Chapter Four

Victoria

Victoria slept fitfully, as she always did. It was a source of consternation to her mother that she always had dark circles under her eyes.

“Your bedroom is as pink as the womb,” her mom had told her. “I don’t know why you can’t sleep through.”

Victoria knew why. And she wondered if her mother knew too, but chose to ignore it. Ignorance is bliss. Wasn’t that how the saying went? Even now, Victoria was drifting out of sleep and back into wakefulness. Her nose wrinkled at the persistent smell of something. And the something awakened her.

She sat up in bed, all pink pastel and plush throw cushions. All her gender-stereotyped belongings, neatly laid out on cerise shelves. The little alarm clock, also pink, told her it was still nighttime. Just before one a.m.

Confused by the strange smell, and half-asleep, she pulled on a robe and drifted out of the room. Holding on to the handrail because she was feeling so woozy, Victoria yawned her way downstairs and headed for the kitchen. She passed the line of framed photo portraits on the wall. A half-dozen versions of herself, pictured through the years from fat-faced kid to young adult. Smiling. But not really smiling.

Victoria entered the kitchen. The lights had been left on, their reflections gleaming off the polished tile floor. Squeaky clean, just how Mom liked it. But instead of the quiet of the hour, Victoria could hear an intense hissing sound. As she moved into the domestic space, she saw her mother sitting on a breakfast stool. Her upper body lay slumped across the kitchen island, with a near-empty liquor bottle next to her. She appeared to be unconscious.

Victoria yawned, and a bad taste clung to the back of her throat. She needed that glass of water, still, but thought maybe she’d sit next to her mom for a while. Her limbs were so very heavy, and she felt so tired all of a sudden. She approached the kitchen island, reached out a leaden hand to her mother. And all the while the hissing grew louder and louder until—

Victoria jolted awake from her dream. She sat up and looked around the dormitory. No shades of pink pastel here, only gray. At least that horrid hissing noise had stopped. She swallowed, dispelling the acrid taste at the back of her mouth from her dream. The other girls were asleep.

All except for one.

Victoria saw that one of the girls was out of bed. She was standing a couple of meters away from Victoria’s bed, her face hidden by her dark hair. How strange that Victoria hadn’t noticed her before. Moonlight from the high, barred window accentuated the paleness of the exposed skin of the girl’s forearms. Victoria felt a sense of dread seeing her standing there. Not because she was afraid, but rather because she was tired of being tormented like this. She wanted it to stop, and to stop now.

“Go pick on someone else, okay?”

The strange girl instead took a couple of steps toward Victoria’s bed, making Victoria wish that she could have summoned more confidence into her wavering voice. The girl’s movements were unnatural, somehow. Each step was accompanied by a series of clicks, as though a puzzle of bones was attempting to solve itself. Her limping, lurching gait seemed disconcertingly like her body was twisted and broken. Seeing her reach the end of her bed, Victoria felt terror clinging at her psyche.

“Leave me alone!”

But the girl did not take heed. Instead she clambered onto Victoria’s mattress, her limbs scuttling across the bedcovers like the legs of a monstrous spider.

Victoria screamed as the girl crawled right up to where she lay.