My Second Closet (World of Mr. Plant + Other Ashur Gharavi Creations Fanfic)

Chapter Seventeen-A Stab in the Back, Specifically the Shoulder

Why can't I open my eyes?

Why do they feel open though?

What the hell happened?

"You're about to fucking die if you don't calm down."

I turn my head this way and that, just to see who's talking to me.

"Where are you?" I call out. "Who are you?"

"I'm not your guardian angel, that's for sure. I'm coming, but they're going to pull me out of it if I don't get out of your room in twenty minutes," the voice replies.

Again, I take in my surroundings just to pass the time. Everything looks like my room, but isn't. Where are my masks? Where is the color? Why is someone crying in the corner? Why are there shadows on the walls?

I step closer, two shadows following right beside me. Everything becomes dark. I stand right behind him, something cold in my left hand.

This man has been haunting me. For months, I've been trying to figure out who he is. What was his deal? Why did he leave a notebook full of indescribable things?

I want to ask him everything.

But why do I want to kill him for it?

I know it took up some time...

...but Molly got friends out of it.

"What is your name?"

Ashur

Ashur

Ashur

Ashur

Ashur

I place my right hand on his shoulder.

"This won't hurt, Ashur."

I raise my hand with the knife in it, and plunge it right into his shoulder. He doesn't scream. I make him turn his head towards me, and I realize.

He's rotting.

I don't scream. I don't cry. I've seen rotting corpses before. Why should I freak out now?

But it feels so much like losing an old friend.

"Alice, please, just wake up."

Why did the voice change? Why does it sound like...

"Argos?" I call out. Hoping for an answer, perhaps, or for him to be here with me.

"He can't hear you," the first voice says. "Neither of them can. Please, calm down."

The voice is coming from above me now. Or is it from my own head? I can't tell anymore.

"Am I dead?"

"No. If you were dead, you'd know. All humans know. At least the ones I've run into so far, except for you and your sister."

Oh. I don't know how I didn't figure it out earlier.

"Have you been watching my dreams?" I ask him.

"Yeah. Even those wet ones."

"You mean the rain?"

"Yeah."

Silence.

Trees start to rustle just out of view, near the window. It all seems to echo in the room. It feels like the walls are closing in.

"Why?"

"I get extremely bored, Alice. There really isn't any opportunity to leave and take someone I dislike off the list when I'm living with Argos," he says. He mutters the next part. "And I also wanted to know more about my roommates. Your dreams are so much... is fun the right word?"

I don't know.

"Maybe," I reply. How is he so quiet normally? It's like he's a different person here. "How long is it going to take to get out of here?"

"I'm a flower man, not a miracle worker," he says," you'll wake up eventually, and I'll be right here. You'll be okay."

"Is it bad?"

It takes him a bit to answer. I giggle from the thought of his mouth wide open in shock that I'd practically ask him to look at me right in the eye and tell me how much damage I've taken.

"Do you really want to know?"

I nod.

"Alright," he says. Still trying to figure out what to say. "They had to reconstruct some of you. You have stitches up and down. Your arm... You were lucky to even make it to the hospital when you did. You lost so much blood, I... I... I thought you were going to die."

I smile. "But I didn't. I'm okay, and I'll be up in no time."

It's quiet again. The hesitance is there.

"It's been two weeks."

Or maybe the hesitance is not there.

Is it?

I stare down at the carpet hugging my shoes. The same shoes I went out in. The same clothes, even, down to the red-and-black-striped Halloween socks I didn't realize I've been wearing until now. The bracelet I've forgotten to wear, as if it knew I was going to get ran over, is most likely on top of a stack of masks that Argos put in the attic.

It's all my fault.

If I haven't gotten mad at Mom and Josh, I'd be fine right now. Molly and Argos wouldn't be worried about me.

If I didn't look in that stupid closet, everything would be okay.

"Alice, you're okay. Just focus on getting better."

I feel two arms around me. Mr. Plant isn't there, but I feel it.

So sad.

I should be dead.

Why didn't I?

*****

Word Count: 831

Almost the end!