“It is best that we begin as soon as possible with the administration of your case. Are you free next week for a follow up appointment?”

I reach over to grab the frame that is standing on her desk. Inside it is a picture of the woman and standing next to her with his arm around her shoulders is a man with dark brown colored hair. Seated underneath them are two blonde little girls.

They are all smiling.

How nice.

“I actually am fully booked for the next couple of weeks, but the gods must be on your side for one of my appointments for tomorrow morning called this afternoon saying she fell ill so I can squeeze you in for then. My, aren’t you lucky?

Tick. Tock.

“Your family looks very happy in this picture.”

I have to give it to her. She keeps her composure very well, faltering only a little bit before she resumes typing.

“Yes, I am very grateful to be blessed with my two lovely daughters and wonderful husband.”

Of course. They always are.

Tick. Tock.

“It would be such a shame…” I start to say, slowly laying the frame down on the desk. “…if that were to change.”

Abruptly she stops typing all together.

I let my gaze wander in the direction of her right hand, to that hideous thing she is wearing. As if on instinct she immediately puts her other hand over it.

Even if you try to hide, it is no use.

“Excuse me, what is it exactly that you are you talking about?” she says with a slight tremble in her voice.

Tick.

I have come

and it is already to late to run.

I put my hands on the desk and lean over to look her straight in the face. “If you don’t want them to know about your little secret…”

Tock.

the game was already over

“…you know what you have to do right?”

Tick.

before it begun.

Her face significantly pales in comparison to her flushed look that she came into the room with earlier.

and now

We keep staring at each other until she eventually looks away and gives the slightest of nods.

Tock.

you are done.

I stop leaning over the table. “Good. Glad we are on the same page.”

I reach down to grab my bag of the floor where I left it earlier.

“Well, I’ll be going then,” I say merrily as I straighten back up. “I wish I could tell you that it was nice meeting you, but we both know that would be a big fat lie.”

However, again when my hand touches the doorknob something stops me.

Only this time around it isn’t the voice of the woman.

No, it is something far more dark and sinister that is calling me right now.

“Oh, wait. I almost forgot,” I say out loud.

I look over my shoulder to find the woman hunched over on her desk with her hands in her hair. At my words she slowly raises her head.

The second her eyes meet mine I am hit with a sudden realisation.

I can’t say that I am particularly surprised at how much I am enjoying this. How much I like seeing that look on her face. You know, the one people make when they realise they have underestimated someone.

But that is not what it is about.

No, it is about something else. Something I am not sure how I feel about yet.

Again, I am reminded of the promise I made to myself on that very first night I was brought here.

No. How I was dragged here.

That is why I don’t feel sorry at all when I utter these next few words.

“Happy holidays,” I grin at her over my shoulder.

Then I finally open the door and step out of that room. I finally step out of the confines of that small little world I have been calling ‘mine’ for the last three years.

And as I walk through the corridors of this place for the very last time I know exactly what that snowflake would have whispered to me.

Tell me, how far are you willing to go?

What price are you willing to pay to know what freedom feels like?

Now I have my answer.

I did not know it then.

How that day would turn out to be the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning of everything.

How that moment in time later would become something that would haunt me until the day I would die.

That I would look back at it again and again and again.

Each time with more desperation.

Hoping. Praying. Begging.

God, how I wish someone would have stopped me.

Or at least would have told me about what I was going to become in the future.

For if I knew I never would have let myself walk out of that place alive.