“Arielle? Are you feeling okay?”
“Hm? Yeah, I’m fine mom.”
“Seems like I lost you there for a second!” She chuckled, tapping her fork on her plate as she scraped it clean.
How could she eat at a time like this? I could barely stomach her lies, I didn’t have room for much more.
Those robots I saw, those…people. Limp limbs, funerary faces, but the eyes were so real. I felt like they were all watching me, judging me as I shut the doors and locked them into the dark.
Now, it seems like I can hear them beneath the floors, softly breathing, and the faintest sound of a heartbeat.
“Just not hungry tonight. Cool if I bail?”
“Of course, darling. Don’t stay up too late!”
I softly smiled at her, weary of what might happen when I decide to tell her.
You know when you have a funny feeling that if you tell someone something, a series of unfortunate events will occur?
That’s how I felt, staring across from my mother. I feel like I’m staring across the table from a stranger.
“I’ll clean up.” She commands, drawing me back to reality. I stand to my feet and nod, slow footfalls to my bedroom.
How could she do this to us?
How could she do this me?
My heart was racing, I tried to keep myself from vomiting as I used the wall for purchase.
I tried to rationalize it to myself. That it must be something I don’t know about, some illness or disaster impending.
I told myself they were criminals, vagrants, but none of that made sense.
They were just so…still.
Hanging on the walls like morbid decorations. It almost made me laugh out of fear.
I never wanted to go back down there to see them, but I had to know the truth.
How could she do this to us?
I waited until she went to bed, then slowly crept out of my bed to the basement.
Each step I took felt like damnation, and I felt as if I could hear them calling my name.
I quietly turned the lock, and stepped into the darkness with only my phone for illumination.
The silence was deafening, and the contrast of the pristine white lab crossed liminal space territory.
I had been here so many times. So why was I so scared?
Why didn’t she tell me?
I stood face to face to the barely visible door in the corner of the room, cleverly hidden behind a rack of books and manuals my mother had written.
She always said she’d be a writer.
Maybe she can write a book about this.
My hands shook as I pushed the door open, the lights automatically turning on with my movements.
They didn’t even flinch.
For a moment I just stared, hopeless for words.
But I needed something I could take with me, concrete proof my mother was a…that she needed help.
It was almost funny, it felt like a family reunion.
Dad was to the left, with his head ever so crooked and eyes wide.
My sister, Janice, was to the right of me, posed in a prayer, eyes focused on the sky.
Aunt Mary, cousin Chaz, grandma and grandpa all resided here.
But these weren’t their bodies. They were shiny, robotic, mint condition.
“You know I can explain.”
“Can you?” I gasped, unmoving as i lock dead eyes with my father.
“Some things have to be done for the greater good, Arielle.” She takes a step towards me, and I take a step back. It’s like being face to face with an intruder.
“Oh.”
“Can we sit? Please, let me talk to you, darling.” My mother croons, reaching out to me as my arm instinctively twitches back.
“Don’t touch me.” I whispered, almost begging as she encroached on my space, eyes ever so dark, with a small smile playing on her lips. “Who are you?”
“Arielle?” She repeats, lowering her head as her strides get bigger, slowly backing me into Aunt Mary.
I had to get out of here. There was no telling what she would do to me.
“Arielle.” She growls, I grasp at my pocket, fumbling for my phone. Did I drop it? “Come here, darling.”
Fuck, where was my phone?
She ebbed even closer, threatening me with soft taunts, she knew I would be trapped. “Ok.”
I agreed. I needed to buy myself more time so I could find a phone and get out of here. She visibly relaxed and smiled, standing up straight and fixing her hair. “Let’s talk.”
Without a word she stepped to the side, extending her arm as a courtesy. I swallowed my fear and walked past her, careful not to notice the subtle agonal breathing coming from the walls behind me.