“Ms. Anya?” the woman called me in a patient but clipped tone of voice, indicating she had already done so several times.
Blinking rapidly, I brushed my damp palms over my jeans and tried to fix my attention on her. “Yes?” I croaked.
“How are you feeling today?” she asked.
“Fine,” I muttered, and the slight shift in her expression told me this was the wrong answer. And this too had an alarming effect on me. This vague but daunting sense that if I didn’t give the right answers, I would not be allowed to leave this place as freely as I had entered it.
“Just fine?” she persisted. “Is there something bothering you? Something you want to discuss with me, perhaps?”
“I… I’m sorry,” I stammered, “but don’t you typically start with the questions first?”
That was what Kai had told me when I’d asked him about his last assessment a few days back. First, they asked you a series of questions surrounding the matter of your general well-being and connection to the Inside, and then, depending on your answers, they initiated a conversation at the end of which you were to decide if you wished to go through with one of the procedures they offered. Center-funded, of course. The Inside always cared for its citizens.
“Would you prefer that?” Mrs. Lauren questioned me, pronouncing with exaggerated precision each and every word. “Would it make you feel more comfortable if our conversation had a bit more structure?”
Distractedly, with my thoughts racing faster than I could process them, I blurted, “Um, yes. Sure.”
She gave a cautious nod, humming thoughtfully under her breath. “Do you typically find comfort in structure?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think that is?”
I shifted a little on my seat and felt a cool droplet of sweat run down my spine. Resisting the urge to start fanning myself with my hands, I rasped, “I don’t know.”
With slow, deliberate gestures she set her clipboard down on the low table between us and leaned towards me, her forearms resting atop her crossed knees. “Ms. Anya, are you happy here?” she asked, introducing a much gentler tone. A tone, I thought, one might employ while talking to a distressed child.
“Yes,” was all I uttered.
Mrs. Lauren nodded again, pursing her lips in contemplation. “And have you been having any strange feelings lately? Any strange thoughts?”
“Strange?”
“Thoughts of death, for example.”
It was a shock just to hear the word aloud—death.
I had never thought of death before.
“Oh,” I mumbled, somehow hearing and feeling every inward mechanism of my body. Each quick, shallow breath. Each startled heartbeat. The blood roiling in my wrists. “Um, no.”
“If life was in your hand, would you unclench your fist?” she asked.
Head throbbing, I stared at her. “Forgive me, I’m not sure I understand the meaning of this question.”
“You don’t have to understand it,” she said peaceably. “Just try to answer it. If life was in your hand, would you unclench your fist?”
“No,” I gasped, “I would hold on to it. That’s what you mean, right?”
But she didn’t clarify if this was what she meant. She picked up her clipboard, scribbled something on the clean piece of paper, and moved on. “During your last assessment you expressed excitement for a new job,” she prodded.
Something sank inside me, a shift in gravity. “Did I?”
Slight raise of her brows. Her eyes were like frosted glass, cold and affectless. “You don’t remember our last meeting? The procedure you requested?”
Now was the time. Now I could tell her.No, I don’t remember. Something happened. Something terrible. Please, I need help.The words boomed inside my head, loud in all their unspeakable horror. Unspeakable because the horror was coming from within me. Because there was nothing sinister about the white room, her pink lab coat, her measured, attentive gaze. It was all me. I could feel it now.Iwas the sinister one.
“No, yes. Obviously, I remember,” I lied, raising a tremulous hand to my temple. “I just got confused for a moment.” Dark fainting feeling. The walls were closing in on me. I could have sworn the overhead lights were spinning.
