I shot out of bed, wincing as the pain in my side worsened. A wave of panic rushed over me as I looked around my unlit room. As my eyes were adjusting to the darkness I noticed a pair of eyes looking at me with curiosity. The left eye was a pale blue color that was extremely difficult to see in the darkness, but the right eye was the exact opposite, for the golden yellow eye was practically glowing. I continued to stare at the mismatched colored eyes. The eyes look familiar, I’ve seen them before. Was it her? It couldn’t be her. There’s no way. I look at the eyes one last time. Then the realization hit me. It was her. I felt my body tense up as I muttered her name. “Illa..?” She grinned at me, her bony face fully visible now. She scooted closer, putting her face about an inch away from mine. She closed her eyes and giggled. “So you haven’t completely forgotten about me!” she exclaimed, her eyes opened revealing her unalike eyes once again, the golden one slowly fading into a pastel yellow. I looked away. “Why are you here?” I asked, “How are you here?” Illa frowned in annoyance and slowly got off of my bed. She stood up, looming over me. The moonlight from the window glimmered over her. I looked at her. She had gotten so much skinnier since I’d last seen her, it looked like she had no flesh on her body, only bone. Her ribs were extremely visible and looked like they could tear right out of her skin, and her arms and legs were about the size of twigs. Her waist was just as small as her legs and arms.
You see, Illa isn’t exactly human, well she’s part human I guess.. It’s kind of a long story. If you haven’t noticed already, Illa is Alli backward, this is because she is a part of me. She is basically all my negative thoughts and bad traits formed into a person. It’s really hard to explain what Illa is because I’m the only one who can see and talk to her, even though I’m not supposed to. Illa lives in the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that regulates emotions and memories. That is where she is supposed to be anyways, but sometimes she is able to escape, which is usually when things in my head aren’t necessarily okay. Illa has been in my head for as long as I can remember, but she started appearing temporarily in real life since I was about 13. Besides the body type, Illa looks almost exactly like me. We’re the same height, have the same hairstyle, and have the same voice.
But there are differences too, for example, Illa’s hair is always pitch black, even if I dye my hair, Illa’s will always stay the same color. Illa and I also have very different clothing, I normally wear sweatshirts and sweatpants but Illa always wears a plain a-lined dress. The color of the dress does change to whatever color my sweatshirt is though. Another difference is that Illa’s fingernails are vastly different from mine, I wouldn’t even call them fingernails, Illa’s fingernails are basically claws and are extraordinarily sharp. But it’s not like Illa can accidentally scratch herself with them, because unfortunately if Illa tries inflicting pain on herself, it will automatically transfer to me. Sometimes she’ll hurt me by accident, such as accidentally tripping, or sometimes it’ll be on purpose, like the time she looked at me dead in the eyes, smiled, and then slammed her hand in the kitchen drawer. The last difference is our eye colors, I have blue eyes and Illa has a blue and yellow eye. Her left eye is the same shade of blue as mine. Her right eye is normally a mustard yellowish color but it changes based on her mood. The eye turns into a pastel yellow when she is happy or excited, neon yellow when she is startled or nervous, dark yellow when she is angry or sad and her eyes turn pitch black when she becomes unstable.
“Hey!” I jumped as Illa snapped her scrawny fingers in front of my face. “Are you going to help me or not?” she asked with an irritated tone in her voice. “Help you with what?” I repeated, not making eye contact. “I kinda zoned out and I didn’t hear you..” She groaned, stomping her foot on the carpeted floor. “You’re such an idiot,” she scoffed, looking at the ground. “Well..” she started, fiddling with the side of her dress, which has been torn. It was obvious that she had scratched it. Ah, so that's what caused the pain in my side. “Dissonance kinda got out again..” she trailed off, still messing with the piece of torn fabric. I flung out of bed. “What?!” I shouted. “Do you know how much danger you’re in!? Do you know how much danger we’re in?!” She balled up her fists, her right eye darkening. “Of course I do!” she snapped. “Why else would I be asking for your help?!” I sighed, trying to calm myself down. “Right,..” I said, looking down at my feet.
I forgot to mention Dissonance. They live in the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that triggers an emotional response, mostly in fear and anger. Just like Illa, they are a representation. They represent the bad parts of my family. Dissonance is a monster-like creature, they are around 9 feet tall, have eight arms and legs, three mouths, and an uncountable amount of eyeballs. They also have two sets of wings that look like they once belonged to an angel. Unlike Illa, they don’t have skin or hair and are definitely not human-like, they are made of some sort of a slimy dark blue substance that always has a strong smell of cigarettes. They also only talk in growls and screams, and their voice is all my family member’s voices layered together. It is a very disturbing sight. Like Illa however, they do have an opposite named Harmony. Harmony lives in the part of the brain called the frontal lobe, which controls motor function and memory. Harmony represents the good parts of my family. Like Illa, Harmony looks pretty human-like, despite being 9 feet tall. They have crystal clear hair that falls to their shoulders and they are constantly meditating. But unlike Illa, Harmony is mute and can only talk through sign language. Fortunately, Dissonance and Harmony can never enter the real world, but they can escape their homes and invade other parts of the brain. When this happens it is extremely dangerous.
“Are you going to help me or not?!” Illa yelled, snapping me out of my thoughts once again. I pause for a second. “How do I know you’re not lying about this?” I ask, looking deep into her unique eyes. This wouldn’t be the first time Illa has lied about something like this. When she escapes from my head she always asks or tries to get me to come into her world. When Ila is in the real world, her world leaves my head and becomes sorta like a different dimension that only Illa and I can enter. It appears as a hole that is located in the bathroom under the rug. I’ve only been in Illa’s world twice, both the times were a result of her lying. I don’t break eye contact with her as I wait for her to respond. Her yellow eye turned dark once again and she looked at me with a hurt expression. “I can’t believe you still don’t trust me,” she sniffles. “After all we’ve been through. I’m not lying Alli, I promise I’m not.” I look away hesitantly, slowly backing away and looking at my dresser. I reach for the translucent orange bottle sitting on top of the wooden dresser. She watches me carefully, and then in less than a second, she starts running towards me. “No! Don’t!” she screams, tears forming in her blue and now neon yellow eyes. She tries reaching for the bottle. “You can’t take those! Please! I don’t wanna disappear again! You don’t know what it’s like!” her voice quivers, and I notice her hands shaking slightly. I look at the bottle of gray pills in my hand and then back at Illa, who looked like she was on the verge of tears, which was a very rare sight. I sigh, slowly placing the bottle back to its original position. She smiles and runs up to me, her thin arms wrapped around me. I feel her claws digging into my back. I awkwardly hug back, very much wanting this interaction to be over. After an almost unbearable amount of seconds, Illa finally let’s go. She grabs my hand leading me out of my bedroom and into the bathroom.
She lifts the rug, revealing the dark mysterious trench. She puts a hand on my shoulder and gives me a reassuring smile. “We’ll be okay.” I returned the smile and quickly looked down. “I need to get something real quick,” I say and run back into my bedroom. I shove the item in my sweatshirt pocket and return to the bathroom. Illa grabs my hand once again. “Ready?” she asks. I nod, “Ready.” I close my eyes as we jump, the ice-cold air stings my face as we fall. After what seems like hours, we finally reach the ground. Illa lands straight on her feet, while I fall gracefully on my face. Illa grabs the back of my hair and yanks me up. “Ow,” I whine, but she shushes me. I look around, shivering as a gust of wind brushes past me. Illa’s world is a mirrored version of our world.
Illa’s house is exactly like mine except flipped and there is no such thing as light. The hole we fell out of is in the ceiling of Illa’s bathroom, unlike the one in my house which was located on the floor. Illa starts walking, motioning me to follow her. We walk out of the bathroom, through the hallway, through the kitchen, and into the laundry room. We reached our destination, we both looked at the door in front of us. “Dissonance is in the basement?” I whisper. She doesn't answer and reaches for the doorknob, slowly turning it. The door makes a creaking sound as it opens, revealing the shadowy basement. I hold my breath. Illa begins to walk down the stairs and I follow. Once we reach the bottom of the stairs, everything is quiet. I look around, squinting in the shadowiness. “Are you sure they are here?” I ask. No answer. “Illa?” I asked, frantically looking around. “Illa?!” I start to panic, I start walking trying to find the blacked haired girl. Suddenly something grabs my leg, pulling my down. I scream, trying to kick whatever was holding me captive. “Ow! Stop!”
I cover my eyes as a bright light appears in front of me. “It’s just me.” I uncover my eyes seeing the familiar skinny face. “I found a flashlight on the ground,” she says, holding it up. I sigh in relief. Illa stands up and holds out her hand. I smile and grab her hand, but as I stand up I feel the item fall out of my pocket. It landed with a small “clink” sound on the cold cement floor. I let go of Illa’s hand, immediately trying to retrieve the item, but Illa gets to it first. She picks it up, shining the flashlight onto it. She stares at the pill bottle in her hands.
Her face is expressionless at first, but then she begins to laugh. This is the first time I’ve ever heard her laugh like this. It sends shivers down my spine. The laughter stops and she looks coldly at me with her blue and black eyes. She steps closer, shoving the orange container in my face. “You said you trusted me Alli,” she says, her voice trembling. She steps even closer. “Do you not trust me?” She keeps screaming, her voice echoing around the frozen basement. I can’t understand what she’s saying, it sounds like multiple voices are speaking, each one displaying a different emotion.My head throbs and I try to look at her. Her right eye somehow gets even darker and she stomps her foot right onto my stomach. My ears start ringing and everything becomes blurry. Despite it beginning unbearably freezing, I begin to sweat. I feel myself blacking out as she begins to place her other foot onto my forehead, slowly applying pressure. “I trust you.. I trust you!” I hear myself say, and then suddenly everything stops. Illa looks at me, a wide smile appears on her face. She grabs my arm, helping me stand up. I feel her bony fingers wrap around my wrist. She gets close to my face, her face showing no more emotion. “Never trust what you fear.” Sharp pain plummeted through my wrist as she effortlessly sliced the skin open with her nails. I fell back, grabbing my wrist trying to apply pressure to the wound. I look up and Illa is already halfway up the stairs. With my adrenaline pumping, I forget about the pain and run after her. I make it up the stairs watching her run into the bathroom. I make it to the bathroom, trying to catch my breath. I look around but she’s nowhere in sight. I then remembered the hole. I run to it and freeze. Illa looks at me from inside the ceiling, her face practically glowing with twisted glee. I watch in horror as her face slowly morphs into mine, her black hair lightening into an auburn color and she is now wearing my sweatshirt. I reach for her, the bones in my arm becoming hellishly visible. I feel extremely weak. I reach again, desperately trying to reach the opening. The hole keeps shrinking and shrinking and everything gets foggier and foggier and the cavern suddenly closes, leaving me imprisoned in the darkness. The last thing I see is Illa’s bright yellow eye transforming into my blue ones. I fall on my knees, shoving my bony hands into my now black hair. I feel the dress blow slightly from the wind. I’m trapped. I’ve lost. Illa had won.
