowely and then believe it. It was a talent of mine, but a talent that got me in trouble.
I didn't eat enough, they said. I wouldn't live past twenty if I kept it going. This thought did not frighten me, but merely made me distracted. I didn't have time to think of such things, then or now.
My room was cold and eeire.
No light shone from the moon, as my turret did not face its' face. In a way, this was a blessing, because I would not be constantly watched by it's haunting prescence. The moon was daunting to me, because Emilie had loved it. She had loved to fall asleep starring at it for hours apon hours on end, wondering if there was more to the moon than first met the eye. She had made up stories that she truly eneded up believing, because she imagined it long enough. She had told me one night, as we both gazed up at the moon that one night a great animal would swallow the moon whole, eating it devourously untill there was nothing left, and the stars would die because the moon was their benefactor for light and strength to shine. Sometimes, after she had died, I wondered if this was true. I had no one else in my life who claimed such fanatical theories such as Emilies', and so when so died I told myself that I would believe them, for her sake, and for everyone elses, because no one else had the mind or the talent to dream up such thoughts.
I gazed out at the moon. Tonight it seemed hollow and thin. Emilie would say that it was like that because it knew it would be devoured soon and it was scared. She allways explained things in such simple ways, yet they were allways absoutely right. In any case, the way Emilie told things was the truth, and the extra descriptions, or "grown - ups talk" as we used to call it, was unnecessary.
Tonight, I was haunted by the moon, as I had been haunted when I knew Emilie's prescence was with me. It was like the moon was someone I knew, or someone I was to be reminded of. I did not know.
I felt pain in my stomach, and knew it was the lack of injections. I knew that soon my death would come. It was inevitable, though I was not afraid.
I wondered if there would ever be a light that would shine on me from the moon. I could see it, yes, but that was never enough. I wanted to feel it, to know what it was like to have the moons' eyes crawl over you. It was forbidden to be outseide after dark in this place, and I had never questioned that law because I knew I was safer inside than out anyway. People who were not to be trusted lingered in the side of the twon where the orphanage was, and I suspect that that was why this place was so grim. It was because no one here even seemed to feel free. Well at least, I didn't.
I could hear the call of sleep now, though I was afraid to close my eyes. I was afaid that I would never wake up; I was afraid I would be consumed by darkness.
Darkness. That was where Emilie was now. And I would not let myself walk apon that path. I had to stay strong, get myself out of here, find a life. I had to live, at least, for Emilie's sake. I had to eat...
But now, gazing up at the moon, I knew I had not long to go before I was consumed myself, so what point was there to live anyway? My soul was yearning for death, and I knew no one was going to claim me as their son or adopt me. There was no real reason to live.
I could hear the wind whistling from the window, a call, a....voice, calling me near. I frowned and walked over to the window, and leaned out.
There was darkness and nothing more. Nothing that I had hoped to see was there. There was no young woman and there was no Emilie. I had hoped Emilie would return to call to me when the time was right, and that time was now, though she still didn't come. I waited there, staring out from the turret, swaying in the wind, for what seemd like eternity, but still, nothing.
I leaned a little further out, playing with the wind as It held me safe. But still, there was only the wind and me.
And now, I could feel the pain in my stomach grow, knotted loops grew tighter, and I knew I was falling. Though I was not aware of this, as I only had my mind on Emilie.