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#1

((Forrest Quin continued from Reflections))

"Ok so, it's really simple. You just put it on your tongue and you go."

Forrest nodded along with the explanation and took an excited breath. What could go wrong really? Well, maybe a lot. They had said she wasn't supposed to take it by herself for the first time, but honestly, who cared. She had taken so much shit by herself that having some people there wasn't going to make a big difference. Plus, they hadn't let her leave. It was whatever and her skin was itchy. She raised the cast and tried to shake her arm to get the sensation to go away but had no luck. It was stuck there, just like how her arm was stuck in that position.

"Really, really not sure you should be mixing painkillers with this stuff Tree." Someone said from a beanbag in the corner.

"Oh, it'll be fine." She heard herself reply. "Drugs have never steered me wrong before." Plus, she didn't want to be sober. She had received a message she hated and needed to get rid of it.

"If you say so." Another one of her friends said with a shrug.

"It still makes me uncomforta-"

"Look, guys, you offered me the stuff, now let me actually have it." Forrest interrupted. She didn't understand why they were getting in the way of her desires to get fucked up. Normally it was instant agreement and they were away. But now she had taken one fall it was like they were trying to keep her cocooned from the world. The idea that she was some fragile creature irked her.

"Alright, alright, jeez." Came the response and a tab was passed to her.

"Thank you." She said and then before anyone could say anything else she put it on her tongue.

Nothing happened.

Nothing happened for a while.

"Well this is la-" Then she melted.

And she fell. She was falling through the world she guessed. It was hard to tell because she had never been to the center of the earth, but sometimes these things happened she supposed. In the end, she landed back in her bed. Which, all things considered, wasn't too bad. The sky was pulsing green but that was whatever. She could live with it. Then she became aware of the knocking on her door. Slowly standing, she headed over to it. Moving was difficult because her feet weren't really there and the floor was stodgy but she eventually made it. Upon pulling on the door handle and folding the door away Forrest found herself face to face with a pink elephant. They exchanged eyebrow raises for a few awkward moments before it compressed its great frame through the doorway and into her room. She took a couple of steps back to give it the space it needed and observed the scene. Once it had fully entered her room it expanded back to full size and knocked her computer desk over. She watched as the monitor fell into the floor and was slowly absorbed. "Are you my spirit animal? Because I feel like my brain is stealing a trademark."

"I am not."

"Well, that makes me feel better." Then the elephant bonked her on the head with its trunk and she too was sucked up by the floor.

She wasn't fully absorbed, however, instead, she ended up lying on her back inside the floor itself as the world rotated around her, tilting over so she was positioned above in the sky. She saw a woman and a baby. They had no faces. The woman looked up at her, a plain blank expanse where her face should have been, gazing at Forrest and then her face started to run, and drip. Slowly piece by piece, her face fell onto the woman below. She tried to raise her arm to stop it but her skin stayed where it was and her bones didn't do a good job of stopping it. So she pushed away and the world flipped over and over and over.

It wasn't the first time she had seen her, but it would have been a lie to say she enjoyed any time it happened. It would have been more accurate to say she hated every instance but she didn't hate.

That was for a later time. As things were she was busy watching the death of a city. She saw the storms come in over the horizon and the people fled. The clouds and sun rushing overhead, racing to the conclusion. The buildings grew more weathered and slowly nature returned. Vines started to climb up from the earth and took over the buildings, giant trees slowly began to grow. Nature once again outlasting a great race that had ended. She then watched as the trees withered and died, the buildings fell to dust and nothing remained. Then she fell all the way from her floor to the surface of the earth below. She put her arms out, but she only had one. Obviously. So she merely bounced. As Forrest stood, she absently brushed the ashes of civilization off her clothes and looked around for anything interesting. There was nothing.

She was alone.

She hated it.

How long had been alone for?

It was hard to count. She hadn't been timing how long she had been walking and her phone had turned to ash rather than help her. She had pulled a face at that one. Her phone was normally so trustworthy. So that was why she had been walking for. a. fucking. age. with no music or anything to pass the time. Just her and the dust. An empty plane of nothingness with nothing upon its surface. A blank expanse. She didn't know what direction she had been going in because there really weren't any directions that existed. She just walked. She walked and hummed and spoke to herself. None of them were interesting activities but she needed something.

That was when she saw it on the horizon. The elephant. She started to run. It didn't get any closer so she tried harder. Still nowhere. In the end, she called out to it.

"Uh...hey! Elephant can you come over here?" And so it was in front of her. "Oh uh...sick."

Now she had reached it, or technically it had reached her, Forrest really didn't know what to do.

"You have questions." The elephant said. Although it wasn't so much speaking as its voice merely existed in her mind.

"I mean yeah, my main question is where are we?"

"That's not the question you have."

"I think it is."

"Do not lie." And just like that everything went black.

When color returned she was standing opposite the blank face woman. She had a bundle in her arms and held it up to Forrest. She shook her head. "No, I don't want that." She wanted to move back but her body wouldn't let her. The blanketed bundle was offered up again. "No, I really don't want it." Forrest said again but she found her arms moving by themselves. The bundle was taken in her hands, slowly they began to unfold the blanket. Forrest squeezed her eyes shut and wished she was anywhere else in the world.

As she opened them again she was in her hallway arm stuck in the wall. How that had happened she couldn't rightly say. Two people stood at the very end, and she recognized them. They both walked forward as a pair although when they reached her one merely gave her a wink and a pat on the head before continuing past. The other stood there, looking at her then slowly and delicately it knelt down and rested its forehead on hers. She reached up with her hands to touch him but when she did she didn't want anything. She thought she did. She thought she should have. But there was nothing there, not like that. She just enjoyed the presence, the companion. But then he wasn't there and she only had one free hand anyway.

She sat there a while and watched as her corridor tested on new paint schemes. She advised it to pick whichever it felt most comfortable with. Once it had settled down to a spiraling purple and blue she stood to move on, her arm being allowed freedom after the wall was happy. It took a little longer than normal to get where she wanted due to the layout of her house spinning, twisting and changing with each step but eventually, Forrest reached the bathroom. She ran some water and splashed it on her face then watched in the mirror as her image shifted to that of a dog.

"You're not going to be cryptic are you?" She asked.

"Bark, bark." Came the response from the dog in the mirror.

"Wow," Forrest said, taken aback. "Harsh."

"Bark, bark, bark."

"I mean...I...guess you're right."

The dog nodded in satisfaction before continuing. "Woof, bark, woof."

Forrest shook her head. "I...no?"

The dog frowned.

"It wasn't deliberate."

The dog frowned harder and then barked another question at her.

Forrest pulled a face.

"I don't do things because of that."

The dog, clearly not impressed with her answers showed its displeasure by leaping out of the mirror and biting into her neck.

As her body was torn apart and relocated back to her room she saw the elephant shake its head out of the corner of her eye as the fangs came down.

When she awoke, the sky was blue. She rubbed her head as she lay in bed. Slowly, she moved and pulled herself up. Her toes slid across the carpet as she headed towards the door. Opening it she found the corridor empty. Carefully, she moved down it, keeping an eye and ear out. There was nothing. When she entered the bathroom she was greeted by no dog. Content that the interrogation was over she went back out into the corridor only to find the elephant blocking the door to her room.

"You have questions."

"Yeah."

"What are they."

"Why are you here?"

"Because you need to understand yourself."

A pause.

"What part of me?"

"The part you've always felt guilty about."

She nodded.

"And who am I?"

"You are you."

She opened her mouth to ask another question but the elephant cut her off.

"You cannot change it."

For some reason, it gave her pause.

"What if I try?"

"Then try for the better."

And then, in a puff of pink the elephant was gone.

Behind it stood the blank face lady, except her face was no longer blank. She held the bundle out to her and Forrest accepted it.

Then everything melted away.

Forrest woke up in her own room, in her own bed. After lying flat on her back for what felt like an acceptable amount of time she rolled over and check her phone. It was sitting on her bedside table, unlocked and charging.

Facebook was open.

The page was for a woman with dreadlocks.

They shared a face.

The woman had sent her a message earlier in the day.

Forrest locked her phone, rubbed her eyes and went back to bed.

((Forrest Quin continued elsewhere...))