The Hole in the Bathroom Floor (Remastered)

 I shoot out of bed, wincing as gut-wrenching pain radiates through my side. A wave of panic rushes over me, as I look around my unlit bedroom. As my eyes slowly adjust to the darkness, I notice a pair of eyes peering at me with curiosity. Each of its eyes honed a different color, it's left being an uninviting slate blue and the right being an incandescent golden yellow. My mind races as I continue to gaze into the mismatched-colored eyes. I’ve seen them before. The realization hits me as I feel myself involuntarily muttering her name. “..Illa..?” She grinned at me, her boney face becoming visible. Illa scoots closer, her face becoming uncomfortably close to mine. She closes her eyes before giggling bittersweetly. “So you haven’t completely forgotten about me!” she shrills, opening her unalike eyes once again. I watch tentatively as her golden eye fades into a soft, pastel yellow. 

My body tenses as I shift my gaze to the floor. “Why are you here?” I ask, “How are you here?” Illa frowns, hopping solemnly off of my bed. “Nice to see you too.” She mumbles in a mocking tone. The moonlight from the window glimmers onto her as I refocus my attention. Woah. She has gotten so much skinner since I’ve last seen her. Her body looks deprived of flesh, seeming as if she was made entirely of bone. Her ribcage is disgustingly visible, it looks like they could tear right through her side at any moment. Her arms and legs have the build of twigs, her waist is just as small as her limbs. 

There is no way any normal human could look like this and still be breathing. It makes sense since Illa is far from human. Well, she’s part human in a way... It’s a long story. If you haven’t noticed already, ‘Illa' ' is “Alli' ' backward, this is because she’s a part of me. Illa is a representation of many things, but she primarily characterizes my mental illnesses and overall not-so-good traits. A doppelganger of some sort is how I would explain it. She typically 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 can appear outside of my mind, which, unfortunately, is completely out of my control. Besides the body type, Illa and I are almost exactly the same. We’re the same height, have the same hairstyle, and have the same voice.

But we do have our differences as well. For example, Illa’s hair lacks all colors, resulting in it being pitch black, so we can never have the same hair color unless I dye my hair black. We also have vastly different clothing styles, my outfits usually consist of hoodies and sweatpants, while Illa always wears a plain a-lined dress. And the most noticeable difference is our fingernails, I wouldn’t even call Illa’s nails fingernails, they have more of a resemblance to claws. But it’s not like she can accidentally scratch herself with them because if Illa tries inflicting pain on herself, it will automatically transfer to me. Sometimes she'll hurt me by accident, such as tripping. But other times it’ll be on purpose, like the time she looked at me dead in the eyes before slamming her arm forcefully in a kitchen drawer. Our last difference is our eye colors, Illa seemingly has normal eyes besides her yellow one. 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 jump as Illa snaps her scrawny fingers in front of my face. “Are you going to help me or not?” she snaps. “Help you with ….what..?” I ask anxiously, looking back at the floor. “I kinda zoned out..” Illa stomps her foot irritatedly on the floor, groaning. “You’re such an idiot,” she scoffs. “Well..’ she speaks, her tone softening. She starts fidgeting with the side of her dress. I notice a hole torn in it, so that’s where the pain came from. “Dissonance kinda got out again..” she trails off, continuing to mess with the torn fabric. I fling out of bed. “What!?” I shout. “Do you know how much danger you’re in?! Do you know how much danger we’re in!?” Illa balls up her fists, her right eye darkening. “Of course I do!” she growls. “Why else would I be asking for your help?” I sigh, trying to calm myself down. “Right..” 

I forgot to mention Dissonance. They live in the amygdala, the part of the brain that triggers an emotional response, mostly in fear and anger. Just like Illa, they are a representation. They represent parts of my family. Dissonance is a monster-like creature, around 9 feet tall, has 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 not human-like, they are made of some sort of a slimy dark blue substance that always has a strong stench of cigarettes. They only talk in growls and screams, and their voices are 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 gonna help me or not!?” Illa yells, breaking me out of my thoughts once again. I pause. “How do I know you’re not lying about this..?” I stare 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 a response. Her yellow eye darkens once more as she looks at me with a hurt expression. “I can’t believe you don’t trust me..” she sniffles. “After all we’ve been through... I’m not lying, Alli, I promise I’m not..” I slowly back away, making my way towards my dresser and to the translucent orange bottle perched upon it. 

Illa stares at me for a second, carefully examining my movements before charging at me at full speed. “No! Don’t!” she screams, her voice quivering with panic. Sludge-filled tears begin to fill her blue and yellow eyes. “You can’t take those! Please! I don’t wanna disappear again, you have no idea what it’s like!” She attempts to snatch the bottle with her trembling hands. I look at the bottle of gray pills in grasp and then to Illa, who’s whimpering pathetically. I exhale, slowly placing the bottle back to its original position. She smiles and without warning, wraps her thin arms around me. I feel her claws dig into my back. I awkwardly hug back, very much wanting this interaction to end. After an almost unbearable amount of seconds, Illa finally lets go. She grabs my hand, leading me out of my bedroom and into the bathroom. 

Illa lifts the rug from the tile floor, revealing a dark, mysterious trench. She puts her hand on my shoulder, giving me a reassuring smile. “We’ll be okay.” I hesitantly return the smile before speaking. “I need to get something from my room first, I’ll be right back.” I speedily run back into my bedroom, locating the item before shoving it into the pocket of my hoodie. Illa grabs my hand once again. “Ready?” she asks. I nod. “Ready.” I shut my eyes as we jump, the ice-cold wind viciously stinging my face as we fall. After what seems like forever, we finally reach the ground. Illa lands straight onto her feet, while I fall ungracefully onto my face. Illa roughly grabs the back of my hair, pulling me up. “Ow,” I whine, but she shushes me. I look around the desolate landscape, shivering as a gust of wind brushes past me. Illa’s world is a mirrored version of Earth.

Both of our homes have the same layout except everything is 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 creaks as it opens, revealing the shadowy basement. I hold my breath as Illa begins to walk down the stairs, I reluctantly follow. When we reach the bottom of the stairs, everything is quiet. I try to look around, squinting in the shadowiness. “Are you sure they’re here?” I ask. No answer. “Illa?” I ask out loud, frantically looking around. “Illa?!” I feel myself start to panic as something reaches for my leg. It pulls me down causing me to crash to the ground. I thrash around, trying to kick whatever was holding me captive. “Ow! Quit it!”

A bright light shines in my face, causing me to shield my eyes from the sudden brightness. “It’s just me, weirdo.” I uncover my eyes, relieved to see the familiar skinny face. “I found a flashlight on the ground,” Illa explains, showcasing her newly found treasure. I let out a sigh of relief as Illa holds out her hand, gesturing me to grab it. I smile at her as she helps me to my feet, but my feeling of happiness doesn't last long as I feel the item fall out of my pocket. It lands with a small “clink” noise as it collides with 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, inspecting it with her flashlight. She stares at me with pathetic eyes, the pill bottle in her grasp. She lets out a high, deranged laugh. 

Once her laughing ceases, she turns to me with a cold expression. Her yellow eye had gotten so dark it had turned black. Illa steps closer, shoving the pill bottle in my face. “You said you trusted me,” she says, stepping closer, her voice trembling. Her voice turns into a shriek. “Do you not trust me?!” Illa continues to scream, her voice echoing around the frozen basement. I can’t decipher what she says as millions of other voices spin around me, suffocating me. My head throbs as I try to look at my doppelganger. Her right eye gets even darker as she stomps her foot directly onto my stomach. Everything becomes a blur, an intense ringing lingers in my ears. Despite it being unbearable freezing, I begin to sweat. I feel myself passing out as she places 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 stares at me, a wide smile stretching across her face. I feel her boney fingers wrap around my wrist. She moves closer, putting her face directly in front of mine, void of emotion. “Never trust what you fear.” Sharp pain plummets through my wrist as Illa effortlessly slices open the skin with her nails. I fall back, applying pressure to my newly wounded wrist. Once I look up I see that Illa is already halfway up the stairs. With my adrenaline pumping, I forget about the pain and run after her, making it upstairs and into the bathroom. I try to catch my breath, looking around for the black-haired girl. I then remember the hole, I look up 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 dress being replaced with a baggy sweatshirt. I reach for her, the bones in my arm becoming hellishly visible. Feeling extremely weak, I reach again, desperately trying to reach the opening. The hole keeps shrinking and shrinking and everything gets foggier and foggier as 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 scrawny claw-like hands into my black hair. I feel the dress blow slightly from the wind. I’m trapped. I’ve lost. Illa had won.

-Allitini