‍

Tick Tock went the clock; Inara knew she was losing grip on sanity. Among the cacophony of sounds, the clock was the most overwhelming. In front of Inara, the wall carried a kaleidoscope of colours. The opaque hues of the fairy tale paintings had long faded; they taunted her everyday. ‘You won’t last here. You will fade into nothingness like we did,’ they repeated in hushed voices. 

With grease in braids and a bloody hand, Inara dragged a deer carcass. The mutation had claimed yet another victim. The world had gone through a metamorphosis–one that was ghastly. And Inara still had no memories. Light filtered through the grimy window of her shack and remanded of her heart’s hidden sorrow. There was not a single soul that she had come across but it had been fifty-nine days. It was an infinite loop. 

She stood before a broken mirror and muttered,“My eyebags are an accessory.” Fifty-nine days of being on alert came with its complications. One thought was persistent in her mind. ‘The figure that stands before the mirror isn’t me. It is only a remnant of who I once was.’ 

Inara, who had learnt to rely more on her senses, felt a shiver followed by a pungent fume. There was a note on the door which said, ‘Meet me in the pale moonlight. On the field of the cow carcasses.’ It irked her to know that there was someone roaming 

the land aware of her presence. A heavy curtain of awareness was between her and the unknown person and so Inara set out towards the field. The luminescence of the moon was on its peak; although the terrain was covered in a pitch black blanket of darkness. 

Within minutes of reaching the field, Inara deciphered a silhouette laying on the unpleasant blades of grass. Around the silhouette was a pool of blood. Before she could take out the clumsily arranged medicines, the person spoke.

“Aren’t you glad to have met a person in the duration of this fiasco esque rollercoaster?” 

“How would you know?” 

“Didn’t the guy with a fake moustache tell you how to recall memories?”, his questions had a hint of malice. 

“What are you even talking about? I have been stuck here with no answers. And no money. I’m so broke that I can't even afford to pay attention.” 

“Their greed knows no bounds. We are left with shattered seams of the vision that it once was. But this time, I can be the anti-hero.” 

Not even a moment after the whispered confession, he brung a revolver to her forehead. “I’ll free you.” The revolver gleamed. 

Inara slammed the carcass to his wounded side and felt her head swimming into oblivion. As if a super bass was reverberating through her ears. 

The rush of memories accompanied by the smell of antiseptic and white wallpaper gave her a mental whiplash. She took off the virtual reality headset. It was a success. The initiation session was a huge success. The project to train people for the imminent apocalypse would commence soon. The panel of doctors and scientists standing in front of her applauded as in affirming her thoughts. Doctor Truman’s moustache was gleaming; his smile was eerie.