Did Jack help me get into bed? Or was that the night before?

I close my eyes. I focus, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t remember going to bed.

What’s happening to me?

I sit up, sweaty, disheveled. It’s hard to see. The room is so dark. What time is it? The tight feeling in my chest is increasing as if I’m being restrained by an invisible hand. I can feel it in my stomach, too, then my lungs. I slow my breathing by counting to ten. I count to twenty. Then thirty. I feel my heartbeat slow, returning to normal.

That’s when I see her. Ruth, standing in the corner of my room, scowling in the shadows, looking at me. She has a hand on her forehead, the same way I do. She’s wearing my cardigan.

“Shhhhhhh,” she says.

I scream as if I’ve been doused with boiling water.

“We have to sleep…. We have to eat,” Ruth says. “Always, always, always. So we can work.”

I start to hyperventilate. So does Ruth. She’s still standing, but then she positions her body in a hunched fetal position, the same way I’m now lying in bed.

I sit straighter. Ruth stands up straighter, mimicking me exactly.

“What are you doing in here? What do you want? This is my room, not yours. It’s not the same.”

“It is the same. We have to eat everything we’re given,” she whispers. “We have to stay warm and rested. So we can keep on going. It’s what we want.”

I can’t help but scream again. Ruth screams with me. After a few moments, Jack runs into the room.

“It’s okay,” he says. “Calm down. Ruth just got a bit confused.”

He walks directly over to her. Like me, she has now stopped yelling, but she’s panting. Jack removes my sweater and puts an arm around her. He touches his forehead to hers, softly, whispers something. Immediately, she settles and looks down to the floor.

“Sorry, Penny,” Jack says, turning to me. “That must have been a shock. You can go back to sleep.”

He speaks to Ruth, reprimanding her, as he walks her out of my room.

It’s not right. It’s not good. I’m not safe. Not here. This place is bad.

The only thing Shelley cares about is having more time. No matter the cost. The only thing she fears is running out of time. She’s keeping us all…

Something cracks inside me.

I’m not safe here. None of us are. Was I ever safe? I thought I was. I thought this place was heaven. It felt like it. For a while.

How can I possibly get settled after Ruth’s intrusion? I count to a hundred. I count backward from a hundred to zero and back. I walk around my room. I put my chair in front of my door as a blockade.

There’s only life here, too much life.

I crawl back into bed, sliding the pillow over my head. I lie still under the blanket. I hear steps from the hall. Doors opening, closing. I hear water running. I hear people talking. I hear laughing, crying. Both. Why is anyone awake right now?