Home

Kim had lost a contact lens.1

"Goddamn it," she whispered as she rummaged through her bag, fingers pushing through the canvas' dirty lining. Her hand sifted through dirty tissues and Ricola coughdrops and, inexplicably, closed around a slim plastic cylinder.2

She pulled it out, tucking a long strand of crazycurly brown hair behind one ear. With her one good eye, she squinted at the object.3

It was a transparent orange plastic vial, capped with a white stopper and labeled SLEEPING PILLS.4

"What?" Kim murmured aloud. She couldn't remember ever having taken sleeping medication before.5

She heard a train whistle and looked up. Her lensed eye focused in on her surroundings. She was in an empty subway station. The walls were crawling with mildew, the rails were littered with trash, and every single sign or machine was broken and flickering.6

"When did I get here?" she squeaked, quite taken aback.7

The train whistle sounded again and a broken-down, battered subway train slid into the station. All the lights were out, except for a dim glow that seemed to be coming from the floor. The doors whirred open.8

Kim closed her blind eye and looked at the train's label, the little sign that stated where the train was going. In large black letters, it simply said HOME.9

After a moment's hesitation, she forced herself to step inside. "Home sounds good enough," she heard herself remark.10

She could see the source of the bizarre glow. A long row of small tealights extended down the subway floor, each one lit and gleaming with a small pearl of rosy flame. The train appeared to be empty, and so Kim sat down in the first seat.11

"Do you have any candy?"12

"Hm?" she looked up, startled. A small girl with a neat cap of black hair stood before her. She had a frilly pink dress on, and two glassy blue eyes that didn't look like anything human.13

"Candy. Do you have some?"14

Kim reached into her canvas bag again and pulled out the sleeping pills. "Will this do?"15

The little girl took the bottle and uncorked it, spilling some of the capsules into the palm of her tiny hand. The pills were shaped like hearts, each one of them pink on one side and blue on the other.16

The girl examined the handful of pills for several minutes, then spoke up. "Would this be enough to kill somebody?"17

Kim scratched her head. "I'm not sure, exactly. I don't think so."18

"Goody." The girl gulped down the hearts with a near-savage hunger, and tipped the vial towards her hand again.19

Kim watched her, half-heartedly still searching her bag for her other contact lens. "Have you seen them?" she muttered to the girl.20

"Your contact? You only have one."21

"Huh?"22

The girl had finished the last of the pills now, and the area around her mouth was stained cotton-candy pink and electric blue. "You tried to blind yourself with one of the doctor's scalpels, remember?"23

"No..." Kim forced a laugh and tried to change the subject. "Do you think these candles are a fire hazard?"24

"You did," the girl continued as though Kim hadn't spoken. "You tried to do the other eye, but they got there too fast. So they put you in solitary confinement. But you were smart."25

"Was I?" Kim murmured, watching the candle flames dance.26

"You got someone to smuggle you a bunch of sleeping pills and you took them all."27

"Did I die?"28

"Not yet." The girl licked her lips. "Do you have any more candy?"29

"I think you've had enough."30

"Funny...I don't think YOU have."31

Kim looked down at her hands. "I know."32

"It's okay if you want to wake up."33

"But we aren't at my stop yet. We aren't home yet," Kim protested.34

The girl laughed. "And we won't ever be, Kimmy-Kim-Kim. They'll never let you go after THIS!"35

With that, the small girl kicked the line of candles over, like a child tipping over a row of Dominos. Kim frowned as the train caught fire.36

~37

The doctor scribbled a flower in the margin of her clipboard. "How's my craziest patient?"38

The stocky nurse wrinkled her brow. "The blindness is gonna be permanent...too much retinal damage, you know. We pumped her stomach, so she'll wake up soon. But she won't let go of the doll."39

"The doll?"40

The nurse gestured towards the curly-haired girl's hand, in which was clutched a tiny porcelain doll, with short black hair and a lacy pink dress. "Don't know where she got it. But it's creepy, y'know? Especially its eyes. They're the weirdest shade of blue."41

The doctor laughed. "I was never a fan of dolls." She leaned over the comatose girl. "After this you're going back to solitary confinement, Kimmy-Kim-Kim. And this time," she crooned, wiggling a finger. "No more candy!"