Marrowtide

I’m smart enough to know that people don’t find me very smart. They don’t find me as much of anything, and I’ve been okay with that for a long time. I was okay with bowing my head and clocking into my shift at DeMoulas; and stocking the cereals; and facing screaming mothers; and screaming babies, begging for chocolate bars; and intercom announcements ordering me to one aisle and the other. I was always good at taking directions. But, I’ve recently found that the mundanity of my everyday condition has brought me to descend into the depths of a mind I’d long forgotten. The world is worsening and I must prove that I’ve known it intimately. I must prove that I know what it’s trying to do, what nonsense it’s trying to propagate. That’s why I must write this down and tell you before they realize I’m the only person who remembers.

September of 1997, I started my sophomore year at a university no one can recall. At the time, I was smart; and it was an exceptional college as far as Connecticut education is concerned. I was an exemplary student in all regards— countless student organizations, volunteer work, internships, anything that I could use to fill up that hole I never knew the source of. That’s one of the reasons why I applied to be a Resident Advisor: to fill up space. 

It didn’t seem very difficult in theory. As far as I knew, they decorated their dormitory’s hallways and kept rooms quiet after 11PM. But our week-long training session made me anxious of all the situations they told me I’d face. We’d been an all-boy’s institution until 1995, so our Resident Director warned us female RAs of the overbearing nature of it all. A 70% male student body meant an influx of drunk, freshly independent boys who didn’t want to take orders from a much smaller, same-aged female student in a blue polo shirt. And, our Resident Director was clear in his directions. If any female RA encountered an issue with a male student, they were mandated to call a male RA for assistance. 

We never found it much of an inconvenience, because there were only five female RAs on our staff. So, the situation was rare purely by the numbers. I never imagined I would have to use the duty phone to call someone like Shane McCarthy or Alex Swill, two of the most — I found — incapable RAs to ever work for the university. But, the second week of classes changed the terrain of my work. Because, for any reader who knows or lives in Ratenbach, Connecticut, you know what happens every year the first weekend of August: 

Marrowtide.

This may mean nothing to you. For a while, it meant nothing to me, too. I was a transplant from California who knew nothing of New England customs. I didn’t know about this festival, or the absolute chaos it brought to surrounding campuses. For rowdy college freshmen, Marrowtide was the event of the year. It was an excuse to decorate bikini tops and jean shorts in chicken bones and get wasted in places that should be considered a biohazard. Every young person counted down the days until the festivities began; and every RA counted down the days to doom.

“If you smell pot, always check the smoke detectors in their rooms,” the Resident Director, Steven, warned the room. “They’ll cover them with plastic bags. God forbid a real fire happens and we can’t detect it.” Steven made the sign of the cross over his body.

Our staff meetings always met in the third floor lounge, but since the renovations began, we moved to a classroom in the business school. I didn’t prefer it— last time we met there, I found a used condom underneath my chair. 

“Remember the three B’s,” Steven said to us. “No booze, no bud, no boning. Capeesh?”

Scheduling conflicts assigned my first shift on Marrowtide weekend, something that would’ve normally been given to a seasoned RA. Still, Steven made sure to pair me with an experienced partner in the hopes that I’d be able to handle it. That’s how I got to meet Linh (a pseudonym for her protection). I figured she was a good enough companion, certainly more experienced in the role. Linh was a senior international student from Vietnam who was known for letting a lot slide; but she was firm when she needed to be. I imagine I needed someone like her to balance out my chronic optimism and naivety. And, she did, more times than I was thankful for.

We started our patrol at 9PM, beginning on the 10th floor and working our way down. It was quiet for the most part, mostly because students were already out at the festival by then. So, we walked up and down the winding halls of Linh’s dormitory, marking red solo cup sightings and overflowing trash cans. 

“Everyone will start coming back by our second patrol,” Linh warned, tugging at her blue STAFF shift. “That’s when things get crazy.”

“Got it!” I nodded with assured dedication.

Linh cleared her throat.

“So… why’d you transfer?” she asked. “If I was in California, there’s not a morsel of my body that would bring me to Connecticut.”

I laughed. “It’s too expensive. I needed to go somewhere that offered a better scholarship.”

“I get it.”

Most girls at the university understood. It was no secret that the institution offered better scholarships to female applicants, seeing that the college had more sexual assault cases than professors.

“It’s not too bad.” Linh shrugged. “People will treat you weird, but I guess they’ll do that anywhere.”

“Weird how?”

“You know, like, if you’re a girl,” she said. “But yeah, that’s everywhere.”

Of course I knew what she meant, it was built into every corner of the campus. Every brick, every championship plaque with MEN’S carved into the foe gold. The woman’s bathroom in the business school with a pole sticking through the middle of a stall. It was like the walls had been built around a forgotten foundation— because it most likely had. These bathrooms were never meant to be here. They’re too clean, too new. They’re artificial in the ancient wood of the building that had gone two hundred years without needing it. Everything there told me that, on this land, I was in every way a foreigner.

Even my own residence hall was evidence of this. Susan Weir Residence Hall was the only all-girl dormitory on campus. It used to be for freshmen who couldn’t afford better accommodations, hence why it was falling apart and was affectionately dubbed The Sewer. Despite this, I led with an irritating cheeriness that frequently made Linh pity me. She assumed I was either avoidant of our situation or ignorant to the fact that we had little to no power in these halls; and that I should’ve given up before I started.

“Sorry to bother you. I’m the RA on duty. There’s a lot of noise coming from—”

“You’re the what?” the boy shouted over the music, barely holding the door open. 

“I’m Francis. The RA,” I said a bit louder. “Can you lower the music down?”

He laughed a bit. “Are you serious? It’s Marrowtide.”

“It’s Quiet Hours and—”

The door slammed in my face, and Linh met me with a shrug: “Just write him up.”

But the slamming doors soon became a beat akin to that blasting throughout the building. Hello, I’m— slam. Sorry to bother, I’m— slam. By the time Linh and I had our dinner break, she could tell that my cheeriness was fleeting, and I was growing tired of the repetitive failure. 

Linh placed more Burger King fries on my paper plate. “It’s easier to not give a shit.”

“Jesus,” I said. “Why do people think they can act that way?”

She slowly sipped her soda to postpone an answer.

“Because it’s not about thinking they can.”

“Huh?”

“They don’t think they can, they actually can,” Linh said. “What could we do about it, you know? They know that. Don’t waste your time on it.”

And, at the time, I figured she was right to advise this. I’d been operating that way for some time before that moment, so continuing didn’t seem all that different. I thought that, if I concerned myself with every injustice, I’d be stuck in the same spot as thousands of people before me. That’s why I ignored the words of protestors, demanding the removal of the university’s female students; or the professor who thought my paper insightful, but too sentimental for an academic setting; or the politician on television who assured a group of female college students that he doesn’t judge them for their decision, because he knows the only reason they pursue education is to obtain a husband. 

Why Do Girls Go to School? That’s what the panel was called; and I never found the question very thought-provoking. The answer seemed simple, but it still is the cause for much debate. I’m nearly fifty now, and I can’t believe that the question is still asked, even after what happened on Marrowtide in ‘97. Even after Linh and I finished our dinner and separated to split the patrol load. Even after I entered the third floor of The Sewer and banged on the door of room 327, half-aggravated.

“Sorry to bother you—”

“Is this about the music?” the girl asked in her chicken-bone-decorated crop top. “We can turn it down.”

“No, it’s not the music,” I told her. “It’s the smell. Is there… any marijauna in your room?”

She went white. “No, no, I swear. That’s not a pot smell; I’ve been smelling it for days, too.”

“We think a rat died in the vent,” another girl called from inside the room. “Check your records or whatever. We reported it like three days ago.”

“Mind if I just… pop in? Won’t take long,” I asked, and she must’ve found me non-threatening, because she didn’t fuss.

I could see the outline of the liquor bottle beneath the bedsheet, but I quickly turned my back to it in the hopes of making it disappear. The odor lessened in the tiny, dirty-laundry-covered room, which brought me to believe them. In fact, they bid me to stand on their desk and look in the vent in the hopes of finding the source of the distant, sour smell.

“I thought someone might’ve killed a chicken for their costume or something,” the bone-covered girl suggested.

I went on my toes to squint through the rusty metal. “What’s with the chicken bone stuff anyway?”

“It’s supposed to be deer bones,” the other girl said. “But there’s regulations on them now. No regulations on chickens.”

Dust and dark. There could’ve been something there, I don’t know. If there was, I’d have no means to see it— only smell it. In fact, it would’ve been much easier for something in the dark to look through the metal grate and see me instead.

Even though I’d lived in Ratenbach for two months by then, I didn’t know a thing about the logistics of Marrowtide. I peered closer through the darkness while the girls went on about how the tradition barely exists, and everything is capitalistic mud. Like the deer bones that were meant to be worn in celebration, now replaced by chickens. Or the sacrificial deer replaced with a blow-up replica. Or the “harvest blessing” that was now said before shots. They thought everyone was too concerned with tradition when it didn’t actually exist anywhere in Ratenbach. I thought so, too.

It, of course, didn’t stop anyone from celebrating. Even when I left the girls, the noise and smells raged on with every hallway and concrete stairwell. The shift seemed to age me a thousand years by the time I made it to the top; and the journey back down was even worse. Girls chased each other with rolls of toilet paper, laughing too loudly to hear any of my calls. My shoe squished in a pile of bright-orange vomit, and all I could do was freeze in it, defeated by the sound. And, once I finished scrubbing my shoe in the shared showers, I only worsened the matter by slipping and landing on the soaked, hair-ball-covered floor. 

I was wet and tired when I walked; and I should’ve known better than to wear jeans, or to wear my favorite striped turtleneck beneath my STAFF polo. I looked like a rainbow-striped rain cloud with dragging feet and heavy sighs. And, by the second, Linh’s advice seemed better and better. That’s why I lost the motivation to knock on any door I didn’t find to be absolutely necessary— even when I smelled pot beneath the rotting animal odor. 

My fist raised to knock, but I soon realized that I was back at room 327, and any intervention would be aimless. In fact, I began to think that any intervention anywhere would prove to be aimless. It was nearly two in the morning and I was exhausted by the fruitless labor; and Steven would never know any different—

“I don’t want to go…”

At first, I thought the voice came from behind a door. It was faint and muffled by distance that I couldn’t place beyond the mixture of the Macerena and the Spice Girls. But it made my back stiffen beyond any reason I know enough to name. It made my head cautiously swing from side to side in an attempt to look down the three-way hall.

A conversation. That’s what it was. And, there was nothing about it that naturally raised any alarm; but I, for some reason, still followed it down the middle hallway leading to the lounge. The lounge’s door was closed and marked with caution tape per the advice of the renovations, and I remember the dull blink of the light bulb above its head. It made this corner of the world shallow and intangible. That’s when I saw them there. Well, I should say, that’s when I saw her, because I fixed on her faster than I did the young man. 

“Are you guys okay?” I asked before realizing I’d started speaking.

My voice made the boy jump, and he looked back at me with caution. I knew him. His name was Tony, but I didn’t know him well enough to know anything beyond that. Yet, with the way he was looking at me, I figured he didn’t know who I was, and it frightened him.

“What did you say?” he asked.

He spoke quietly, and it was easier to hear him this far away from the noise. In fact, I could hear a lot. I could hear the girl, too, haphazardly breathing with her face slumped on his shoulder. It was when he noticed me noticing her that he angled his body to shield her from my view.

“I know it doesn’t look good,” he said. “But I’m trying to bring her back to her dorm.”

I glanced at her again. “What floor? I’ll take her there.”

“She won’t want you to,” he said carefully. “She doesn’t want to get in trouble.”

A familiar sentiment, and I was trained to act accordingly. But, with the situation presented to my face, I seemed to lose all protocol that I thought I understood. If Steven saw me here, he would’ve told me to use the duty phone and call a boy— whatever boy that was awake and willing. But, I stepped towards them to try and snag a look at her face; Tony stepped back.

“Is she on something?” I asked.

“Please, just let me take her back,” he said. “She’ll freak out if she finds out I called an RA on her.”

“Listen,” I carefully said, “I’m not trying to write her up or anything. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

“I told you, she’s fine.”

“Then, we’ll walk her back together.”

“She doesn't want you to, okay?”

The girl shook her head on his shoulder. 

“I don’t want to go.”

Her whisper frightened me more than the frequent dark of the flickering bulb. It sounded like she’d been repeating that sentence for longer than I’d been with them, longer than she’d been alive. And, the ache of her plea turned me angry with his defiance.

“If you don’t let her go, I’m going to call the campus police.”

“Jesus, this is ridiculous.” Tony slowly helped the girl to the floor, and she peeled off of him. “I’m trying to get her back before her parents come home.”

I was already dialing Linh’s number in the thick Nokia. “You just said you were bringing her to a dorm.”

He sighed. “I just didn’t want you to kick her out or something.”

“But, aren’t you taking her home anyway?”

“Yes. But—”

“Okay, okay. Just stop.”

I instead turned my focus to the girl in the bones. Her hair was coily and knotted across her face like she’d been in fierce winds, and I couldn’t see her fully. I knew she wore a flower crown of those tiny chicken bones, and had hot-glued them into a heart on her t-shirt. She was slumped in a way that frightened me. My big sister used to be addicted to heroin, and she’d spend hours hunched over like a zombie. Opening and closing her dry mouth. Nose running thin mucus onto her lips. My mother once had to pour a pot of ice water over her head just to get her to stand up. 

“Hey, are you okay?” I asked her. “Do you know him?”

She shook her head as if she didn’t hear me. “I can’t go back there.”

“Back where?”

“I can’t… I can’t… I can’t…”

“Jo, I can’t just leave you here,” Tony told her. “Your mom gets home in like two hours.”

“Is your name Jo?” I asked her, but she didn’t respond. She only slid onto her stomach to weakly crawl away like her body was too heavy for her. 

“Wait!” I grabbed hold of her arms to stop her, but she only tugged against me. “I’ll get you some water while we wait for someone.”

“No… no…” She tugged free. “I… can’t go back there.”

I quickly grabbed her shoulders, and I still remember exactly how she looked at me then. Her eyes were so brown and dilated that they looked like the back of the vent. Bloodshot, the remains of crying. And the knotted hair over her head didn’t seem to connect to her scalp. It was a wig. A costume, half-peeling up to expose the start of a scar on her forehead. Something about the picture and the plea of her entire being made my words breathless.

“We need to—”

“Francis, is everything okay?”

The familiar voice brought me to a reality I thought I’d long forgotten. It was Shane McCarthy in his blue STAFF polo and pajama pants. I knew he had been sleeping from his flattened hair and nasal strip, but I couldn’t place how he could’ve known where I was. I’d never dialed enough numbers to call anyone at all that night.

I stood up. “We need to call the campus police.”

“The police?” Shane’s eyes widened. “What’s going on?”

“I already told her the truth. My friend went too hard and I’m trying to get her back home,” Tony interjected. “Come on, man. I don’t want to make this a big deal.”

“Shane, look at her.” I threw a hand to the crawling girl. “She’s like on drugs or something.”

“Okay, okay…” Shane sighed. “I’ll call the EMS. You go to the computer room to write the report.”

“I have to do it right now? But she’s—”

“The reports have to be sent in under an hour, remember?” Shane reminded me. “I’ll wait with them until the EMS gets here.”

I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t question the order, not while knowing this girl was in such a state. I wanted to write the report while my memory was still sharp; of course, I didn’t know my memory of this event would stay sharp after all these years. I didn’t know I’d remember every sour smell and clank of metal beneath the blaring music. I remember the boarded-up window in the lounge’s door, shielding the inside construction. I remember the light bulb, and the wig, and the scar, and the way the bottom of Shane’s pajama pants were wet like he’d been outside in mud. Why didn’t I ask him why they were wet? Or why he’d found me when I hadn’t called him? Or why the computer room’s plug was out of the outlet, and I had to restart the whole machine. 

Even on the second day of Marrowtide, I didn’t ask these questions. I only asked what the EMS  people said was wrong with the girl.

“Just a mix of shit,” Shane told me by the vending machine. “Alcohol. Drugs. Cough syrup. She was cross-faded to the moon.”

“What about the guy?”

“I don’t know. He was like her cousin or something.”

“Or something?”

Shane watched his energy drink drop in the machine. “She doesn’t even go here, Francis. It’s probably police stuff now.”

“How the hell would she even get inside? There’s crazy security during Marrowtide.”

“Man, you know those guys don’t do anything. They’re probably drunk, too.” He laughed. “Shit, I was still a little drunk when I found you.”

And that was expected. All of this seemed expected to our isolated reality, because no one mentioned the encounter. The day’s festivities passed by and I stayed inside with some friends whose phone numbers I’ve forgotten despite once knowing them by heart. All the while, I couldn’t stop thinking about that girl; especially when night fell and Linh and I started our patrols again. The familiar hallways replayed the memory in my head to a tune that felt archaic. Metallic clanking was disorganized like a caveman’s thumping. And the smell on floor 3 got so bad that Steven asked me to check the showers for a clogged pipe.

Even then I knew that this sort of smell doesn’t come from a drain. It was spoiled and humid like rot, and I started to believe that something had died in the vents. There was nothing in the wide bathroom. Nothing but dripping water and glitter on the shower walls. I very quickly decided it was a futile endeavor and bid to leave, all before someone darted past the open door. 

 It was only a blur of colors in my peripheral, and it was gone as quickly as it came. And, because it was only our first round of patrol, I knew that there weren’t many people in the building. That’s when Linh said. Everyone partied until the second patrol. So, I wasn’t keen to expect an issue before the true issues returned home. I wasn’t keen on anything with the sound of panting growing farther and farther away.

I followed it into the hallway and swung my head to find the far away corner, still flickering like a dying candle. And, there it was, that blur of color. Black t-shirt and a purple mini skirt, all clicking with the movement of glued bones. Matted, curly hair. The figure desperately slammed into the caution-taped door before tugging at the jammed door.

“You okay?” I called down the hallway.

When she looked back at me, her eyes were wide with a terror I could only attribute to myself. She looked afraid of me; which was why she whipped back and tugged the door open with all her might, thrusting her body into the dark. 

I can’t say much of me knew any better. Like I’ve told you, I was naive in all conceptions of the word. In many situations, the things that I’d faced growing up should have made me distrustful of all natural good. It should’ve made me bitter and self-serving, but for whatever reason it may, I wasn’t like that at the time. I am now; and the reason why can all be traced back to my decision to follow that girl.

I must admit, there was some hesitation to my action. To my footsteps. To my hand on the knob. To my ears that accepted the sound of the door clicking open and closed behind me— and suddenly, I was in the dark. 

Despite the emptiness of the abyss I was in, I coughed out the putrid smell of rot. I lifted my shirt up to my nose in the hopes of saving myself in this darkness, but it barely helped. If anything, it made my situation all the more foreign. I’d never seen the room without its peeling couches and stained coffee table. It was desolate and — somehow — windy with uncomfortably warm air. That’s how I found the gaping mouth of it all. The wall, mid-construction, held a wide hole like the product of a hundred sledgehammers.

It was boundless like the vent; it smelled like it, too. And, every day I wish I would’ve turned back. I can’t name one sure reason why I was enticed by it. Despite being gullible, I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t purposefully walk into the face of danger, that wasn’t who I was. In fact, I was terrified of most things. That’s why I have no reason for you. It was only that, something pulled me towards everything I didn’t know. Something perpetuated the image of the girl, and I neared the dark hole like a mirror. Reflection of my reflection, I knew she was inside.

“Hello?” I called into the hole. “I’m Francis. I… think I saw you yesterday.”

It only echoed, and I began to imagine the hole was a lot bigger than I thought. It bent all rationality; because, from where this hole was placed, it should’ve led to dorm rooms. This path led to nothing, and still, a great part of me wanted to follow it, to follow her. I imagined the worst of her situation. If she was under the influence of something, I worried for not only her safety, but the safety of the others. A stranger could mean anything to a building full of Freshmen girls. So, I found a reason to close my eyes before doing it. Why did I close my eyes in the dark? Was my familiar darkness more comforting than one I didn’t know?

Or was my body predicting the bright light that met my eyelids? It stunned me at first— so much so that, when I blinked, my eyes didn’t adjust for several seconds. You can imagine that the sudden shift confused me more than the previous abyss. The brightness dimmed and the smell subsided, and suddenly, I was in what appeared to be a more refined version of The Sewer. Same winding hallways with rows of matching doors. Same panel light; only now, they were blinding above me. 

The freshly painted walls didn’t help with the brightness. Pale blue with little white clouds like a children’s nursery. The stained carpets were replaced with black and white tile, and I had half the mind to wonder what floor I could’ve possibly been on— because it didn’t look anything like three anymore. It didn’t sound like it either. There was no music or muffled laughter behind doors, only blinding lights and the distant, melodic thumping of metal.

I still feel like I’m there, slowly wandering through the alien terrain. And, for some reason, I felt like some kind of outlaw within it. My head craned and dipped from side to side in a quiet inspection as I walked. And, it was quiet, which only incriminated my presence even more. It reminded me of my Tuesday lab class— and the earthworm I’d cut beneath a microscope. The blinding light shot up through the hole, and I’d stuck my eye to the looking glass, hoping to gain some understanding of its insides. Perhaps that’s why my hand went to my stomach, and I couldn’t seem to remember what I’d been walking for.

Oh, yes. I remembered.

“Hello?” I called out. “I’m not going to get you in trouble. I just want to help you.”

A new pathway emerged to my right, equally as long as the one I was already in. Only, this one was surrounded by bright green walls. I cautiously made the turn and kept my dizzying confusion clear on my face. There was no way that the girl was fast enough to outrun me in this hall, so I figured she was in one of the rooms. I squinted at the brass room numbers: 

1920… 1943… 1963…1973… 198733…198762678…

On one of the doors, the numbers went on for so long that they trailed like a waterfall down the wood—

Motion whirred from behind me, and I whipped around, finding another blur of color. The girl ran by quicker than I could measure, carrying down the original cloud-covered hallway. And I didn’t waste a moment to process her departure. I bolted and threw myself into the hallway in a quick turn, making sure I didn’t lose sight of her.

“Wait!” I shouted at her back in the distance, but she only kept running. “I just want to talk!”

But the door already slammed behind her.

I carried on until reaching the same door and entering myself, but my motion halted at the shift again. This room, I explain to you with absolute certainty of my recollection. It looked like a theater— that’s why I halted, dumbfounded again. Because there was nothing in my conceivable reality to explain to me why it was here at all. The darkness swelled everywhere, flooding the empty velvet seats and splintery stage. It was only the projection on the wide screen that brought any light to my strange world. 

It was the Boyz II Men music video for “End of the Road,” a song I’d really liked up to that moment. In fact, I had the Cooleyhighharmony CD in my player when I left my room that night. I used to close my eyes and imagine I was serenaded by my lab partner, because I’d had quite the crush on him at the time. But suddenly, the whole idea of the song seemed so unfamiliar. It felt almost predatory in that empty theater. The smooth melody was like an attempted seduction, and I clutched my jeans when the feeling hit me.

Now, you must understand what had become of my mind at that point. When you reach the point of such unanswered confusion, parts of your mind don't allow you to truly feel it— even when you touch it. When I touched those seats and brushed my fingers against the velvet, I didn’t feel the sensation. And, from then on, my mind and body simultaneously gave up on finding the girl; because she was the least of my concerns.

Room to room, every door scrambled their numbers and my mind along with it. They varied in shapes and colors, and I felt like I was wandering through one of those children’s sorting games. In fact, I can’t name all that I’d seen in my exploration. I remember them in blips. 

The rusty sink in the polka dot room. The wall of small sorting compartments like a kindergartener's cubbies. The bright woven baskets inside of those compartments, filled with those health class baby doll heads. I remember the absolute terror that shot through every corner of my body when one started crying, and I threw it against the wall so hard that it buzzed to silence. The rooms were massive; and, the farther I went, the higher the ceilings got. That’s when I couldn’t go on convincing myself that any of this was some sort of expansion project. 

I didn’t know where I was, but I knew I wasn’t in The Sewer anymore. And, I knew I now desperately wanted to leave. Yet, with the first attempt to go backwards was futile. I have not lied to you, and I will not lie to you. So, believe me when I say, I opened the door I came through and found myself in an entirely different room from which I came. 

It was dark and smelled like chemicals, and that’s why I truly felt beneath a microscope. The door slammed behind me and I had no choice but to quicken my breaths in what I believed to be a closet. My ribs, the very prison cell of my insides, seemed to restrict any attempt at calming myself down; because, by this point, all of the absurdity truly hit me, and I was afraid. I could barely see through the thickness of it all, but still somehow bid myself to be quiet. I don’t know why I knew to be quiet. I’d seen no one other than the girl, and yet, my body knew to slow down and move in caution. 

I found the door knob and knew my only option was to twist. But I did so in the manner of a sneaking child, a seven-seconds-in-heaven sacrifice. I slowly pushed open, just enough to peek through the sliver of light. 

That was the first time I saw a person in hours. It was an older woman with very shiny hair, bobbed like Doris Day. I remember the shine, because it told me that it was synthetic, just like the wig that she styled over the head of an expressionless girl. I saw her face in the reflection of the mirror: bleak and nothing. That’s what let me know that this room was modeled like some kind of hair salon. Purple walls and sleek black chairs in front of a light-less vanity. 

The old woman looked satisfied with her work and turned the chair to face her. The girl only stared forward, and I wondered if she was within her body at all— if she was awake. Drool pooled in the corner of her mouth and the old woman thumbed it away before pointing to the girl’s head.

“What is this?” the woman asked her, and the sound of another voice in this place almost made me jump.

The girl blinked and her new brunette bangs fluttered in her eyes.

“Come on. You know it,” the woman encouraged. She pointed to the girl’s nose. “What’s this?”

“N… nose.”

“Good.” She nodded, and continued onto the eyes, lips, and ears as if speaking to a baby— and I was mortified. Even now as I recall, the tears well in my eyes the same way they did inside that closet. There was something in the emptiness of the girl's words that filled me with the most painful sadness, and I ached in every part of my body that she named. And again, the old woman pointed to the girl’s head.

“What is this?”

She blinked as if really trying to recall an answer.

“Hair.”

A knock bit through the room, and the old woman looked to the door across the room, seemingly knowing who it was. And, it was only when she led the blank girl through the threshold that I made a break for it. I darted through the empty room like a rabid animal was quick on my heels, and my heart beat with the same desperation. I went through the opposite door, and ended up in a second darkness, much like the backstage I used to frequent when doing technical work for my high school’s production of Hamlet. That’s how I knew to be quiet as I neared the red wings of the curtains, following the light of the stage. I could hear the most peculiar sound. It sounded like one of those old movies my grandfather would fall asleep to on his imprinted couch. That muffled, grainy orchestra with the accompanied newsanchor voice: 

And so we say… give us liberty or give us death!

My body jolts and I go to scream at the feeling of a hand on my shoulder, but another frantic hand covers my mouth. And so, she is more of a mystery in the dark. Dirty face, sunken in cheeks and eyes like a hungry, desperate creature. It is the girl who led me to this wasteland to begin with.

“Don’t scream.” And slowly, she pulled her salty palm from my mouth. “You have to leave.”

I couldn’t think of a question to ask. That’s why my words came out fast. “I’ve been trying, but I can’t.”

“You came in here. You can get out, too.” Scared, she glanced behind me and towards the stage. “They’ll chase you, but you’re healthier. You can outrun them.”

“Outrun who?”

She threw a hand towards the stage. “Everyone out there. That’s where you need to go.”

At this point, my skin was slick with the sweat of my anxiety. “But who is out there?”

“I’m not going to make it this time.” As she said the words, they registered in her conscience, and she looked even more afraid. It was the fear of someone who knew it was the end of the road. “Run straight down the aisle and keep going straight. Push through every door, and don’t look back once. Straight through until you drop. That’s the only way out.”

I’m ashamed to say that the fear got to me then, and I started crying. It was almost worse knowing I had to face something terrible, knowing there’s no way backwards. 

The open world, the open world! 

Aren’t you hungry for it?

Soldier, march on!

I say! Take it, I say!

The voice from the black and white film couldn’t finish before the girl took one last look at me. She shoved me hard into the light, and I knew what it meant. I ran.

I stared at the ground as I ran with the force of a thousand petrified animals. I only knew how many eyes were on me when I jumped off the stage and landed on my back. Knocking the wind out of me. It stalled me for a moment, but the sound of a scream propelled me into action. I saw who it was, too. In a sea of young men in the audience, one stood up and pointed at me with empty eyes, dropping his jaw to signal a scream. That’s when the abundance of sound hit me all at once. The eyes. The screams that pierced my ears as I ran and ran. 

The ground rumbled with the feet that went after me, and I shoved through the door towards the next room. Commotion followed with my entrance. I ran straight into a gurney, and knocked over a table of operating tools. The world ripped to shredded paper around me. Old men in blue operating scrubs threw themselves backwards in some sort of fear, and I considered the fact that I may have truly been some animal all along; because I jumped over another table and disregarded the young may laying unconscious upon it. 

Oh, I ran. Through that terrible operating room, I ran— despite not knowing what it meant. Through the next identical room I ran and coughed out the smell of insides wafting from a scalp popped open like a soda bottle. The pastel posters on the wall, showcasing an animated brain with an elated expression. The music and distant words, fighting through the walls. The people that grabbed at the back of my shirt. Each doorway flashed with a new color, fading and fading until becoming a series of white walls. And I didn’t stop. No matter how hard my lungs protested and soles pinched with pressure, I ran until there was nothing left— and the ground dropped beneath me.

I can’t say how long I fell for. Sometimes when I recall, it feels like seconds. Other times, it feels like days. The only thing I can say for certain is that I landed. All at once, I dropped into a pile of warmth and cold, and slop. It felt like thick hair gel, but it smelt like roadkill, like a thing left alone for too long despite not really being dead. The darkness was how I knew that no one could get me, but the relief of the absence soon turned to fear, which only subsided to destitution. And I was alone.

I was there for a long time. In your perception of the world, I know you will not believe me. But, I am telling you the truth when I say, I was in that hole for several years. I tell you this in a straight and clear-cut way because, while there, I was not completely aware of my own unawareness. I only measured time through the drop of the slop through the high part of the hole; which would open and close five times a day. And I was in that darkness, unchanged. Unmoving. Un-growing. I remained something of a little girl, because I was as much of a little girl at nineteen as I was at nine. And all the while, I felt nothing and remembered nothing but the smell of the rot around me.

I didn’t wonder why I had gotten there at all, or what it was for. And, I must say, I nearly forgot what I looked like. There were no reflections in the darkness I was in. No. There was nothing but decay. My body decided to live in a reclusive half so I wouldn’t have to feel all of it. That was until, one day, a mistake dropped in with the slop, and I felt around for what it was.

It was a ballpoint pen with a flashlight, enough light for me to see the concrete cylinder I was in. That’s when I had the opportunity. Slowly, I lowered the light below me, and that’s when I was able to identify what I’d been sitting in for all that time. It was what they’d carved out of the heads of those sleeping patients, cut in half and dropped into this hole. The master organ which contains everything. Sliced. Discarded. Surrounding me to a gag-inducing realization. And that’s when my body allowed me to pull in panicked breaths like re-starting a forgotten engine. 

I remembered that I needed to get out despite spending all that time giving up. All at once, I felt the true weight of time— the ache for food. I missed Burger King; and being on the debate team; and painting; and reading magazines; and learning; and breathing; and my mother; and everything I used to be able to grasp so quickly. How was I stuck in time, unchanging despite the surrounding effort of change? My hair was matted by then, but it was another thing that seemed to never change in this place. It never grew. It remained, and I sobbed until I couldn’t breathe in the mess of it all. 

I only stopped when I truly thought about my hair, and the color that it was. Long, curly, brown, much like my father’s. But it didn’t feel like it had ever been mine at all. Slowly, with a trembling hand, I reached to my forehead and felt for what I knew to be there; the rough edge of a wig seam.

How could I have possibly grown to miss something I’d forgotten was taken from me? How could I have known to look for it? My fingers traced beneath the wig and found the raised edge of a long scar wrapping around my bare skull. That was the only thing that bid me to remember that I had actually been in this place before, countless times in fact. And, all this time, I’d actually been looking for something I didn’t know was taken from me. At this, I quickly retrieved the flashlight and searched in the sea of organs until finding what I’d been looking for.

As soon as I had it in my grasp, I blinked and opened my eyes in the hallway from which I’d originally come all those years ago.

Those blue walls, the painted clouds. It all was just as I left it. Only now, I was holding the half of myself that had been stolen, and it dripped in my hand.

“Wait!” A voice called from behind me. “I just want to talk!”

I looked back at the voice, and suddenly recognized myself; because, that’s who she was. I was staring at myself. That blue staff shirt. The hair maneuvered into two buns atop my head. I could feel the remembrance seeping through my palm, straight from the half that I held onto. I knew the only way it would be mine again was if I left for good.

So, I didn’t speak. I only ran and shoved past her to make way for the far distance— that gaping hole in the wall. This would put an end to it all, and I’d finally remember all that was taken from me. Fiercely, I moved forward, holding that missing half of myself tight in my clutch. And when I pushed through the other side, I felt everything. Everything. In all the ways I couldn’t begin to describe, and in all the ways I’ll try to, I felt it all. 

I felt a thousand pains of a million people I didn’t know. I felt swollen ankles from pregnancy, and the ear-splitting cry of new life. I felt the wind of riding a bicycle for the first time; and the devastation of a slap against my face in a kitchen; and the orchestra of unwanted hands all over me; and the love of the hands I accept in my own; and the victory of my chest reaching the ribbon of a finish line; and the echo of my voice through a microphone; the intensity of my fingers wrapped around a sign that I pulse in the air; the fervor of a crowd; and the rumble of a march; and the heart-bursting hope of a source I cannot name. It all came back to me in a burst of light, and I fell face-first on the carpet. 

For a long while, I only heaved in my ache, feeling disgusted with the layer of slime over me. I soon mustered enough energy to pull myself to my feet, blinking at the dullness of my surroundings, and the overwhelmingly loud music in the distance. A sort of disbelief flooded me when I heard the chaos of the girls, casual as it was all those years ago.

“Francis?”

Heaving, I turned to find the Resident Director, Steven. His eyes were wide and stunned.

“What… How…” He looked me over. “What happened?”

Even now, I don’t quite have an answer to that question. Because even after explaining in all the ways I did, everyone at the institution assured me there was no such thing occurring in the expansion. They even offered to show me the expansion; to which, I reluctantly agreed to do with the company of my parents. Yet, when they opened the taped-off door again, it was nothing but a half-finished kitchen. It was nothing at all.

And still, I knew many young people who’d one day come back changed. I can’t quite say how, but I know they were. Many girls — including myself — dropped out of the school, mostly to finish their education elsewhere. And, by 2002, the university closed down. 

But I know that whatever it was I saw still operates; if not in Ratenbach, then somewhere. I know because I’ve witnessed it, I feel the horror of the silent operation, and what it wants to replace. 

And, I know that, beyond Marrowtide, we are much better fertilizer than chicken bones.