Lily is finally released

Across town at Mackleroy Senior High, the closet door in the resource room swung open slowly. Out stumbled a disheveled redheaded woman, her clothes Ill fitting and smeared in gray and black stains. Her deep green eyes were vacant. Her luscious mass of curly red hair was as dirty as her clothes and hung down over her face.

Lily trudged slowly through the resource room, moving as if she were in a dream. The closet she left behind was a wreck, every appreciable surface smeared in sticky gray liquid that smelled of bleach and cinnamon.

Lily Marsh didn’t seem to notice the mess she left behind. She didn’t seem to notice much of anything. Her movements, robotic and methodical, were the movements of someone completely locked within themselves.

She grabbed her purse off of the big, central table of the resource room and walked in a slow, halting gate towards the door. Her steps were awkward and small with her thighs pressed together as she moved.

The dress Lily wore was a ruined mess of dark fluid and dust. While previously it had been a fairly conservative garment, it now appeared to stretch too tightly across Lily’s body, especially around her chest and ass, both of which bulged almost obscenely against the pale blue fabric.

As she moved, Lily breathed ponderously, as if she were struggling with some great pain or burden. She reached the hallway, took a couple steps, and then cradled her head. Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks.

“No, goddamnit. Stop! Get out of my head!” She cried.

In the distance, Lily heard voices and the sound of a vacuum turning on. Her eyes widened, a look of panic washing over her.

Lily Marsh turned tail and bolted down the hallway, one hand clutching between her legs through her soaked skirt. She burst out of the side exit like a bat out of hell and sprinted to her car, all the while babbling incoherently to herself.

Once she had the old Honda Civic started, Lily tore out of the parking lot. She drove wildly with only one hand on the wheel. The other pressed down on the space between her legs.

“It’s just a bad dream. It’s just a bad dream. It’s just a bad dream.”

Lily muttered this like a mantra the entire way home. At one point, her car hit a speed bump going forty-five, causing her body to jerk, rubbing her palm against her crotch.

Reacting as if burned by a hot iron, Lily cried out.

“No!”

It was a miracle that the young woman avoided an accident that evening. It was nearly seven o’clock when she pulled into the driveway of her house, ran out of the car, and dashed inside.

Lily’s mother, Genevieve Marsh, was standing in the kitchen when her daughter ran inside and bounded up the steps. There was no greeting. No acknowledgement of her presence. Not a single word.

For most teenagers, this probably wasn’t strange, but for Lily it was. Lily was a terminally sweet and caring girl. She wouldn’t just ignore her mother, especially after coming home so late. This concerned Genevieve.

Genevieve followed her daughter up the stairs, hearing her daughter’s door slam loudly somewhere above her. Looking down, Genevieve noticed something odd.

There were droplets of some dark gray liquid on the steps here and there. Genevieve kneeled down and ran her finger through a small puddle of the liquid and brought it up to her nose.

It smelled bleachy, with a hint of undefinable spice. There was something uncomfortably familiar about the smell and feel of the fluid that made Genevieve’s heart sink.

What happened to my baby? She wondered.

Genevieve swore she heard muffled moaning as she approached her daughter’s bedroom. She knocked on the door and called for Lily.

“I’m fine,” Lily barked at her. “I just need some sleep.”

Sleep. Right.

Still, Genevieve respected her daughter’s privacy and walked away. The world suddenly felt cold and much darker.