Written for Estella May's challange at xoxLewrahxox's forum.

Prompt: Write a story or drabble with an unreliable narrator.

The title comes from the Rush song Red Sector A.

Exactly 800 words.

Obliviate him. It's the only way. A man with red hair says, gesturing to me.

A man with an empty face points a stick at me and says Obliviate!

I wake up, then, in my little cot with the greasy sheets in the room with grey walls. I don't know who the red haired man nor the empty faced man are, nor what obliviate means. But I dream it sometimes. Sometimes more than that happens. Sometimes I see light coming out of the stick. I know it's impossible, but in the dream it seems okay.

Sometimes I see other things too. Sometimes I see a very pretty blonde woman and a boy who looks a bit like her. Once I saw them in a big room with other people, at a table. There was a snake there, too, and a man who looked like a snake, and another woman too, with black hair and angry eyes. And I felt like I hated her in my dream, but I couldn't understand why.

I didn't like that dream, and I woke up sweaty when I had it, and I heard a noise like grunting, and then even though I couldn't see anyone someone shouted Shut the fuck up in there! But I didn't know who he was talking to because I didn't make the grunting noise, but there was no one else anyway. No one else in the whole world except me and the ghosts. And then I wondered who the voice was, but I didn't know and I still don't.

There are ghosts here. Black things that creep in during the night and flutter their damp wings over me and suck everything nice out of me. There aren't many nice things to begin with. Sometimes I think the dreams about the blonde woman and the boy are nice, but then I wonder why they would be since I don't know either of them.

Once I dreamed that the blonde woman said Lucius, Lucius! And I was fucking her and saying Cissy, oh my Cissy. But I don't know a Cissy and my name isn't Lucius. And then I felt bad when I woke up because I thought that maybe I was tricking the woman into having sex with me and I knew that wouldn't be right. But then somehow I felt that I didn't do that and it was just a dream anyway so it's not like it matters anyway. And then I heard the voice again and he was saying Shut the fuck up! again, but I still didn't know who it was or why because there was no noise anyway. Only the whooshing but there's always whooshing and anyway I don't know who the voice is so I don't care too much what he says since there's no one but me and the ghosts.

Once I tried talking to the ghosts but they didn't listen they just came and made me feel wet and sad even though there's no wetness anywhere except when the water appears and even then it's not a lot and it just goes in me and then out me later but I don't get wet when it goes out me anyway so I didn't understand it.

I don't know where the water comes from it just does. It comes in a glass on a tray with food that I eat but doesn't taste good but I don't mind anyway. Sometimes I wonder where it comes from since there's no one here but me and the ghosts but I don't think about it because if I do my head hurts and I have to pretend like if I lie my head down all the pain is black goo and if I don't move then it pools at the bottom and flows out onto my pillow but even then it doesn't always work so I don't think about it.

One time I thought I saw the blonde woman and the boy but the boy was a man but I still knew it was him because he looked like him with a pointy face and the hair that was white in the blackness. And the woman said Lucius oh Lucius what have they done to you! And she cried and cried and the boy patted her shoulder but I felt awkward because I didn't know any Lucius and anyway there's no one in the world except me and the ghosts anyway so I think it was just one of the dreams I have sometimes about the woman and the boy and anyway it doesn't matter.

And I think it was a dream because I never saw them for real after that so that's what it must have been anyway because after all there's only me and the ghosts.

I understand this may have been a bit confusing, here's the context: after the final battle, the Death Eaters are rounded up and sent to Azkaban. Not all of them are Obliviated, but Lucius Malfoy was, by request of the Minister, and this is the result.

Thoughts?