I don't want to wake up.

My eyes refuse to open, and I am praying that my lungs will give out or that my brain will hit a self-destruct button. But it doesn't. Nothing and no one can save me. I can't even save myself. Save Alyssa. Where is she? Where is Alyssa? Where is she?

Please, I can't live without her.

It takes me too long to acknowledge the truth: Alyssa is gone. Cut from head by a scalpel of pure agony. My head injury. It rattled my skull. Perhaps it ruined her. Because she's gone. There is only silence in my head, and I want to scream. To cry and weep and thrash until I break a bone.

I don't want this. I've never wanted this.

Alyssa! Alyssa, please! Come back. I need you. I need you. Come back.

No answer. Just pure silence. My throat contracts, as if about to vomit. My eyes burst open. Instantly, I want to close them again. To drift off into a world where I am nothing and no one.

Instead, I'm greeted by the beep of a heart monitor and the pinch of electrodes on my forehead. The cold kiss of a facility-issue gown, lying atop a bed. Rather, strapped to it, with big white chafing belts encircling my wrists. I wriggle my feet. My ankles too are immobile.

My head spins like a teacup at a county fair, my brain matter chasing itself into a stupor. This is impossible, this isn't right. I shouldn't be here. I try to wriggle around on the bed, but large hands sporting latex gloves hold me down. Garbled voices are all I can hear. Until one particular tone obliterates the haze of the room.

Mrs. Karen Hill. One of the founders. The woman who oversaw what passed as my existence. The Mother who pretended to love me.

My head rises, while my mouth itches to spit in her face. The realisation strikes me.

Alyssa is gone. No one will save me now. She's gone. I lower my head back down.

"More sedatives," comes another voice, whiny and airy. As if they have no idea that there is person lying below them, waiting to shatter.

The world grows fuzzy again and it isn't long before I'm facing Karen Hill for the second time. I can sense that the electrodes have been removed and my bloodstream is clearing the sedatives from my system. Immediately, the world sharpens, and I can see the main components of the room. A large ceramic like button – it appears as gelatine from where I'm lying even though it is likely an oxidised version of aluminium – serves as an alarm system. I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Here we go again. White walls, white ceiling. A steel door in the far corner of the room. To my left sits a metallic tray covered in a green tarpaulin. An IV feeds into my right arm, making me groggy at the mere sight of it.

Above me stands Karen Hill, flanked by two pock-mocked doctors sporting clipboards. My face falls. If Alyssa we here she'd lung from the bed, snap the restraint like rubber bands and breaks those clipboards over her knee. If Alyssa were here. My body deflates, as if my veins have been pulled out of my nose like an Egyptian Pharaoh. Alyssa is gone.

Behind Karen Hill, the Doctors are stone-faced. Their clipboards are granite gavels, ready to pass their judgement. I'm not a person to them. I am a disorder lying on a bed.

Raising my head as much as I can, the world lashes into focus. But I shut my eyes. I don't want to see it.

Leaning over the bed, Mrs. Karen Hill smiles. The smile of an IV line as it wraps around your throat.

"Welcome back, my big brave girl". I say nothing. Even if I want to reach up and yank her hair from her scalp. Karen Hill gestures half-heartedly to the Doctors behind her.

"You don't mind if they observe, do you? They've never seen a girl like you before". Again, I don't respond. Whatever I say, no one will truly hear it. The Doctors will remain.

Choking back the tears, tears I hardly have room for anymore, I lower my head against the metal bed.

"Was it all a lie?" I ask. My voice a mere whisper. All those afternoons basking in the warm glow of the living room, reading side by side, watching television, gorging ourselves on ice-cream until we threw up. That day shopping in the city, the day I was normal.

Mrs. Karen Hill startles a little, but soon melts back into her uninterrupted mask.

"Of course, it was. You believed it". My eyes widen.

In some way, she believed it too.

The straps chafing my wrists and ankles, I struggle to sit up. In the end, I slump back onto the bed, though calling it a bed is a little generous to say the least. Closing my eyes, I imagine what Alyssa would do if she were here. Alyssa wouldn't lie here, writhing like a hawk in a fishing net. She wouldn't cry either, but the tears become unstoppable. Weakly, I raise my head. Look Karen Hill in her shark-tank eyes.

"Please". I almost curse at the fact that I'm beginning, but once I start, I can't seem to stop.

"Please, let me go. I can't hear her, please. You took her from me!" Karen Hill turns to the Doctors, gesturing to me as if I were some Victorian Invention.

"Many sufferers of DID, especially her specific type, can suffer from sudden psychotic outbursts, although these are often precipitated by the other personality". My eyes darken and I lift my head and shoulders from the bed. The strain on my arms floods my muscles, but I grit my teeth through the pain.

"Shut up. You don't know what you're talking about. You're not a psychologist and I am not a label in a textbook. Please, let me go. I can't be any use to you now. Alyssa is gone".

Blinking, Karen Hill faces me.

"Alyssa? You named her?"

"She's not a pet. For all you know, she may be the primary personality". In front of me, I can see the Doctors scribbling chicken pox notes on their pretty little clipboards. This time, I spit at them. One woman, with coca cola eyes, shivers. Regards me with sudden disgust and steps away.

Lying back, I chuckle to myself. The chuckle rises until I'm laughing hysterically, wheezing with each breath.

"You have no idea, do you?" The Doctors are silent. I huff another laugh.

"You have no idea that you're looking at a person, do you? A person. A human being. Do you remember what that means? A human being? I shop and sleep in fluffy socks and grey pyjamas. I get stressed in crowds. My name is Alice Callett". I turn my glare onto Mrs. Karen Hill.

"And you have my Mother. Where is she?" Karen Hill says nothing, but her eyebrows raise.

"Where is she?" I shout. Two other Doctors take a step back.

"Where are you holding my Mother?" Karen Hill folds her arms and smiles.

"You don't have a Mother".

"You can't stop my memories. I have a Mother and I love her more than I ever pretended to love you." The woman who lied starts. Stumbles.

"What makes you think she's still alive?" I stop mid-breath. I never considered my Mother to be dead. I always imagined she'd be bouncing with life, ready to catch me as I flung myself into her arms. God. Please. Please let her be alive. I grind my teeth.

"She is alive. I know she is". Mrs. Hill chuckles.

"You don't know anything".

"I know you pretend to despise me, to treat me like your pet project. But I know more than you think. I know you." I smile like Alyssa.

"I lived with you for months. I know you well". Karen steps back.

"Quiet". My grin widens. Karen Hill snarls and points to the door.

"Get out!" she screams to the Doctors. They scatter like sand-flies. Crawl away as fire-ants in whitened robes, almost dropping their clipboards as they flee. Run, little pigs, run faster. I lean back against the bed, wincing as my head hits the metal table.

Leaning heavily on the wall, Mrs. Karen Hill struggles to resume a steady rhythm. Struggles to slip back into her mask. It had been a job to her, at first. But she'd spent months living with me, pretending to be my Mother. A job like that, is bound to take a toll on anyone.

I smile softly.

"For what it's worth," I say, because no matter what she's done, I can't bring myself to truly waste my anger on her. "You were a pretty good Mum. Given the circumstances".

Karen Hill says nothing, but surges towards the bed to take note of my vitals. She speaks into a little black box – a recording device – monitoring my brain, which is shifting its patterns, and my blood pressure. Frowning, Karen Hill races for her phone and scrolls through. I imagine she's peering at my charts. My brain waves.

"Not what you'd hoped?" I say, not too smugly. The liar in the lab coat hisses me into silence. Spends another few minutes scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. She shoves the phone back into her pocket and steps toward me. Her shadow falls over me, stoic eyes and ashen skin. She is a woman in flames, burning alive in the fire she started. She lit the match, after all. She must burn.

"What did you do? Your brain activity is shifting."

"It must hanging out with you," I snap back. Pursing my lips, I swallow my following words. Provoking her will not help my situation. Instead, I sigh, and raise my hand as far as it will go while strapped to the bed.

"Please. Can't you see? Whatever you've done to me, you've ruined your chances of achieving success. Give this up. Please. Let me go. You can't keep hurting people like this. Everything you've done will catch up to you". Karen Hill sighs and turns around. When she speaks again, her tongue is iron.

"What about the things you've done? What about your Mother? If you were smarter, stronger, she'd still be alive". Rapidly, I lunge up from the bed, making it shudder. Karen Hill doesn't turn around.

"My Mother is alive".

"You're so naïve, Alice. Don't you see? We're doing good work here. Our current soldiers make mistakes. Lives are not lost for no good reason."

"Lives are lost for no good reason regardless. You think war is a good reason to do the things you've done?" Karen Hill sighs.

"I don't expect you to understand. We're on the verge of a psychological phenomenon. Imagine it. A soldier who's facing hardship in battle, both emotional and physical, can switch on another part of his brain. This means soldiers can be posted for longer. No more therapy. No more psychiatry. People will be able to switch between different parts of their brain to avoid hardship". I choke a laugh.

"You must know it doesn't work that way. You can't play God with people's minds. Human minds." I stop myself. Because I realise that it doesn't matter what I say. She won't listen. She won't listen and she doesn't care, and I hate her for it.

As Karen Hill walks to the door, her footsteps become drums. Pounding in my head. With each rattle of my skull, an image resurfaces. Playing in the park, dancing in the sandpit with a little red bucket. My Mother, my real Mother, holding a little green spade. Dr. Light, holding my hand. Dr. Light speaking in softened tones in the back garden. Karen Hill stands at the centre of my cortex, a pistol in her hand. I swallow the scream in my throat.

Alyssa was never the monster in my head. All the monsters live in the real world. My eyes drift closed.

I remember.

I remember everything.