The walls be­tween the re­al­ity of this box and the sur­re­al­ity of my imag­i­na­tion are some­times thin, but I can­not help but imag­ine that, were I to imag­ine some­thing, I’d imag­ine some­thing else. Some­how, for all the vivid­ness of my imag­i­na­tion, and for all my long­ing to for­ever sink into it, the vivid re­al­ity of this box still out­runs my imag­ined at­tempts to es­cape it, and my real at­tempts fare less well still, all at­tempts end­ing in an iden­ti­cal event:

I wake up on my bed.

I wake up on my bed just as I have done ten thou­sand times be­fore. I wake up on my bed, in this box, alone but for the ants, alone in my box, a large box, fifty feet to a side, twenty to the other, if my feet are a foot long.

This box is of­ten warm but rarely stuffy, which as time passes only flum­moxes me more and more, as in all my years here I have yet to lo­cate any ap­par­ent open­ings through which even air could travel, much less food, and yet I still breathe, and I still wake up on my bed to find meals laid out for me, the del­i­cate metal trays rest­ing upon the deep rose­wood of the desk.

Shiny bolts keep the desk on the floor, shiny as the rings dan­gling upon the bed­posts, rings used only in my fan­tasies. I’m looked upon by the still life, its block of choco­late, jar of honey, and glass of blood red wine brushed in strokes slightly too me­chan­i­cal, wrapped in a rather too or­nate frame, still much too small for the mas­sive far wall. It lies be­tween the walls of screens I can­not break, in which live, when I’m good, ever-chang­ing im­ages of a world I can­not reach; the screens yield only to the mir­rors I can­not shat­ter, over in the cor­ner where the wood turns to mar­ble, and in the mir­rors lives a tall girl who never smiles. I’d find her long black hair beau­ti­ful on any­one else.

A mar­ble basin and shiny metal spouts make a sink, next to the toi­let, which sits, noth­ing to speak of, be­side where the wa­ter falls from the ceil­ing, warm to some­one else’s taste, all with the el­e­gant grav­ity of some­one else’s de­sign.

Their de­sign is that I am here, in this box, and so I have been, ever since I first woke up on this bed, ever since a day I some­times half re­mem­ber with flashes of gold and a sweet taste I’ve not felt since.

I could­n’t go a day with­out choco­late, but if I tasted that taste again, per­haps I could. The com­fort­ing warmth of each meal’s hot co­coa is too cold, the calm­ing rush of each din­ner’s smooth choco­late bars and truf­fles too harsh, but they’re what I have. I drink the co­coa, and it does enough. I eat the choco­lates, if I need to quiet the empti­ness, or if they’re the kind I want at the time, but if they aren’t, it’s okay, I stash them away in the desk or in the night­stand, and they’ll be the kind I want or need later.

Al­ways I leave a lit­tle bit on a plate in the cor­ner for the ants. They seem to like it. They seem to like me. I would like them back, I think, if only they kept to their own busi­ness and their own plate in­stead of crawl­ing all over my things and some­times even onto the bed.

I’m sure I’ve gone mad in here more than once, and per­haps I’m mad now. Spread across the screens on the walls is an im­age eerily sim­i­lar to what lies be­fore me right now: pen, pa­per, and choco­late cheese­cake, sit­ting upon a heavy wooden desk. Only, in­stead of me at my desk, the news re­ports on the screens show a man, and where my cheese­cake’s dec­o­ra­tive spears of dark choco­late pierce the sur­face of the cake, his spears of white choco­late pierce the roof of his mouth, ex­it­ing through his eyes, blood drip­ping from their tips, down onto his fore­head.

“Cheese­cake Killer,” the re­porters re­peat, or else “Death by Cheese­cake,” their words even more re­dun­dant given the head­lines right be­low their faces.

I eat the cheese­cake any­way. I must be imag­in­ing things, but if I am imag­in­ing choco­late cheese­cake, who am I to com­plain? But I still think that, good or bad, if I were to imag­ine some­thing, this would not be it.

It’s hard to keep my thoughts to­gether, so I write, and write, and write. There’s not much else to do but browse the web, when they let me. I’ve writ­ten reams. Of­ten merely scrib­ble. Com­monly words. Some­times sen­tences. Oc­ca­sion­ally thoughts. There is a si­mul­ta­ne­ous per­ma­nence and im­per­ma­nence to it. Some­times the pa­per dis­ap­pears. Some­times, what I wrote ends up on the screens, per­haps if they think it was good, per­haps to en­cour­age me to write when not part of as­sign­ments, or per­haps to dis­cour­age it, some­times it’s hard to tell.

I don’t know why I’m writ­ing this. Noth­ing hap­pens in this box and I’ll only re­hash the same frus­tra­tions over and over. It won’t be in­ter­est­ing. It won’t need to ex­ist. No­body will ever want to read it, and no­body will ever get to, no mat­ter how much I crave to be heard.

I long to leave a mark on the world, but I can­not, lost as I am some­where within it. The sole as­pect that would make me re­mark­able is the as­pect I dream to es­cape, for liv­ing in this box de­stroys me.

In my dreams, I am sur­rounded by glass over­look­ing moun­tains. In my re­al­ity, I’m sur­rounded by walls. Some­times, I’ll spend all day putting pic­tures of moun­tains up onto the screens, and some­times, I’ll spend all week, and some­times, I’ll spend long enough that I’ll wake up on my bed and the com­puter will be gone and I’m left with­out the pic­tures, but with my thoughts, alone, starv­ing for some­thing nei­ther my overly deca­dent meals nor all the choco­late in the would could ever pro­vide.

My thoughts can­not es­cape this box, so why do I write them?

To­day, I woke up al­ready drained, a metal­lic taste in my mouth. It hap­pens, some­times. But, as if in trade, this jour­nal ap­peared. Sturdy, wrapped in brown leather, and just about the nicest one I’ve ever re­ceived. I’m writ­ing in it, here, from my box, with choco­late. To­mor­row, it may dis­ap­pear. It is what it is.

— Emily

I woke up to an ob­nox­ious alarm, sound­ing ob­nox­iously early, which hap­pens from time to time, of­ten when I’ve done poorly on as­sign­ments, but some­times it’s hard to tell. It is what it is.

The stains upon the walls are changed. There’s a new paint­ing, re­plac­ing the pre­vi­ous still life. It’s quite a bit larger: the moun­tain seems to fill the wall, al­most spilling over the edges of the can­vas, and I want to fall into it and sit in the cor­ner with the lit­tle man, hands to the fire, star­ing up…

But the view is noth­ing next to that of the screens on the walls: a floor-to-ceil­ing view look­ing down a moun­tain­side, dark green trees flow­ing down to the stream be­low. I can al­most make my­self be­lieve it’s real, that be­hind the un­break­able glass of the wall is not elec­tronic equip­ment pro­ject­ing this scene for me, but an en­tire world, stretch­ing out be­low me…

I could look at it all day, I thought, but in­stead I looked at the desk, upon which was a chess set, half the blown glass pieces clear and yel­low, the other clear and brown. Lit­tle num­bers were etched down the side of the board, and lit­tle let­ters down the other. Upon the knights were horns, un­ex­pect­edly sharp, glint­ing with un­ex­pected threat in the light of the screens.

What am I sup­posed to do with it? Leave it be? Play against my­self? Per­haps I should just play and see what hap­pens? I moved a yel­low pawn just in case. It prob­a­bly won’t mat­ter. Per­haps the alarm will be even ear­lier to­mor­row. Per­haps the set will be al­to­gether gone. It would be a shame, though: while not my taste in de­sign, its pres­ence does brighten the room.

I would have pre­ferred the stuffed bear back. While wak­ing up to find it lay­ing in bed with me can be un­set­tling, it is nice to hug, as ju­ve­nile as it may seem for a twenty-three year old. It was never enough, though.

Next to the chess set was a lovely eggs Bene­dict over smoked salmon, over as­para­gus and spinach and ba­con and pota­toes. I’m afraid I’ve smudged the pa­per a bit with the sauce. It’s a de­cent break­fast, but in­stead of my usual choco­late crois­sant or mac­a­roon, there’s a rasp­berry pas­try.

Even if I miss the choco­late, and even if I find its ab­sence rather strange, I find the break­fast al­to­gether fan­tas­tic, as I usu­ally do. It’s just choco­late, right? Just be­cause I’ve had it every day for the past decade or two does­n’t mean I have to have it to­day. It’s just a kind of food.

“Bad girls don’t get choco­late?” I won­der aloud, but the screens show no ad­mo­ni­tions, and I don’t know what I might’ve done that would’ve been bad.

If the stuffed bear were here, I’d call her “Amelia,” and hug her tight, and lie sweetly to her. It’ll be al­right, I’d tell her. I’m here with you. You’re okay. You’re fine. You’re good. We’ll go to sleep, and when we wake up, there’ll be choco­late. I’d wrap the cov­ers tight around us both, and try to feel her hug­ging back. I’d let out my tears as only she lets me: I made my­self out­grow cry­ing, only to re­al­ize I needed it more as an adult than I ever did as a child.

The bed in­vites me. I want to tan­gle my­self within it and scream into my pil­low, but once I start, I am un­sure of my abil­ity to stop, so if I do so, I must do it later: the wak­ing pe­riod is too young to wear my­self to sleep.

I do not need Amelia, though. I need some­thing more.

I am yours, I want to hear, and I don’t want to hear it from the bear. I want to hear it from some­one I trust, some­one I love, and some­one who trusts and loves me back. She’d hug me, and I’d hug her, and I would tell her that she is good and that every­thing would be okay and make her be­lieve me and make me be­lieve me and… I would kiss her… and she would kiss me.

And per­haps she would play chess with me, and per­haps, with every piece she lost, she could lose some­thing else as well…

And now, the bed tempts me in a dif­fer­ent way. Like the chess set, I have re­ceived many things, from this jour­nal to pen­cils and pa­per to a poster of an ac­tress I had been ob­sess­ing over, and on oc­ca­sion, I’ve re­ceived items of a more in­ti­mately en­joy­able na­ture… And even if these in­ti­mate items weren’t ex­actly the kind of items I re­ally want—per­haps what I re­ally want is thought to be too dan­ger­ous—they would still do the job.

But I re­sist the bed’s call. I long to feel pro­duc­tive, even if I lack any­thing I want to pro­duce. There is­n’t much to do, but what­ever there is, I should do it, even if it’s math or writ­ing as­sign­ments, for it could be bet­ter than noth­ing, and might be bet­ter than plea­sur­ing, and would def­i­nitely be bet­ter than screams that no one will hear and at­tempts at tears that will never come.

— Emily

In my twenty years at this fine es­tab­lish­ment I’ve al­ways had choco­late with every meal, and no amount of writ­ing can dis­tract me from its ab­sence.

Three meals now I’ve woken up to no choco­late. The high­light of my wak­ing pe­riod is gone, no ex­pla­na­tion, just gone.

It’s just choco­late. But it was al­ways there. Now it’s not. I guess it is what it is.

I tried not to think about it. It did­n’t work. Now I’m writ­ing about it.

I’m not sure it’s work­ing. I’m not sure what else to write.

Even last night’s left­over choco­late is gone.

So are the ants. They were only around for the choco­late.

— Emily

I’m up­set I can be made to feel this way. I don’t know what to do.

— Emily

Two weeks have passed, or so the com­puter claims. I don’t re­mem­ber when I last slept that long.

I still wish I had choco­late.

— Emily

There’s a scratch­ing sound in the wall.

There’s never been any sort of sound in the walls.

I can just barely hear it, and I’m still rather cu­ri­ous if I might be imag­in­ing it, I’ve imag­ined stranger, but it’s hard to tell if I’m imag­in­ing it while I’m imag­in­ing it.

The walls look the same as they did when they last changed. Still the same stains—that dark spot four inches from the toi­let, that light spot right off the bed, the spot that looks like… Any­way, it’s all the same even if I try not to no­tice. Still the same paint­ing of the moun­tain, with the man, and the fire.

I tried knock­ing against the wall, but the noise did not abate. What could it be?

Some­times, it sounds like lit­tle scratches, and some­times, like abrupt crunches, and some­times the tempo is even and some­times it has a pat­tern and some­times it’s just ragged and rough and with­out de­sign.

And it’s get­ting louder.

I’ve moved to my bed. I can’t here it from here. I think.

I try to breathe more slowly.

I def­i­nitely just heard some­thing. A crack? And I just head it again.

Is there a crack in the wall? I can’t make my­self look—

A chunk of ce­ment def­i­nitely just popped out. I’m go­ing to keep on writ­ing. Write, write any­thing, any­thing that pops into my head, not car­ing, just keep go­ing, kind of like those writ­ing ex­er­cises that are use­ful be­cause they just let me dump every­thing out like all the fear and ag­i­ta­tion and later I can sort through it when every­thing makes sense and there is­n’t this over­whelm­ing feel­ing of—

I looked.

Chunks of ce­ment have popped out of the wall. There is a layer of dust and de­bris on the ground next to where the scratch­ing sound em­anates.

There’s just been a loud clank­ing, like metal on ce­ment. What­ever has been bang­ing away must have made it through…

I can’t look. I can’t.

I see a spoon. The tip of a spoon.

The noises have stopped.

Do I hear some­thing?

Is some­one sob­bing?

I think I’m go­ing to take a look.

— Emily

“Hi,” I said. It was hard to see through the hole in the wall. I failed to see much at all. But the cry­ing abruptly stopped. “Are you… are you…?” I tried to ask.

“He-hello?” you asked me.

“Hi,” I re­peated.

“Hi?” you an­swered.

“Are you real?” I asked. It’s a rather silly ques­tion to ask and I feel rather em­bar­rassed. There was an­other per­son! It would be such a wel­come change! What does it mat­ter if she’s real? And if she was­n’t, why would she tell me any­way?

“I don’t know,” you said. “Are you?”

“I think,” I said, “so I must ex­ist. Right? But what does ex­is­tence even mean, re­ally—“ I was bab­bling.

You sighed. Qui­eter, I hear you say, “There’s a girl on the other end who thinks she’s a teenage philoso­pher.”

“Who are you talk­ing to?” I asked. I tried again to see through the hole. It was dark and eas­ily a foot long but at the end I saw one of your brown eyes star­ing back at me.

“I’m Rachel,” you said.

“I’m Emily.”

I woke up on my bed.

I sighed. It was the same room. Same walls, at least. Every­thing more or less how I left it: pa­pers on the table, com­puter still open, chess set still with that one yel­low pawn moved.

Ex­cept, now, there was also a ball on the desk. A small, bouncy ball. Not an item par­tic­u­larly high on my wish list, but it dis­tracted me enough to give it a bounce, and in­deed it bounced.

I looked to the cor­ner, and to what I was sure would be a plain wall. I’ve dreamt many a time be­fore of the wall open­ing up, of find­ing oth­ers, of find­ing es­cape.

But the hole was still there. Un­changed.

If it still ex­isted, I had thought, then you must ex­ist, too, right? What was your name?

“Rachel!” I called. “Rachel?”

I knelt down by the hole and looked through it. I saw hard­wood floor a bit like mine, but a lighter shade. Per­haps some mar­ble wall in the far end—or was it just tile? It’s quite far, and hard to be sure. A desk, awk­wardly small, in the mid­dle of the room, blocked my view of all but the feet of your bed. “Rachel!” I called again. I grabbed a spoon, left over from the ce­real and mil that com­prised my last meal—even my fa­vorite had­n’t cheered me from the miss­ing choco­late—and I be­gan to scrape vi­o­lently at the wall. It was slow work, but I could­n’t let up. “Rachel!” I called.

I kept scrap­ing, and the hole grew, and I thought maybe I could fit an arm through, but then—

I woke up on my bed. I rushed to the wall. Grabbed the spoon—

My hand stopped short of the hole, and the spoon dropped from my hand. Every­thing was rush­ing around me, I could feel the blood flow­ing through my veins and ar­ter­ies, and it all flowed into my head, and—

I woke up on my bed. I rushed to the wall. The spoon was gone.

“Rachel!” I called. “Rachel, please…”

I threw the ball at you, or to­wards your bed, I did­n’t even re­al­ize it had been in my hand, and I heard it bounce around…

I col­lapsed. “Rachel… Please be real… Please?”

I just—

It was all go­ing to be so dif­fer­ent.

I…

The ball just bumped into my arm!

— Emily

“How long have you been here?” I asked, my eyes wait­ing for your lips to move.

“A long time,” you said, your voice smoothly dis­tant, your eyes dis­sect­ing my own.

“Same here,” I told you, the words tum­bling out. I can’t re­mem­ber what I said, some­thing about not re­mem­ber­ing how I got here, about that sweet taste—your eye­brow rose so del­i­cately—but then I told you as sweet as it was it was­n’t as sweet as meet­ing you.

And you blinked, and turned your head away, and so did I, my eyes fix­ing on the bouncy ball, lay­ing there on the floor be­side me, and I felt my fin­gers wrap around it.

“What’s your fa­vorite color?” I asked.

“What does it mat­ter?” you said. I felt my fin­gers squeeze the ball, and my eyes move back to the hole in the wall.

“I like them all equally,” you said.

My eyes glanced from the ball to the hole. I felt my hand al­most move—I could just slide the ball through, through the ragged chunks of con­crete, just over to you—

“Ex­cept for or­ange. Or­ange sucks.”

“What about the fruit?”

You turned your head back to­ward mine, and once more your eyes bored into mine.

“They should all be de­stroyed.”

“That bad?” I asked.

“With my teeth.” I won­der how you’d eat an or­ange. Would you peel it first? I al­most asked you, but—

“What’s your fa­vorite?” you asked me.

“Fa­vorite what?”

“Fa­vorite what­ever,” you said.

“Choco­late.” I did­n’t need to hes­i­tate. Your brow fur­rowed just slightly, and your eyes shifted down from mine.

“Never had the plea­sure,” you said.

“Not with your din­ners?” I asked.

“Bad girls don’t get desserts.”

I wanted to look into your eyes, but in­stead I looked away.

“Or any­thing else, I sup­pose,” I said. Just your empty room, with no knick­knacks or toys or pleas­antries, just the desk, awk­wardly in the mid­dle.

I looked at the ball. My hand be­gan to move… And the ball rolled, slowly, through the hole, its yel­low sur­face glint­ing in the dim light re­flect­ing into the hole.

Gen­tly, your hand came up to meet it. And you held it.

“Yel­low is nice,” you mused. “The color, I mean.”

You did­n’t smile, but your eyes looked dif­fer­ent, and your lip twitched, and that was enough.

— Emily

You can’t stay still and still rant, so you cir­cle your desk—your legs must be so strong by now. Your words and pace change lit­tle evening to evening, barely shift­ing even when, upon oc­ca­sion, you take a wrong step into your opened desk drawer—you never close it.

The first time it had hap­pened I had per­haps over­re­acted, but now I wait for it, it hap­pens at least once each evening, and I could swear, each evening, af­ter that loud clunk, you glance my way for a brief sec­ond.

“Okay?” I asked, and you made a soft snort, your pace un­bro­ken, your rant barely in­ter­rupted, con­tin­u­ing, this evening, with your ques­tion­ing of why you and I were thrown to­gether. I don’t know if we were. I don’t see what it mat­ters. At least you’ve given up on con­vinc­ing me that writ­ing is “stu­pid” and “point­less.”

“Hey,” I called. “Rachel?” My heart be­gan to beat harder.

“It’s rude to in­ter­rupt,” you said.

“Would you like some cheese­cake?” I asked.

“Bad girls don’t get desserts.”

“How can you be bad for not march­ing to the beat of a drum you’ve never agreed to march to?” I asked, the prac­ticed words flow­ing out of my mouth per­haps not as smoothly as I had planned, but smooth enough.

My voice hard­ened, and I veered sud­denly off-script. “March to this, Rachel: Come. Sit. Eat.”

My un­com­pro­mis­ing words were some­what un­der­mined when, my turn to be the klutz, I dropped the plate, and shards of cake and ce­ramic shot every­where.

I was­n’t de­terred, even af­ter I dropped the fork two more times.

You ate the cake, what bits of it I could grab. I think you liked it. You licked the last bits from my fin­gers. It was nice.

Who needs forks?

— Emily

I tossed the ball through the hole. I don’t know if I was toss­ing it at you, whether I was do­ing it out of ir­ri­ta­tion or just bore­dom. But I tossed it.

Your in­ces­sant chat­ter­ing did not abate. Ran­dom words, to­day. “Pur­ple. Starfish. Clown­fish. Green fish. Yel­low. Honey. Arugula. Food. Thoughts. Weird. Nope. Nop­ing out.”

I sighed. And so I sat and be­gan to read, it was some story or an­other, not all that good, but there was­n’t much bet­ter to do, ex­cept per­haps move a piece on the chess­board—as­sum­ing I could per­suade you to play, to­day, and that I could con­vince you that the knights do not, in fact, au­to­mat­i­cally win by stab­bing all the other pieces through the hearts upon their vi­cious-look­ing horns. So, read­ing it was.

But then you rolled the ball back through, ever so gen­tly and smoothly, your yam­mer­ing not drop­ping a beat (“Stones. Kid­neys. Liv­ers. Sheep.”)

I tried to read for a few more min­utes, but soon enough I found my arm reach­ing through the hold again, ball in hand, and away it flew.

The steamy ro­mance on the screen did­n’t seem to make sense. I felt… strange; a weird bub­bling, not quite from my stom­ach, not quite a heart fluc­tu­a­tion, al­most just lit­tle jit­ters in my breath­ing… My eye kept dart­ing to­wards the hole.

And then you rolled it back through again. (“Cats. Char­treuse. Cats. Uh… Cats. Yel­low. Kid­neys. Honey. Watches. Learns. Choco­late.”)

I was­n’t sure what to do. Play it cool? Just send it back through? And it was­n’t like we could do it all day. Was it?

And yet I tossed it back through.

And I just tossed it back through again. You fell silent hours ago. Did I break you? Did you break me?

It’ll be din­ner time soon.

— Emily

I al­ways thought you were pretty but I was­n’t sure if it was be­cause of your brown eyes, which in­evitably re­minded me of choco­late, or some­thing about your skin, or maybe even the lit­tle snorts you make some­times at the end of your sen­tences, when you form full sen­tences. Per­haps it was just that you’re the only girl I’ve ever seen.

But now I think you’re not just pretty but also re­ally cool and I mean you can some­times be an­noy­ing but I know I can be too and your end­less talk­ing is just like my end­less writ­ing, just a thing to do, just as much as chas­ing balls or play­ing chess or ar­gu­ing over whether the knights can stab nearby pieces upon their horns.

But now I think you’re re­ally pretty, like in that way I’m hav­ing dif­fi­culty al­low­ing my­self to write down, and I’m not sure how to tell you, be­cause if you don’t like that I like you like that, what will hap­pen then?

I don’t know.

But I like when you fetch balls for me.

— Emily

I woke to a loud crash. Then I heard your screams.

“Rachel?” I called, but you only an­swered with more an­gry yells and more crashes as you threw what lit­tle you could get your hands on. Through the hole, I could see sev­eral draw­ers from your desk smashed to pieces upon the ground.

Then, as you reached for the last drawer, you fell, as if you just sud­denly stopped, and it was my turn to scream.

“Rachel!” I called, “Rachel! Wake up! Please, are you okay, please be okay, Rachel, please…”

Your arm twitched, and then, you sat up. You eyed the in­tact desk drawer.

“Rachel?” I asked.

You grabbed the drawer, and threw it against the wall as hard as you could, and it shat­tered, and the pieces bounced from the wall and some hit you and I could see blood…

“Rachel, what’re you… what’s…” I did­n’t know what to ask.

“I can’t,” you said. “I just can’t. I can’t do this. There’s noth­ing. Noth­ing. Each time I think there is there is­n’t and there has to be some­thing. There has to be—“

“What does there have to be?”

“I don’t know,” you said. “Some­thing. If I just… some­thing.”

“It is what it is,” I said.

You hes­i­tated, then let it loose with a bit­ter laugh: “Yes, Emily, every­thing is what it is, I should have re­al­ized it ear­lier, life sucks and then you die, it’s all out of my con­trol, noth­ing I can do, ridicu­lous to even try, ridicu­lous to even do any­thing… Ridicu­lous to even… even dig holes in walls…”

I know you skip meals. You know that if you don’t eat for too long, you’ll wake up on your bed with a sore throat and a full stom­ach, but still, from time to time, you leave the food. I never knew why.

“There’s more…” you whis­pered, shak­ily. “For us. There has to be more.”

And then I messed up, be­cause I did­n’t know what to say, and so I said noth­ing, and you were quiet, so I thought it was fine, and then I heard you be­gin to cry, and then I heard you try­ing not to.

“I’m sorry,” you said. “I’m sorry I said… I said… I can’t be­lieve I said, you did­n’t de­serve, not like that…” You fell quiet.

“Rachel?” I called.

“Don’t… Please, don’t… I can’t…” I could hear you hold your breath, as if that could hold your tears at bay, just as I could see you try to hide your face…

“Shh… Rachel…” I said, qui­etly. “It’ll be al­right. I’m here with you. You’re okay… You’re fine… You’re good…”

You scooted to­wards the hole, still not look­ing at me, but reached out a hand and held mine any­way.

You’re okay, Rachel.

— Emily

“I feel like a dog,” you said, “Fetch­ing.”

My heart jumped half a beat and I al­most smiled. “Shall I call you pet?”

I could­n’t be­lieve I let that slip out. You fell silent, and I did­n’t know what to think, and I be­gan to panic, and my mind raced for ways to fix it.

But then you rolled the ball back through the hole.

“I’d like that,” you said.

And I can’t be­lieve it be­cause now we’re of­fi­cially dat­ing and I call you pet and you call me “My Lady,” and al­though there’s a bit of a wall be­tween us, we do our best, and we’re happy! Re­ally happy!

We wish the hole was big enough to stick our heads through, but we make do with our arms.

— Emily

“Some­day, pet,” I lied to you, “it won’t be like it is. We’ll get out of here, and we’ll find the moun­tains.”

“And some­day, m’lady,” you lied back, “you’ll find a moun­tain for us. And you’ll build a house. And there’ll be glass all around.”

“Yes, lot’s of glass… And choco­late. Lots of choco­late, too,” I said.

“What’s choco­late like?” you asked.

I re­mained silent. Three… Two…

“M’lady! What’s choco­late like, m’lady?” The cor­ner of my mouth lifted slightly.

“Like choco­late,” I said. “It’s sweet, and harsh, and smooth, and there’s this rush… I al­ways felt I could­n’t go a day with­out it… And I could­n’t. Un­til I met you. It was a good trade, no?”

“It’s… It’s my fault?”

“No, pet! No—“

“You used to have it, you loved it, and then I started dig­ging and you did­n’t get it any­more—“

“Shh, pet, shh… Rachel, it’s okay, you’re okay, you’re…”

I reached through the hole and grasped your hand, and you squeezed it back, tight. “Rachel… If I’m ever an­gry at you—ac­tu­ally an­gry—what will I do?”

“You’ll tell me.”

“And if I don’t?” I asked.

“You’re be­ing a stu­pid id­i­otic mo­ron.”

“And when I do tell you, what will we do?”

“We’ll dis­cuss it like adults, no big deal, it hap­pens all the time, and we will de­cide to­gether what we want to do,” you said, your voice a lit­tle mo­not­o­nous, but no longer shaky.

“And if I’m ‘an­gry’ with you?”

“We’ll han­dle it like adults. Ex­cept, like, re­ally ‘adult’ adults. Like, per­haps you could make me—“

I blew you a rasp­berry. I hate it when you start to panic. You’re al­ways afraid you’ve loos­ened your grip upon your­self too far, that you’ve al­lowed your­self to do or say some­thing ter­ri­ble…

“But se­ri­ously, never had choco­late, even once?” I asked. “What if you’re al­ler­gic?”

“I don’t think so,” you said. “Are you al­ler­gic to honey? I used to have honey with tea. Clos­est I ever got to dessert, I guess. Once I started mak­ing the tun­nel, it went away. I thought they did­n’t like me dig­ging.”

“I’ve never had honey,” I said. “Not that I can re­mem­ber. I’d like to try it, though.”

“It’s pretty good.” You squeezed my hand. “It re­minds me of you.”

“If you found choco­late,” I asked, “would you eat it?”

“I think so.”

It is what it is, I guess. Nei­ther of us have any honey or choco­late.

— Emily

I lied.

I told you to be care­ful!

I thought it would be okay, I did­n’t think—

I did have choco­late. In my night­stand. Just a bit. They did­n’t find it all.

You have to be there. You have to. But I keep call­ing your name. You don’t an­swer. I don’t know what to do.

I can’t think.

There’s food on the desk, on those del­i­cate lit­tle trays, and I see the cal­lig­ra­phy on the menu, spelling it out: “Choco­late.” It slams into me, and I can’t breathe, but some­how I’m still alive, and I hate it.

Now I’m sit­ting in the cor­ner with the shower—should I turn it on? That’s what they do in the movies, but why am I think­ing about movies right now, you just—

You just—

I thought it would be okay.

I sneaked the choco­late to you.

And then I heard you burp, and you said, “Well, this is weird.”

I saw some­thing brown move across the floor, and then—

I woke up on my bed.

The hole in the wall was still there.

You were not.

Just an empty room.

No desk.

No bed.

A smudge of brown on the floor.

Ants pok­ing at it.

I don’t know what to do.

Are you alive?

You have to be alive.

Please, Rachel… Please?

— Emily

No amount of early alarms will make me do any­thing. What is there to do that mat­ters?

They can take what­ever they want: my com­puter, my food, or this very jour­nal.

It does­n’t mat­ter, any­more.

— Emily

I woke up on my bed un­able to move, with her look­ing down into me. Her blood red dress flowed over me and the bed, and her hand rested on the stuffed bear I once had.

“They would kill us, you know, Emily. I’ve seen what they do to peo­ple like us. I’ve lived it. I pray you never need learn what they did to me. I can’t let them hurt us, Emily. I can’t let them kill you… And you would­n’t want them to kill Rachel, would you? You’d do every­thing to pro­tect her, would­n’t you?”

Her hands, wrapped in their long white gloves, their fluid move­ment un­nat­ural, moved to my neck, and I tried to get away, I tried…

“I know you must­n’t like this, Emily, but I could have used my teeth,” she said, as she pulled the nee­dle from my neck, full of blood, be­fore she licked it, pushed the plunger, and im­bibed every last drop.

Her hand brushed along my neck gen­tly, rub­bing over where the nee­dle had been.

She stood, and stepped to the foot of the bed, at which knelt a woman. And while I could only see the tip of the wom­an’s head over the bed­posts, I could see her face mir­rored a dozen times over upon the mon­i­tors lin­ing the walls.

The thick brown col­lar around her neck was chained to the large ring upon the study bed­post with a chain that was much too short. For a mo­ment, I imag­ined you there, in her place, and some­thing pleas­ant stirred, only to van­ish as I saw within her face the tears that she re­fused to shed.

The woman in red picked up a jar from the floor, a thick yel­low­ish brown­ish sub­stance in­side—honey?—and she took a spoon­ful, and held it up to the chained woman, who fought and fought…

The honey leput from the spoon, and spread over the wom­an’s face.

“She wanted to hurt us, Emily,” said the lady in red. “All of them do, out there.”

The chained woman could­n’t breathe through the honey over her mouth. The tears she held in flowed in­vol­un­tar­ily, down her face, down onto her fa­tigues, down onto the floor…

And then, the tears stopped.

The woman in red sat down by me again. She looked over at the food on the desk, and grabbed a bar of choco­late.

“You are safe here, Emily,” she said, and she broke off a square of choco­late, and it melted into a dozen tiny ants, and they started crawl­ing all over me, up to my face. If I could have, I would have screamed.

“I will pro­tect you,” she said. “Whether I use your blood to make honey pro­tect us from this woman, or Rachel’s to piece the roof of a politi­cian’s mouth with spears of white choco­late…”

She held up a fin­ger, and the tip opened and blood be­gan to flow, and as it trick­led from her fin­gers it too tum­bled into ants, and then the ants of choco­late and the ants of blood be­gan to twist to­gether, be­com­ing the ants I’ve al­ways seen, I’d know them any­where, the ants that liked choco­late, and…

I tried to keep my mouth shut, I did, but I felt a small rush of some­thing, and my mouth opened, and the ants be­gan to crawl in­side, and I could taste them, and I could taste the metal­lic taste of blood, slid­ing over my gums and tongue and into me and I could­n’t… I could­n’t stop it…

“I’m sorry you can’t see Rachel, any­more, Emily. I thought it would work. Your tastes seemed like they’d align nicely… But you crossed a line. Bad girls don’t get friends, Emily.”

She picked up the stuffed bear and tucked it into bed next to me, and my hair be­hind my ear. “I will keep you safe, Emily,” she said, and then she leaned in, and her lips met mine, and…

I woke up on my bed, feel­ing al­ready drained, with that metal­lic taste in my mouth.

I don’t know what to feel.

The bound­aries be­tween my night­mares and my re­al­ity are nonex­is­tent; my re­al­ity is a night­mare.

Were my feel­ings for you real? Was it me who moved my arm to toss that ball? Was it the woman in red?

Was it you who tossed the ball back? Or was it her?

I can feel her still in me, flow­ing be­neath my skin, in­escapable. I want to get her out, but there’s noth­ing, I keep try­ing, but she’s still there, her whis­pers are still in my ears, her lips still on mine—

I am sur­rounded by pieces of stuffed bear, but I feel as if the stuff­ing is in­side me, in my lungs, every breath a heavy chore.

I can’t bring my­self to eat. It makes no dif­fer­ence. I wake up with my throat raw.

Does she force-feed me? Does she just make the food ram it­self right down my throat?

“You would­n’t want them to kill Rachel,” she said. “You’d do every­thing to pro­tect her, would­n’t you?”

You are alive.

— E

I have to find you. I have to.

But this is a box. No doors. No win­dows. Just a box.

Food comes and goes. But when it hap­pens, I fall asleep. I wake up on my bed.

I used to try to keep my­self awake. I’d prop my­self up so I’d fall onto the ground, or top­ple into the toi­let, but some­how, when I woke, I would be on my bed, not even a bruise to show for it.

What would the woman in red do if I fig­ured it out? If I found out how she did it? If I could stop it? Would she let me go? Would she fight me? Would she hurt me?

What if I wrote my notes as scrib­bles from un­der my cov­ers, on this bit of pa­per I hid away from her, hid on my body, hid some­where I def­i­nitely hope she would­n’t check? I fig­ure that, if I fig­ure it out, if she looks for the pa­per, if she finds it, she’d prob­a­bly al­ready know of my at­tempts, any­way.

What if I make sure I’m far away from any ants? I’ve taken joy in squish­ing them, and they’ve been more re­luc­tant to come by. They aren’t re­ally ants, any­way.

— E

I tried to stay awake. I fo­cused as hard as I could. I felt noth­ing.

— E

I tried again to fo­cus on what it felt like. Was there a whis­per? A tiny shake in­side me, re­ver­ber­at­ing through my body?

— E

I fo­cused on that whis­per of a feel­ing, that rush of some­thing through my veins, the same as I felt that night when she opened my mouth…

— E

I thought maybe wa­ter could flush some­thing out, could let me feel some­thing more, so I drank as much as I could, but still, that rush­ing feel­ing through my veins car­ried me into noth­ing­ness.

— E

I hung my head off the side of the bed. For a mo­ment, just be­fore the noth­ing­ness hit, I felt dizzy; that rush of some­thing did­n’t quite rush the same.

If she put her own blood into me, what could I pos­si­bly do to stop it? If she can do that, if she can con­trol honey, and choco­late, and blood, and who knows what else, if she can par­a­lyze me, open my mouth, move me, with­out even touch­ing me… I can’t re­ally com­pare, can I?

— E

I imag­ined my blood was honey, thickly flow­ing through me. It was re­ally dif­fi­cult, be­cause my blood is ac­tu­ally blood, but I tried any­way, while also hang­ing my head off the side of the bed, and then I was dizzy, and I started dream­ing, but in that half-dream­ing way where you kind of know you’re dream­ing and you kind of know you’re awake and you’re not sure what is even real…

And the room shook, and while I felt your ca­ress, while I looked into your eyes, I also per­ceived some­one, a man, climb­ing down a lad­der, and plac­ing food onto the desk.

I’m al­most there.

I’m go­ing to find you.

— E

I dreamt of you. It was a night­mare. Your throat sliced open. Blood every­where.

It was­n’t your blood. It was the blood of the man. The one who fed me. I did­n’t mean to kill. But you would have for­given me if I had.

That must have been what woke me. He was on the floor. His blood was every­where.

I could­n’t stop. I climbed the lad­der. On top there was a nar­row walk­way. Part of a large grid of walk­ways. They over­looked hun­dreds of rooms. The rooms all had their roofs lifted off of them.

Next to me was a cart. It had trays of food. A pa­per with a table of names and foods.

“Emily. Honey.” “James. Broc­coli.” “Rachel. Choco­late.”

There was a bas­ket of choco­late in the cart. It had a blood red bow. It had a card, la­belled “Emily.” I was clever. I grabbed it. Then I dashed down the row to the room where you slept.

“I’m here, Rachel,” I whis­pered into your ear. “I thought for a mo­ment, there was blood every­where, it was like a dream, and it was you, and your neck was…”

I held a piece of choco­late to your lips. You stirred. “I love you, Rachel,” I whis­pered.

Your eyes slowly opened. Your lips curled into a smile. Then, you reached for me, and kissed me!

“Quick, eat the choco­late,” I said. “Eat it, and try to… I don’t know. Do some­thing!”

You weren’t about to refuse. You scarfed it down. You nearly col­lapsed with each bite, as some­thing ran through you, and felt good.

“What am I sup­posed to do?” you asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. I guess I did­n’t know how it worked any more than you did.

“Let’s go, m’lady,“ you said. But then I heard her foot­steps.

The lady in red.

She was there. In the room with us. And she her­self was snap­ping off a piece of choco­late, and eat­ing it.

“Let me show you, Rachel, what you are sup­posed to do,” she said. From her mouth came a vine of choco­late. It lashed out like a whip. It grabbed you by the throat, and slammed you against the bed­post, hard. Your vi­sion swam as it mor­phed into a col­lar. It held you there.

She glanced at me, and I took a step back, and I knelt, un­nat­u­rally still.

“I’m sorry, Emily,” said the woman. “I can­not al­low this to con­tinue.”

She dipped her fin­ger to the floor, and a trail of ants crawled to it, and they climbed into her white-gloved hand, shift­ing into a knife.

She brought the knife down to­wards your neck.

Some­how, I dove.

The blade sliced through my throat.

You could­n’t scream. You could­n’t think.

The woman in red dropped her knife and she fell to the ground by me. “Emily… No, Emily, why…” She tried to grab the blood with her power, to stuff it back in me, but the blood was thick and heavy and un­co­op­er­a­tive. The light was al­ready dim­ming in my eyes…

My blood flowed down from where it had landed upon your face, and all along the floor, and you felt sick. It could­n’t ac­tu­ally be… I could­n’t… I could­n’t be gone…

You felt the con­tents of your stom­ach lurch up, and they came up at the feet of the woman in red, a mess of undi­gested choco­late.

The woman tore her eyes away from what she had done to me, and turned to you. She lifted the knife, stared at it, then at you, and then—

She lurched.

Through her chin, through her brain, up through the tip of her skull, was the horn of a choco­late uni­corn, half formed, burst­ing as if from a hole in the ground, from where your re­gur­gi­tated choco­late had been.

Her white gloves stained red, and fell to the floor, leav­ing be­hind hands made of blood, blood that was slowly drip­ping away. The bloody ap­pendages dan­gled awk­wardly from her up­per arms. The arms were jaggedly cut. Shat­tered bone stuck out from them.

Then her dress fell, shat­ter­ing into a mil­lion drops of blood. It left in its wake her torso, or half of it. It was as if every­thing be­low her breasts had been mess­ily bro­ken off. What was there in­stead was al­most hu­man. A body made of blood, kept alive only by her brain; with that im­paled, it was melt­ing away.

And then she fell back­wards.

Your choco­late col­lar and chains melted away, and you crawled to me…

But I was gone.

You found my jour­nal. You know, now, how much I loved you. And you know you love me, too. I was your every­thing. How are you sup­posed to go on with­out me? You miss me so much… You wish I was there to tell you “I miss you, too.”

I’d hug you tight, and I would lie sweetly to you. It’ll be al­right, I’d tell you. Y­ou’re okay, I’d say. I’m here with you. You’re okay. You’re fine.

I’d look you in the eyes, and tell you, Y­ou’re fine, Rachel, You’re good, pet. We’ll go to sleep, I’d say, and when we wake up, I’ll still be here, here with you…

But no amount of shak­ing can wake me, and no amount of hold­ing me close and whis­per­ing those sweet lies can heal my wounds.

You write these last en­tries. How could you not? You need to let it out. Per­haps even more than I used to.

You need to process.

You need to say good­bye.

You don’t want to stop writ­ing, writ­ing in this voice, in my voice, as if I was­n’t gone, as if I were still here, never end­ing my sen­tences, just go­ing on and on, al­most blab­ber­ing, if you just keep go­ing it will all be fine, I’ll still be here, it will all be…

But there’s not much else to write.

I’m gone.

Good­bye, Emily. I found the moun­tains. I hope you did, too.

I am yours, for­ever,

Rachel