It’d been a few nights since I’d experienced this much anxiety. The apprehension of feeling your life is in danger, and knowing each passing second brings you closer to the end.
The towering, brooding girl I’ve come to know only as Alondra is humming delightedly. She walks past the bedside table I’m confined to, picking out clothes and admiring herself in the mirror - purposefully showing me her indifference.
My heart is racing; it rattles me to see that condescending smirk of hers.
She approaches the dresser and lifts the lid from the plastic bin that holds me. A clear faded bin normally used for small pets which has been my prison for weeks. I don’t want to be grabbed by her, but it’s not like she gives me a choice. I’m quickly gripped in her fist and carried as she would pick up any object.
“Zaira,” she teases, “you look more miserable than usual.”
I try to keep her focus on me, and not on the two jars she’s placed atop her dresser. Their lids are removed and replaced by a cover of shrink-wrap. Inside are two other shrunken people, sharing the terror of wondering what this callous stranger plans to do with them. They’re my best friend Mira, and her boyfriend Dario.
The two people I’d hoped could have freed me from this nightmare. I can’t help but feel somewhat responsible. They were coming to save me. Alondra got to them first.
Alondra walks to the dresser, holding me in front of the jars. Mira has a look of bewilderment – that phase of denial where you keep trying to convince yourself this is a dream and you’re hoping you’ll wake up any minute. Dario is kicking and pounding at the jar, trying everything he can to knock it over.
I know both of those feelings too well.
Alondra takes a seat on the bed and opens the side-table drawer. A feeling of repulsion dawns on me. I don’t know what she’s reaching for, not sure what her endgame is… but I’m sure it’s meant to damage and humiliate me.
She takes out a large nail polish bottle and a set of hair rubber bands. Before I have time to react, she’s got me pinned down on the table and she’s binding my arms and legs with the rubber bands.
One time over, then twist it and wrap it over once more.
She picks me up by my feet, turning my world upside down in one swift movement. I’m staring down at the bottle as she removes the top, releasing the intoxicating scent of purple polish. Even at my shrunken size, this bottle seems much larger than normal – she must have poured multiple bottles into one.
I haven’t even begun to protest when I feel myself drop at full speed, causing a dreadful pressure in my torso. I barely manage to close my mouth before I’m greeted by the foul, thick fluid inside the bottle. Immediately I feel the burning in my eyes – that feeling like they’re being stuck with a dozen sharp needles.
Alondra is enjoying this. Her hand stirs me in circles, and I frantically tug at my wrists and try to kick my legs. I try to shut my eyes as much as I can, but the stinging persists. It’s an incessant seething, made worse by the fact I can’t move a muscle to free myself.
Finally, she pulls me from the bottle. The nauseating scent of the polish forces its way up my nose and into my mouth. All of my senses are invaded by it.
I feel myself being lowered again, and Alondra’s hand moves me in a swaying motion. All the while I’m gagging and sputtering nail polish. My nostrils are clogged and I’m struggling to breathe through my mouth –I’m praying she’ll at least set me down to catch a breath before I suffocate.
I’m being used as her goddamn nail polish applicator.
“Ah, fuck!” she says, setting me down on the side table, “Your curls won’t work. I need someone with straighter hair.”
I want so badly to wipe the polish off my face and be able to open my eyes. I’m so focused on tugging and flailing like a worm trying to free myself that it takes me a minute to realize exactly what she’s saying.
Mira has long hair.
By the time I’m able to open my eyes, Alondra’s holding Mira upside down, also restrained by rubber bands. She’s admiring the nails on her other foot.
I want to shout to Mira to let her know it’s gonna be okay, that we’re all gonna pull through this somehow… but deep down I fear the worst. Just as swiftly, Alondra plunges Mira into the liquid. Mira starts to squirm violently.
“Please, no – don’t hurt them! It’s not their fault!” I shout.
“Of course it’s not”, comes the reply from Alondra, solemn as ever. “It’s yours.”
She pulls Mira out from the bottle, brushing the excess polish in her hair against the rim of the opening. All the while, Alondra continues humming, ignoring my pleas. She doesn’t even look away as she continues dunking Mira and painting her toenails.
After much effort, I finally manage to break one hand loose. That’s enough for me to work the damn rubber bands off. Without a second thought, I run over to the edge of the table.
“Let her go. Please! She hasn’t done anything to you!” I beckon.
Alondra smirks, and she finally turns over to look at me. I try to contain my fear, to stay defiant.
“Who else knows?” she asks.
“Nobody, I only contacted them.”
“You’re a liar, Zaira!” she bellows. At this size, her shouts could be enough to blow out my eardrums.
I look over at poor Mira, who is coughing and gasping for breath, her face and neck glazed in Alondra’s purple nail polish. You don’t ever want to see your friends in pain, much less like this.
Alondra reaches her other hand towards me. I flinch, expecting her to slam it down on me, but instead, she grabs the bottle and places it next to me.
“She makes for a perfect applicator! All done!” she says, admiring her work.
I start to breathe a sigh of relief...Alondra’s taking off the rubber bands. The calm is short-lived, though, as I realize she’s not putting Mira down on the table.
Instead, she drops her straight into the bottle. My heart sinks as Alondra grabs the brush top and screws it back on, trapping her.
I’m screaming at the top of my lungs.
Inside the bottle, Mira flails her arms frantically trying to stay afloat, her eyes wide with terror. I can faintly hear her shrieks muffled through the glass.
Alondra grabs the bottle and shakes it, violently swishing the fluid.
“How did you contact them?” she yells.
I don’t please her in the slightest; I don’t want to succumb to her, but I can’t let her keep hurting Mira.
“The other night… you- you left your tablet… in front of the bin. The lid was open, so I … snuck out, and used it to message them.”
Now her fist comes down on me. I’m knocked flat on my face with a single thud.
“WHO ELSE DID YOU TELL?” she screams, shaking the bottle again. I can only imagine what Mira must be going through.
I try to respond, but Alondra’s straight-up knocked all the air out of me. I feel my eyes bulging as I struggle to draw in a breath.
“Your friend is drowning, Zaira,” she teases, looking at the bottle with a sickening delight. “Don’t you care about her?
“I’m… I’m sorry”, I mutter, tugging at the sinking feeling in my stomach.
That seems to calm her, ‘cause Alondra finally sets down the bottle. Except I don’t see Mira floating in the surface anymore.
I run over to the bottle, which stands taller than me, and start trying to open it. I throw all of my weight against it and manage to tip it over. Now I can grab on to the top, and start twisting it so I can—
Then I see it.
Floating in the liquid. Unmoving.
Mira’s lifeless body.
My world collapses. Nothing else exists – there is just dread and panic.
She was the sweetest girl. She never did any harm to anyone.
“You shouldn’t have brought her into this, “says Alondra, fixing her dark bangs as she walks back to the dresser. “This is on you.”
She turns her attention to the other jar, from which Dario is wildly hurling off insults at her.
I can see the minuscule figure of Dario pounding at the walls, his screams inaudible.
“Wooh!” breathes Alondra, “I am ready for a night out. I feel like we should celebrate!”
She sets Dario’s jar on her bed and walks off to the kitchen.
I’m so sorry, Mira. You didn’t deserve this.
I try to unscrew the top, pulling on it with everything I have – I want to pull her out, shake this nightmare off and breathe life back into her. Always so full of life and passion. She had such a great life to look forward to… her and…
Dario. You can still save Dario.
The shot of adrenaline kicks in and I leap over from the dresser onto the bed. I’m sprinting across, wondering where Alondra went off to, but hell-bent on reaching Dario before she does.
I’m gasping for breath by the time I reach the jar. I don’t waste time trying to climb it; I instead slam myself against it, and thankfully the jar knocks on its side. I collect myself to help Dario tear through the damn plastic, but that’s when I hear Alondra’s booming footsteps returning to the room. She’s holding a clear glass bottle.
“Look at you, still trying to escape!” she says, playfully picking the jar back up and knocking Dario on his back.
We’ve just lost our last chance.
Dario is throwing his arms around violently, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. Alondra sets the jar down on the table and places the glass bottle next to it. It’s a bottle of tequila.
She opens the bottle and lets the liquid pour into the jar. I see Dario try to shield himself, but he is quickly washed over by the downpour of alcohol.
Alondra picks up the jar and kneels just in front of the bed, looking directly at me.
“I want you to remember this,” she says, that dreadful smile on her lips. “This is the last thing he sees before he dies.”
She downs Dario, literally in a single shot. Dario’s body disappears into her gaping maw, flooded with a stream of tequila. Alondra leans in closer to me – leaving her throat just inches away. If I had any kind of shard I could slice it open.
I hear a loud gulp, followed by Dario’s scream muffled through her flesh, as the lump travels down her throat and disappears.
I try not to think what it must feel like, being pulled down her throat, encased in flesh without air to breathe.
“Woo!” she exhales, “That was a good fucking shot.”
I fall down on my knees, shattered. The last thing I want is to break down in front of her, to give her the satisfaction of seeing me defeated. But… my friends. I brought them both to their deaths at the hands of a sociopath. And I couldn’t do anything to stop her. She just ended two people’s lives without the slightest remorse.
No one else knows I’m here. Alondra will make it that much harder for me to contact anyone. I’m slowly becoming more her possession, and less the person I used to be. She’s erasing me, little by little.
I’m back to being her object. Back to the dark I know too well.