Uncontrollable

The room swims before my eyes.

Where am I? It is the first thought that pops inside my head. My eyes scan the room. The room swims before me, I swear. It feels like I’ve been underwater for hours and just now I’m reaching the surface.

The walls are bleeding red beside me.

Are they bleeding? Is that blood? Squinting, I focus on the nearest wall. The walls are painted red, but there is a dark splatter on the one I’m focusing on. Long lines of dark liquid run down it. There are areas, where the liquid is not running down, but it has been splattered, just like a contemporary painting in an upscale museum.

The light above my head is dark and casts the room in a dark seductive shadow. I crane my head back and stare at the light. An inaudible gasp escapes my lips as I zero in the ceiling. The same dark liquid is splattered on the artificial lights. It no longer looks mysterious to me. On the light the dark red is visible.

Blood.

My hands tremble on my lap and for the first time, I’m feeling my own body. Glancing down at myself, I can see I’m sitting down on a black leather sofa. It is squishy beneath me and as I move from side-to-side ready to stand up, I notice my dress. I’m wearing a tight white strapless dress that stops mid-thigh. Black stiletto pumps are on my feet and a purse- which I assume is mine- lays beside them.

My dress is drenched in blood. There are spatters of it all over it. Paying close attention, the leather sofa I’ve been sitting on is soaked with it. Standing abruptly trying to distance me as much as possible from it, the room swims again before my eyes. My hands grab each side of my head as I take a few tentative breaths. I shut my eyes for a moment and pray that whatever happened in the room is just a bad dream. I will wake up safe and sound back in my dorm room. It is just a bad dream. It has to be.

But when I open my eyes, I’m still here. I’m still standing in the middle of a room that is full of blood. The blood runs down the walls, is on the ceiling, the sofas, the floor. It is everywhere. I don’t have the slightest idea of what happened.

Turning, I glance at where I was sitting. The sofa is expansive. It is an L shape black leather sofa that is firmly pressed to the back wall of the room. To its left, there is a minibar but there is no one at the counter. On its right, there are plush velvet seats with more blood on them. In the middle, right in front of my shaky legs, there is a coffee table full of drinking glasses. There are champagne flutes, empty whiskey glasses, and stacks of money. There are a few tracks of white powder that I can’t begin to fathom to what it might be. A few ideas pop in my head, but I quickly discard them. I wouldn’t be caught dead doing drugs, any type of drug. It is just not who I am.

Turning once again, I notice that there is a full-length mirror at the right of the room. It is resting a few feet away from the velvet seats, facing the back wall. Taking wobbly steps, I reach for the mirror and once I see my reflection a scream escapes me.

I’m bathed in blood. There is not a single spot in my body that is not soaked in the liquid. My ash brown wavy hair is sticking to my chest and back. My face is completely drenched and taking a closer look I can’t even recognize myself. There is not a trace of the once hazel eyes I used to have. In their place, a pair of black onyx orbs are looking back at me.

“Gorgeous, right ?”

I spin on my heels, my heart pounding loudly on my chest. My eyes frantically search the room, but I’m alone. There is not a soul with me. It is just me in a room full of blood that I don’t have the slightest idea where it came from. My eyes fall on the bar, and just a few feet to its left, there is a red door. But the door is firmly shut. If someone had walked in I would have certainly heard it.

Turning again, I face the mirror one more time. I’m expecting to see the same black onyx in my eyes, but they are gone. My eyes are back to normal.

Taking a few calming breaths, I head to the door. With shaky hands, I turn the knob and push. The door opens wide. A poorly lit hallway stands before me. The light above it flickers and I can’t see clearly.

Something inside me stirs and my stomach plummets. I don’t want to go forward. But there is no other way out of here. I start walking, my hands feeling the walls as I go forward for support. My knees are weak and my feet are sore.

As I walk, I notice that the hallway opens up. Instead of reaching the exit, I find myself in another room. The moment I step in, the lights flicker and a few of them turn on. I feel my eyes bulge and a scream forms in the back of my throat, but I hold on to it.

There are bodies scattered everywhere. There is a pool of blood that I’m stepping on and the walls are bleeding with red, just like the room I just came in from. My breath hitches and I feel tears running down my eyes.

What on earth happened here?