Growing Lilies

Lily woke to find she’d toppled out of bed. Again. She didn’t know why she’d suddenly developed the habit, but hitting the floor was no more comfortable the third time in a week than it was the first. She groaned, and reached an arm onto her bed to pull her blanket down over her.

“Fuck you gravity. Fuck you life. Leave me alone.”

But, as she tried to fall asleep again, a smell was keeping her from drifting completely off. She eventually sat up. The clink of the empty cans she’d been sleeping on falling over met her ears. Her room was dark, apart from the bit of sunlight that made it around her black out curtains. A sea of cans, dirty dishes, and garbage greeted her for the morning.

Another day had come. As it always did. It didn’t matter. Lily’s days were all the same. She lived alone. She hadn’t been seen by another human being in… Honestly, she didn’t even know. At least several months. She ordered all of her food online, and waited until people left to collect it. She snuck out of her apartment to the trash cans in the middle of the night once or twice a month to get rid of some of the mess. Otherwise, she kept all her windows covered, and never left the house.

It had been like that for the three years she had lived here. Another day. Another week. Another year. It didn’t matter. It was all the same, as the rest of the world passed her by.

She had stopped caring. Well, that wasn’t quite true. It was more like pain had long since given way to aching depression, and then numbness. This was how things were, and so she could either live with it or… not.

“Great thoughts to start the morning.”

Lily rose. Sitting in a pile of cans wasn’t more important than anything else she was going to do today, but it was certainly less comfortable.

She stumbled her way through the mess and into her kitchen to gather breakfast. Breakfast being a rockstar energy drink, a bowl of cereal, and a slice of pizza she’d accidentally left out all night. She put the rest of the pie in the fridge at least. Who said she couldn’t be productive?

Sitting down to eat, she set up youtube to auto play. It didn’t matter what was on. She just needed something to fill the silence, or the little gremlin that lived in the back of her brain would start spinning up even more negative thoughts.

As the intro to some documentary about the three major power grids in the united states was playing though, her phone started blaring an alarm from the other side of the room.

Lily put down her food and groaned, but got up to shut it off. Why had she set an alarm anyways? She couldn’t even remember. As she picked up the phone and looked at it though, she was surprised. She definitely didn’t remember setting this one.

10:07 AM - ‘Better Get Moving! <3’

She shut it off. How strange. She never really used her phone unless she had to. It was a device mostly for communicating with the outside world after all, and Lily had done everything she could to sever that connection. Her phone was a glorified device for receiving one time pin codes from online services, and very rarely making mandatory calls when somehow the outside world managed to touch her. Usually while drinking a little to calm her nerves. Even the sound of a stranger over the phone was enough to start her down the road to a panic attack.

Well, whatever. If she was sleep walking and setting alarms or something she’d just start turning her phone off. As long as she didn’t end up walking into traffic or something, it was fine. Although, even that was probably fine. At least it’d be quick.

She shook her head. Okay! It was time to get her mind onto something else. This was unproductive. But, just as she sat down again, the alarm went off a second time. Now she was really annoyed. She stood up and stomped over to the phone, ready to turn it off entirely.

10:10 AM - 'Look Outside, Beautiful! <3'

She blinked down at the phone. There’s no way she wrote that to herself. Even in her sleep. She’d never talk to herself like that. She almost laughed at that, bitterly. But it was the truth.

“What the hell?”

Her mind raced as she stared at the alarm. Maybe it was a very weird bug, and she was getting someone else’s alarms? No. That didn’t really make sense. She glanced up at the window, still covered with her black out curtains. Was there something out there…?

Dread filled her. What if she looked outside and there was something terrible? Like what? A childish part of her thought about opening her window and seeing a monster. Or just nothing but blue skies and no outside world. Or… she didn’t know.

No. No that was stupid. She turned off the alarm and reached for the power button to turn off the phone, but just as she was about to turn it off, the alarm started again.

10:12 AM - ‘No, really. Look outside.’

Okay, now it was TALKING to her? She turned the alarm off, and marched over to the window. She was going to open it, see that there was nothing, and then turn off her stupid phone. She reached the curtains in two angry steps, and reached for them. But she stopped an inch short and hesitated.

Her heart was beating out of her chest. This was so fucking stupid! It was going to be nothing. It had to be nothing. Nothing ever happened to her. Her life was normal, day in and day out. A festering pit of despair, but a festering pit of despair that never ever changed.

She swallowed her fear, and drew back the curtain.

A perfectly normal day was outside. Blue skies, buildings, birds. She breathed a sigh of relief, and the tension melted off her. Then, she saw the smoke. Actually, wait. Not just one plume of smoke. Three. Three plumes of smoke from different parts of the city.

She was on the third floor, and her apartment was on high ground, so she could see quite a ways. There were three fires? She wouldn’t have bat an eye at one if it wasn’t too close, but three? That just didn’t make sense. Wasn’t someone doing something? Was this some kind of attack? She stared, and her heart sank.

Wait, that’s not all. The roads were empty. The courtyard below her window had no people. No cars were moving. Apart from the fires, she might as well have been looking at a painting. There was a clattering sound as her phone dropped from her hand onto the floor, but she could hardly hear it. A dull ringing was starting to fill her head, and her vision was getting a little dark around the edges. She was feeling faint.

This couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be. But, as she looked everywhere she could see, there was no one. On a day like today, she should have been able to see people in the windows of other apartments, cars on the road, people in the courtyard, even a plane in the sky. Anything! But there was no one.

She reached back down and grabbed her phone in a stupor. She was feeling dizzy, and her thoughts were muddled. But, there was fire and no one was doing anything. She tried to unlock it, but it wasn’t working. She didn’t know what she was getting wrong, but decided to just call 911 without unlocking it when she remembered phones could do that.

She dialed the number. As it started to ring, dread filled her. What was she going to say? Okay. Just. Fire. Say there’s fire. Three fires. Mention not seeing anyone. And then hang up. They could track the location, it would be fine.

Wait. Wasn’t it ringing for a long time for an emergency number? Her heart sank. What if no one picked up…?

She realized she was hyperventilating and tried to breathe slowly and carefully. That was a crazy thought. More likely they were getting flooded with calls about this, right? But as it continued to ring, a cold certainty filled her. No one was going to pick up.

She ended the call. She couldn’t listen to the ringing anymore.

“What… do I do?”

The trembling in her voice was what finally pushed her over the edge.