4: 4
The video cut off.
I broke into a cold sweat, still shaking, and looked at Olivia.
"When did this happen? Why don't I remember any of it?"
Olivia's voice came low and quiet. "You only remember us having fun, don't you? Everything else is just gone."
I nodded.
In my memory, Clive and I really had fought, and I'd stopped speaking to him.
But afterward Clive came to make up with me, apologized for saying things without thinking, and we went back to normal.
I looked at Olivia, confused.
She didn't answer. Instead she moved on to something else.
She pulled me toward the door.
"I don't know what you saw out there, but look again. Does it still look the way it did before?"
I fixed my eyes on it.
Outside the door, everything had gone back to normal.
The stairs, the wall across from me, all of it laid out the way it had always been, the lights in the hallway glowing again.
Nothing like the darkness from a few minutes ago.
I couldn't believe it. I dragged Olivia up the stairs, down the stairs, and knocked on the wall across the way.
The hard, solid feel of it told me these things were real, that they'd never gone anywhere.
A fine crawl of goosebumps rose over my skin.
Cold sweat running, I looked at Olivia. "Just now… it was all darkness, I couldn't see anything, nothing was there…"
"And the thing in the video…"
"And him saying you were already dead…"
"What is going on? I need someone to explain this to me!"
Olivia sighed. "I knew it would come to this. Do you remember what Clive put down as his first-choice major?"
"Medical psychology…?"
"That's right. He's a genius at it. He learned hypnosis a long time ago."
A shudder ran through me, and a nameless panic rose in my chest.
"Looks like you're starting to understand."
Olivia read my reaction and spoke without hurry. "From the moment you started down the mountain, Clive was already hypnotizing you."
She pointed at my head. "Your memory. Something's gone wrong with it."
"Clive is blurring what's real and what's not. Keep this up and you won't be able to tell the real world from the illusions. No one will understand you. They'll just think there's something wrong with your mind."
"And in the end you'll turn completely into…"
"A madwoman."
Her voice was soft, but each word landed on me heavy as iron.
I was truly afraid now.
My voice shook as I spoke. "Then what do I do?"
"I don't want to live like this, in a daze, half out of my mind. I just got into the Ivy League. My whole life is only just beginning!"
"Olivia, help me. You know all this already, so you must have a way, right?"
Olivia sighed and gave me two words. "Pain."
"Only enough pain can tear you out of the illusion and bring you back to reality."
She handed me a knife.
"Do it. I'll watch over you. I won't let anything happen to you."
The knife was sharp, its edge giving off a cold, cruel gleam inch by inch.
I bit my lip.
Olivia frowned, displeased. "Do you want to become a madwoman? I'm trying to help you here!"
Trembling, I took the knife.
I was gritting my teeth, about to draw it across my wrist, when a text from Clive suddenly came through.
"Don't trust Olivia!"
"She's luring you into spilling your blood!"
