Bleeding Walls

Friend or Foe

SELENE

Her name was Selene
because it meant she could
Shine just as bright
In darkness.

~an untold truth

I sit in the room next door while it's happening. My head is angled to the wall to disguise my face and my hands are gripping the seats metal rods, in preparation for the worst. A silhouette of my lean frame is cast on the grey metallic wall opposite me. The blur of the reflective surface makes my long chestnut hair consume me.

Letting go of the ghastly faceless image I train my eyes on the door where it's about to begin. Not many people even know about this place, but my well trained eavesdropping skills and stubborn nature lead me here. Where I am supposed to be is in the embassy's reception awaiting my mother. Where I actually am is underground.

Almost instantly I hear the shuffling of what seems to be a notebook on a table surface. The smell of the area finally wafts through my nose. Briefly, I am taken to my old boxing gym, struggling to keep my workout going, and after hours nearly dropping from exhaustion. The stuffy, hot and sickly smell intensifies so much I am reeled back from my thoughts to the smooth but unevenly coloured grey embassy walls.

Without a seconds anticipation, I hear a gigantic thump, the volume of what could only be a human, aggressively or perhaps forcefully sitting, standing or even lying down.

Do I even really want to know?

Yet still, nobody saunters in or out the room. Not one person. In a national embassy. In the most secure place in the whole country.

No doubt they are all transfixed.Obsessed. Something behind that door has them in their grasps. For a second I wonder if I am wasting my time, if nothing will be said. Just as I get up to leave, making sure I'm back when my mother returns looking for me, I hear her voice.

Suddenly, my punctuality doesn't seem to be such an issue anymore as I sink back into the chair as quietly as humanly possible and attentively listen.

"Well...what do we have here?" My mother says in a casual voice with a slight hint of mockery to her words.

The fact that she is met with ear splitting silence suggests to me she knows everything and is just taunting them. Nobody ignores my mother, ever.

My knuckles go white around the chair as the sound of chair legs scraping against a slate floor reverberates along the walls. The anxiousness inside me holds me hostage, as my heart beats so loudly I only just notice the obnoxious clang of my mothers heels as she no doubt proceeds to sit.

It's probably just a normal interview. The little rumors I heard are wrong, they must be. Calm down and stop being so dramatic. You wouldn't act like this outside these walls, so whose to say we should start now.

The thoughts of reassurance cloud my mind as I proceed to take deep breaths.

After what feels like an eternity of silence she carries on "How do you suppose we deal with this...situation we have on our hands." She adds in a slightly louder and stern tone than the last.

My mind waits for a defiant, angry or even scared voice to reply but my heart knows what is coming and still isn't prepared for it.

I'm forced to regain my balance as I nearly fall off my chair when I hear the next thud. After that I hear groans and a sound the mixture between a cry and a gasp that gives me a monstrous lump in my throat. The only way I can bare to speak is through the tears rolling down my face.