Chapter Four: Amorette

The first thing that hits me is the smell. A rotting body, I think. I can’t tell whether it’s mine or not but the stench is enough to bring up the contents of last night’s dinner. And when there’s nothing else left in my stomach, my vision blurs and I slump onto the ground, weak and disoriented.

I don’t know how long I lie there for, but it’s hard to tell. And while I get the sense that time moves differently here – wherever here is – the intrigue is not enough for me to move. The heaviness in my bones weighs me down, and the feeling that I’m not in control of myself anymore slowly consumes me and my body begins to shut down. I make a feeble attempt to take in my surroundings, and the last thing I see before I pass out is the dried blood splashed against the walls.

‘Get up.’

A harsh and unrelenting voice brings me to my senses, a voice that I didn’t expect to hear again so soon. Before I can comprehend how she’s here again, I find myself moving from my position on the floor, and suddenly I’m on my feet, staring her in the eye.

‘Come here.’

She sounds amused now, almost as though there’s something funny about my current state. I stumble towards her anyway, shocked that my body has started acting of its own accord but unable to stop it. The distance between us closes with each step, and I’m only inches from her when I come to a sudden halt.

I look up at her, a large, wide brimmed hat bringing a shadow across her face and dimming the light of her piercing golden eyes.

She regards me with a sort of intrigue, a curiosity that I haven’t seen before. Her thin lips curl into a smirk, a knowing smirk that says she’s won – but what?

‘I had fun the other night,’ she says playfully, lifting her head to meet my eyes, ‘I hope we can do it again sometime.’

I laugh, because how else can I react? ‘You scared the shit out of my sister and ruined an already awful evening,’ I say, ‘I reckon that’s something to avoid, don’t you think?’

It’s her turn to laugh now, but it’s so forced it sounds like she’s in pain. ‘You’re cute for thinking that you can disagree with me,’ she says, pulling my body so close to hers that I can feel her heartbeat, ‘But I wasn’t suggesting it.’

‘Get the fuck off me!’ I yell, shoving her so violently that she trips and falls backwards.

I stand there for a moment, watching her get to her feet. She glares at me with those eyes, now blood red in anger, then says, ‘Wrong move.’

But I don’t even have time to be scared because my whole body explodes in agony, and I crumple to the floor, paralysed. In seconds the pain has worsened and I’m choking and drowning and dying and dying and-

Then.

‘Get. Up.’

I rise to my feet shakily, and find that my body miraculously doesn’t hurt anymore. All that torture – gone in an instant. It almost seems as though the pain wasn’t real.

‘Was that you?’ I ask in an attempt to wrap my head around this whole thing.

She snorts at this, almost unable to believe my stupidity. ‘What do you think?’ she snaps, though she doesn’t wait for me to answer. ‘I control you,’ she says quite simply, ‘And you’re nothing more than a puppet whose strings are at my disposal.’

This catches me off guard. Me? A… puppet?

‘You don’t even know who I am,’ I say fiercely.

‘I don’t need to,’ she replies, ‘The less I know about you, the easier it is to get rid of you.’

‘And how’s that working out for you so far?’

‘Better than you think.’

‘We’ll see about that.’

I know I’ve won because she doesn’t respond, but the feeling of victory fades quickly as her stony expression is replaced with that smirk, and her eyes return back to their golden colour.

‘Tell me your name,’ she says.

I try my hardest to keep my mouth shut, lips sealed as if stuck together with glue, but my efforts are in vain. I’m not even aware of it until a voice that must be my own says, ‘My name is Amorette Hawthorne, but most people call me Ettie.’

‘Ettie…’ she repeats rather absent-mindedly, twirling a white strand of hair around her finger.

Only then do I notice the unusual colour of her hair, the snow-white layers cascading down her back like a waterfall, and how her clothes, clean and crisp like snow itself, mimic the colour. A distant part of me wonders if she’s God.

I’ve never liked God.

‘Well?’ I prompt, curiosity getting the better of me.

My voice snaps her out of her daze, and she turns her attention to me. She is most definitely God. Which is all the more reason to hate her.

‘What, you want to know my name?’ she asks like it’s the funniest thing ever. ‘I already told you the first time, or did you forget? Telling you my name would take all the excitement out of this. You don’t want that, do you?’

‘Whatever,’ I say, longing for the comfort of my empty flat.

‘Great!’ she – God – says with a little too much enthusiasm, ‘Speaking of fun, how about a little… house cleaning?’

‘House cleaning?’ I ask, because it’s so stupid I can’t help it, ‘What would we possibly need to clean in here?’

She laughs, her playful attitude coming back. ‘We aren’t going to be cleaning,’ she says, placing a hand on my shoulder. Her smirk turns into a grin as I flinch from the touch, ‘but you are. And trust me, there’s plenty in here to tidy.’

And before I can open my mouth to ask another question, God vanishes, leaving me, an empty house and lots of rotting bodies all alone.