Harmony

The Prison

Pixie woke up some time later in a strange room. She was no longer on a soft, comfortable couch. She also was saddled with a feeling all too depressingly familiar to her. She felt emotionally heavy, in the sense that she was weighed down by anxious thoughts.

Damn it! She had only dreamed those magical things. That crazy food machine. That weird village. It was escapism, that's all it was. She tried to be kind to herself, but she just hurt all over. The memory loss was still there, too. That was the only thing that was the same here and in that fantasy place. As before, she couldn't remember family, home, or anything else. All she knew was suffering, feeling heavy and being in pain. This was unfortunately very much a known state.

She was now in yet another place that was strange to her. This was despite the atmosphere, smells, sounds and sights having an overarching air of familiarity to them. Especially the heaviness and aches in pains she felt in many places in her body. It was as if she'd returned home after visiting a foreign country. However, in this case, her home was not welcoming, happy or secure.

It was nightmarish.

She felt as if she was locked up in a prison. She brought her awareness out of her body and looked around at her immediate surroundings. She had awoken on hard bed, with an uncomfortably flat and lifeless pillow, in a room that had virtually no other furnishings. There was a small toilet and wash basin in the corner of the room, and a window above her that let in a sparse amount of light. There was nothing else in the room except a drinking cup and a small number of books and other personal possessions on a shelf on the wall opposite her. She was wearing grey pants made of cotton, a short-sleeved shirt of the same material and some ordinary-looking leather shoes.

She was in a prison.

That miracle world was an invention in her mind, then. No sense dwelling on it. It was time to find out more about where she was and try to remember something, anything. She got up and stood at full stretch, up onto her toes, to peer out of the only window in the cell, which was high on the back wall, opposite the door. She couldn't see much. Firstly, the window was dirty, and there was only the vague outline of some trees. There was no movement as far as she could tell. She stood back down on her feet again. Her head began to ache. She wanted desperately to be back in that beautiful village with the wonderful food machine and all the peace and nice thoughts.

Suddenly and alarmingly, a loud buzzer went off. She physically flinched in response, trying to recoil to somewhere safe in a place where there was no such thing. The latch to the steel door on her cell clicked. She presumed this meant it was now open. She slowly moved towards the door to check it out. The movement caused her head to throb. A quick glance to her right at the small mirror above the sink showed a dishevelled young blonde woman, with long wavy hair desperately needing a wash and a face registering stress in multiple layers.

The door was indeed open. Was she allowed to leave? She shuffled to the door and cautiously peered outside into what was a narrow corridor. She expected to find guards, but there weren't any. All she saw was other prisoners, male and female, young and old, slowly venturing out of their cells. Their walking gaits were slow and measured, without joy. They were all heading in the same direction, too. They moved without thought, as far as she could tell; their faces registered no emotion, no interest in anything. Their movements appeared practiced, as if they'd been doing this sort of thing for an interminable amount of time. There was no hope in them at all. It was quite a depressing sight.

Yet she followed them. She wanted to ask them why they were all going the same way. It was mindless and nonsensical to copy something so obviously wrong, but when the only other option was staying in her cell and doing nothing at all, she felt she had no choice. At least this might lead somewhere.