By: Dread
Lila woke up to a sound that was familiar, yet she couldn’t place what it was. Slowly, she cracked her eyes open, and was met with a dull, dark blue ceiling. She blinked, trying to remove the colour from her sight–it was probably just a trick of the light. The colour persisted. Suddenly, she started looking around the room frantically, trying to find an explanation for the coloured ceiling, and then it hit her. The sound that she found so familiar was the noise from the party. She was not at home. With this sudden discovery, Lila tried to bolt upright, determined to understand where she was, and why.
“Stop that, it only makes it harder to run an analysis on you,” came a harsh voice from somewhere beside her, slightly above her head. Again, Lila tried to look at the source of the noise, and this time she found an older woman, probably a doctor based on her white coat.
“Where am I?” Lila asked the woman, wanting answers. This was not a place she recognized–her house didn’t have any blue ceilings, and if this were a hospital or doctor’s office, the ceilings would have been white, not blue.
“You never know, you know? Maybe some of those hospital rooms do have blue ceilings,” said the doctor, and Lila’s blood ran cold. How had the woman known what she was thinking? Brain wave reading technology did exist, but surely nothing advanced enough to read her mind so quickly and so trivially existed yet–
“Except it does, dear. It’s a reality you’re going to have to face. Now, I’m going to ask you a few questions, and you are going to answer to the best of your ability. Understand?” When Lila nodded, she started her questions.
“What exactly did you hear at the party that you were asking your friend about?” asked the woman, and her tone implied that she did not, in the least bit, trust Lila. It was clear that she would likely end up reading Lila’s brainwaves to find out the truth whether or not Lila replied honestly, and asking her was only a measure taken to make it easier to do so–Lila would be forced to think about it, and subsequently, her thoughts on the matter would be easily available.
“Yes, that’s right. Now, what did you hear?” prodded the woman impatiently. Lila took a moment to think before replying.
“There was a noise…it wasn’t very clear, and I couldn’t make out exactly what it was.” She regained her confidence as she spoke, comforted by the fact that she had nothing to hide.
“Is that so? Then why is it that you were so worried by it?” asked the woman. She seemed to be losing a bit more of her patience and composure every minute. Lila wondered whether she was being forced to interrogate her.
The question, however, confused Lila. Who wouldn’t be concerned by a random noise they couldn’t place, especially one that only they could hear? It might have been a sign of any number of health issues, relating to her mental health, her hearing, or both. Besides, it was creepy, and although Lila had not read too many horror books in her life, she had heard enough syopses from her friends to be bothered by strange occurrences. She opened her mouth to articulate her confusion, but was stopped by the woman.
“Yes, yes. I know it was a strange noise. But why did it make you pass out?”
Lila was startled by the question. Did I really pass out? It makes sense, given that I have no memory of how I got here, but that’s still kind of surprising. Again, Lila wondered whether there was an underlying health issue within the situation.
“I…don’t know,” she replied simply. When the woman simply looked at her with a glance that seemed to say, Really? That’s all you have to say? she continued. “I think I was just really startled by the situation. I’ve never heard something like that before.” She paused for a moment to think, before continuing. “Well, not without having everyone else around me hear it, too.” Lila was still trying to process the fact that she had passed out during the party. But if she had passed out there, then she was either at a medical clinic of some sort, or still at the banquet hall. The thought pushed her to ask the question that had been on her mind first when she woke up.
“By the way, where am I?” asked Lila, looking at the woman expectantly. “And who are you?”
The woman’s lips tightened into a thin line at the questions, and Lila wondered for a moment whether she had made a mistake by asking. After a momentary pause, however, the woman replied, “Where do you think you are?”
Lila took a moment to process the question. Why would I ask if I knew? She thought, on the verge of annoyance. But this caused the woman to glare at her, so she racked her brain, trying to figure out the most likely answer. “Am I still at the banquet hall?”
“Yes, you–”
The woman was cut off abruptly as the door in the room, which Lila had barely registered earlier due to the low lighting, suddenly burst open, and another woman walked in, wearing a costume mask. She said a few words to the woman interrogating Lila in a voice too low for Lila to hear, nodded at something that was said, and left. As she closed the door behind her, Lila could swear that she saw the woman glare at her, although it was hard to tell through the darkness of the room.
The woman interrogating Lila, whose mouth had been pulled into a tight line during the entire interaction–Lila briefly wondered if that was one of her only expressions–turned to face her again, saying. “Now, where were we?” After a brief pause that almost seemed to be done purely for dramatic purposes, she continued, saying, “Ah, yes. I remember now. Yes, you’re still at the banquet hall. As for me, you can refer to me as Doctor Emmaline.” Lila took a moment to register this new name, but was quickly cut off by the doctor–Doctor Emmaline, she reminded herself–saying, “I think we’re done for now. I’ll take off the wires connecting you to the brainwave reading machine, and you can look around the room. The only rule is that you cannot leave this room.”
Lila opened her mouth to ask why, or any of the countless other questions rushing through her mind at this statement, but the Doctor simply unplugged the wires, wrapped them around the machine, and started to leave, pushing the machine out of the room on its cart, which Lila hadn’t noticed before. Right before she closed the door behind her, she paused for a moment, turned to look at Lila, and said, “Oh, and by the way, Mr. Doordin will be by to see you shortly.” With that, she left, leaving Lila alone in the room.
Lila took a moment to look around the room more thoroughly than she had when she had first woken up. It was quite barren, with just the small bed Lila was in, which had dark blue sheets that matched the ceiling. Lila wondered momentarily who had decided to make dark blue the primary colour in the room, and why, before her thoughts were once again filled with questions about her situation. Who is Doctor Emmaline? Why did she have brainwave-reading technology? I thought that was still in primary development? And who is Mr. Doormin? Why did I pass out at the party? Are those three things connected? Why–
Lila’s thoughts were cut off once again by the door opening, this time with a man, who Lila assumed was Mr. Doordin, walking through. He carried the air of someone important, and Lila thought he might have been a businessman, a thought that was only supported by the fact that he was wearing a suit. Is he someone from the party? It would explain why he’s wearing a suit. Lila racked her brain, trying to remember whether or not she had seen him at the party. It was difficult, with the low light obscuring most of his face, and Lila found that she could not remember him. In fact, Lila had never even heard his name before, despite the fact that he had the air of someone important. Confused, Lila blurted out, “Who are you?”
The question seemed to startle the man, who took a short while to respond. “My name is Edwin Doormin, but I think you should have known that already, no?” The man seemed suspicious of Lila, just like Doctor Emmaline had, and Lila wondered whether there was something she was missing. Why would they be suspicious of her? She hadn’t done anything questionable–not to her knowledge, at least–so it didn’t make sense for everyone to be suspicious of her, especially when they were complete strangers. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I fainted, she thought to herself. They might think I have a disease, or that I was faking it. But then, her mind registered the question Mr. Doormin had just asked her.
“Yes…Doctor Emmaline mentioned you would be visiting. But who exactly are you? And why are you here?” asked Lila, voicing her confusion. The man seemed slightly annoyed at the question, as though it had offended him. Lila felt panic rise within her. Was this man someone she was supposed to know? She racked her brain again, trying to find any recollection of this man, this time aided by a name to go with the face. Still, she could not determine who he was.
“Well, Lila,” he started, and Lila felt guilty as she realized the man knew who she was, but she had no clue who he was, “I think I should be asking you the same thing. Who are you? And where is Miss Roosney?”
Lila felt her mind spin from all of the confusion. “How would I know where Miss Roosney is?” she asked. “I’ve only ever talked to her once, and that was today, for a few minutes.”
Mr. Doormin only narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know how you know, but I know that you know. Now, where is Miss Roosney?”
“I don’t know!” Lila exclaimed, exasperated at the situation. She had no clue where Miss Roosney was–she hadn’t seen her since their brief conversation, after which the noise had started and she had moved to a completely different part of the room.
As she said this, the man’s eyes widened, and he whipped around and left in a rush. To Lila, it seemed as though he was frantic. What is going on? She wondered. And what happened to Miss Roosney? Lila got up, dread coursing through her as she realized that this situation might not just be about her fainting anymore. She dashed to the door and tried the handle. It was locked. She started turning the handle frantically, captured by fear as she finally registered the creepiness of the entire situation: people she didn’t know were walking in and interrogating her, she was having her mind read by a form of technology that shouldn’t have even existed efficiently yet, and a woman who was influential in her field was missing. This isn’t good, she thought to herself. And she tried the handle again.