Moksha

ESCAPE

She stared at the ceiling in Sally Jensen's room. This was her 32nd night at the confinement center or, as they liked to call it, home. She'd been counting the days that she pretended to wake up happy, ate breakfast, made small talk with them, and went upstairs to complete her memory exercises prescribed by the doctor. It didn't work of course. It would never work. Sally Jensen was dead. And so were her memories.

However, she had grown fond of Dot. Despite a few teary first days spent together, Dot entertained her. They watched movies together and laughed. Dot didn't push her to remember, in fact, she'd said once, "It's actually good that you don't. This beauty you see right now? It's just a façade. For your benefit." But she didn't see beauty. She didn't see anything at all except fancy walls holding her in, preventing her from rediscovering herself. Those same walls had apparently been holding Dot in too. She sympathized with Dot. But she needed to leave. She had to escape.

She packed one jeans and several hoodies. She dressed herself in the same outfit as well. She tore open Sally Jensen's stash of money and pocketed the cash. She wrote a note to Dot and told her that Sally had died 34 days ago, that she was someone else. Born in the darkness. She had to escape and someday, she hoped, Dot would too. She kept Dot's laughing but still sad face in mind as she boarded the bus to nowhere in particular.

She left the confinement center.

She never went back.