She is still staring.

I sit across from her bulging eyes. She looks at me. I look back. I blink. She doesn’t.

I try cracking a smile, attempting to force the corners of her mouth to lift, to have some way of knowing that she can see me. Nothing. The same dead expression with the same underwater eyes.

I shift uncomfortably on my creaking mattress, feeling the wibble-wobble of the scarred frame underneath me. Silence. I turn my head, unable to meet her unblinking gaze any longer. I stare at the wall, gray and blank with ridges and grooves like the ones I used to trace with my finger as a girl. I would smile at the numbness of my finger, rubbing warmth back into it before chasing feeling away again.

I slowly stand, grimacing at the loud creaking. She doesn’t react. I wander over to the wall, sliding down its sandpapery concrete until I curl onto the floor. I paint the wall with my hand, spiraling invisible patterns onto the sterile gray. I turn my neck to look at her one more time. She is still staring.

Hours pass. Then days. My fingers turn from fleshy peach to pale pink to a sore red. My blood paints the wall. A crusty burgundy overlaid with beautiful sticky red. She is still staring.

I laugh at her now. When I move from my wall to drink from the rusty faucet in the corner. When I pass her on my way to the small slot in the door where they spill crumbs across the grimy floor. When I look at the wall, searching for windows that aren’t there.

I haven’t seen her move since I arrived. She lives in a wide-eyed daydream, not trying to wake up. She does not blink, does not cry, does not see. Maybe she’s not really a girl at all, but the shadow of one. Or the carcass of a girl. But then there would be flies. Sometimes I hear them, the black flies, buzzing their wings like an engine of fleshy translucent paper. The dead girl and her carrion flies. She makes me laugh.

The pattern on my wall is bigger now. Old dry blood spinning in lines and shapes until it melts into warm fresh wetness. My masterpiece. How I laugh at everything now. Reality is a joke. This is all real. Funny. From the girl’s matted blond hair to the silkiness of the floor. I lick the sweet blood off my fingers, trying to distract from the gnawing ache in my bones. She is still staring.

I drink from the spigot in the corner. Water dribbles down my chin. I wipe it off with the back of my hand, making my red gloves splotchy with watery saliva.
The metal flap over the slot in the door clangs with a noise that makes me scramble across the floor, licking the gritty cement. My tongue fishes at the floor, searching for sustenance. I look back at her from my crouch. She is still staring.

I try something new. I pluck a few morsels from the ground and make my way over to her. I lean my face in towards hers, feeling her light breaths on my warm cheeks. I take the old crumbs in my fingertips. I move my thumb over her lips, parting them gently and prying open her clenched teeth. I slide my fingers into her throat, forcing the crumbs to slide down the warm slimy tube. Still no sound. No movement. Nothing. The inside of her cheek is moist and smooth on my scabbed fingertips. I run them around her mouth, over the bumpy slime of her tongue. How can such an empty person feel so alive? Her heartbeat drums in my hand.

I sit on the floor again. The pads of my fingers are gone, replaced with a torn mass of flesh, red and breathtaking. I feed her every day now, forcing her wispy figure to take one more breath. She is everything to me. But nothing at all. She makes me laugh, her dry eyes, her humming flies. Without her I would be all alone. All alone. I flop to the floor, cackling. Clutching my stomach, I roll, my laughs echoing in circles around the room. My giggles bounce off the metal door and crack open on her glassy eyes. The shards of my laughs fall to the floor and end in cold, still silence.

I’ve taken to standing so the strip of pale gray wall above my head can blend with the dark spirals that taper into the floor. My toes ache from bending my toenails into the cement, stretching for the ceiling. I can’t reach. I sink to the floor, convulsing with dry sobs.

She is still there, warm and still. I crawl across the floor, stretching my fingers toward her ankle. I pull myself up, muscles quivering. My stomach reaches the top of her bed. I wrap my arms around her torso, snuggling my head into her midsection. I can almost feel her arms clutching my back. I cry into her dusty jumpsuit, my tears leaving soft wet splotches on the stark white. I look at her perfect white clothes, my whole body shaking as I run my finger over my rust stained sleeve.

I lay there with her, slowly falling into a dreamless sleep.

I am awake now. The urge to close the gap between my work and the ceiling feels like the air is slowly being squeezed out of my lungs. I must. I press my fingers to the bottom of the wall, grinning as the shallow scabs crumble into coppery liquid. I stretch again, my bare feet digging into the soft concrete. Too short. My breaths are ragged. I slow them.



In.

Out.



In.

Out.



I force myself to hobble to the bed. My bed, not hers. I grab the side and lean. Groaning, my feet slip on the floor, but slowly, my hands leaving crimson prints, the bed makes its way to the wall.
I stand on the springy mattress and paint the wall. Coils on spirals on swirls on circles. Hot scarlet drips up the wall. I stand there working for millennia.

Finished, done, complete. My grin widens. I lick the metallic paint off my hands. My mouth tastes like old coins.


I step.


Backward.


Into the air.


My heel lands first, catching the tiles and slipping down.


Down.


My head next. I feel my skull open onto the floor. Blood pools in a halo around me. This makes me laugh. The flies lap at my blood, their black dotting the sweet perfect wine.



I see her.



She is still staring.



I reach for her leg, smearing her skin with cherry liquid. She is my lifeline. I hold onto her leg, slippery with my blood until I can’t see her any more.

“I love you.” I murmur as the fluorescent lights fade into black.



***



I blink.


I am sitting on a bed.


There is no blood on the wall.


There are no flies.


I stare at the opposite wall.


I am still staring.