I awoke several times during the day,
sun-rays and strange laughter bothering
my disoriented senses; I got up the fifth time
to find Elena stoned and giggling at cartoons
on the wide screen, eyes bulging with a redness
that would've put blooming roses to shame.

"Take these," she'd say, grabbing my hands
and placing little white pills inside of them,
a dazed grin plastered to her face.

"Go sleep, Cinderboy, for tonight we attend the ball."

Too tired to understand, too unaware to care,
I swallowed the pills and went back to bed:
I didn't wake up again.

There were no dreams: I awaken from darkness
to more darkness; an expanse of void space that
offered nothing. For some reason, it doesn't bother me.

I'm too detached to be bothered.

"Elena?" I asked the silent room. Where is she?

Stumbling over clothes and random objects, I struggle
toward the hallway--in so many ways, I am blind.
My hands against the wall, I hardly know where I am,
only that I am contained and following the only path
set before me, searching for the girl who had left me there.

A stranger, a beautiful stranger.

No, a beautifully deranged stranger.

"Elena, where are you?"

And that is when the lights turn on.

Dressed in spiderweb leggings, a black tutu and
a black Victorian corset, she stood before me,
her pupils already stretched wide by whatever
magic she had decided to inject into her system--
i could literally almost see the flames flickering
in her eyes.

She smirked.

"Time to go, boy. Get dressed," she said,
tossing a pair of clothes at my chest (the one
that I'd nearly wished I could tear open right then
to give my heart and lungs the proper amount of
oxygen they need--)