scarredroom

    I open my eyes, and I become conscious of my surroundings. I am lying on my back in a dark room, the stygian air keeps me chained to the floor. The black velvet curtain around me hangs before my eyes. A wave of terror sweeps over me. I quickly sit up. My hands remain on the warm floor, an attempt to steady my shaking body. The room pounds and pulses around me; it trembles beneath my fingertips.   The room is deathly silent. I can only hear my heart pounding and my own breathing; I let these noises fill my empty ears. I shuffle to my feet, which creates the first real sound I�ve heard since waking up. I walk several steps in each direction, and find neither a wall nor furniture. I suppress a sob, and a voice breaks the silence.
      �I�m scared,� the voice says. It comes from somewhere in the vast darkness. The voice is familiar, but very badly distorted. Its range is precise and calculated, almost robotic. It echoes through the bleak heavy air and capers around me. I choke on my breath and let it out in one quick surge. Gooseflesh burns itself across my arms and onto my legs, and the hair on the back of my neck stands up like tiny flagpoles.
      �Who are you?� my voice trembles, barely rising above a whisper. I wrap my arms around my shaking body. I stare into the dark, searching for the owner of the voice. �Where are you?� I demand, turning in a circle.
      �I am everywhere and I am nowhere. I am inside of you, and you are inside of me. I am anywhere I choose to be, but I am always near,� the voice answers.
      I shake my head in anger, and cry, �Quit talking in riddles! I want to see who I�m talking to!� The only movement in the room is my fluttering, furious heart and my exhausted eyes. I sigh, and sit on the floor. I rest my head in my hands. �I wish I were home, waking up in my bed, surrounded by the people who I love. I wish I were anywhere but here,� I moan.
      Tears flow down my face like two gigantic silver streams in the spring. The sound of my teardrops as they hit the floor thunders through the room. I lift my head suddenly, and stare into the darkness that continues to surround me.
      �Am I dreaming?� I ask the voice. The emptiness in the room seems to dissolve the question, and the silence lasts for several seconds.
      Finally, the voice replies, �This is not a dream. You can�t wake up from this. You are alone. You have always been alone. Ask yourself this: do you remember anything before waking up just now?�
      �Of course I do, that�s a silly question. I remember...� my voice trails off. �I remember...� I begin again, but nothing comes to mind. I close my eyes tightly, praying that some distant memory would come flying back into my head.
      �Surely you remember something. You remember your mother brushing your long dark hair? Or your dog scratching your cheek last night?� the voice booms, taunting me.
      �No, I don�t remember those things. Did they really happen? How long have I been in here?� I ask as frustration and a bit of worry creep into my speech. The voice doesn�t respond, but suddenly, a bright light blinds me. I close my eyes firmly, and cover them as well, but my dark-accustomed eyes cannot handle the light.
      �Turn it off!� I shout, and after a few seconds, the room goes dark. I open my eyes, and immediately another huge flash of white fire smolders my sight. �What�s going on?� I scream, the pain of the light makes my eyes feel like they are burning pieces of coal.
      �Open your eyes,� the voice instructs me, and I do as it says. I scream loudly, and squint. I can see the walls and the floor now. There are no doors or windows.
      �How did I get in here?� I ask into the empty room. I can now see that I am alone, like the voice had told me. The light goes off again, and back on. My eyes don�t sting as much as they did the first time that I had opened my eyes, but I rub them anyway.
      �You�ve always been in here. It�s absurd to think otherwise,� I hear the voice say, and yet I cannot tell where it is coming from. It sounds like the voice is very close to me, but for the life of me, I can�t see where it could be coming from. There are no speakers in the room, and the walls appear to be very thick. The lights turn off and on. I stand up slowly, not quite trusting my weak legs, and I walk toward a wall. There�s a crack from the ceiling to the floor, and I wonder what caused the split.
      �The walls and floors have always been that way,� the voice informs me, and I nod. The lights turn off and on.
     �That�s the third or fourth time the lights have gone off and came back on. What�s going on?� I ask myself out loud, and I decide to count the seconds in-between the flashes. The lights turn off and turn back on. �One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five...� the light turns off again. �Four and a bit seconds. Where�s the switch?�
     �There isn�t a switch. It�s involuntary, I can�t control it,� the voice laughs. �Don�t pay attention to the light. Concentrate on the room and where you are.�
     �I can try, but the lights turning on and off is very annoying,� I mumble, and I look at the walls again. They are cracked and peeling, stained with the lost souls of thought.
      I step closer to touch the wall, but the voice yells, �You cannot touch the wall! It�s not safe!� I take a pace backwards, and my gaze turns to the floor.
     �You�ve gotten used to the lights already. You haven�t noticed them turning on and off since you complained,� the voice says warmly. I smile. It was true, the lights hadn�t bothered me since I had complained about them. I kneel down, and look more closely at the floor. It�s covered in scars, and I wonder what had happened.
     �I have already told you that they�ve always been that way,� I hear from above me, and I look up quickly. I see nothing except the ceiling, which is as badly scarred and cracked as the walls and floor. I continue to stare at the ceiling, and I let my fingers dance in the floor�s profound crevices. I pull my hand away suddenly, and grab my head.
     �Your head is pounding. Why does it hurt so much?� the voice rings around the bare room, and I close my eyes in agony. The voice fades, and so does the searing pain in my head. My eyes open, and I look at the floor. There�s a pool of red liquid where I had been touching.
      �Blood. The floor is weeping blood!� the voice tells me, sounding almost hysterical.
      �That�s not possible! How could the floor be bleeding?� I ask in disbelief, a slight quiver in my voice. My hands tremble as I look them over, and I become more and more shocked as I come to realize that I don�t have a scratch on me.
     �Oh God. Oh, please tell me what�s going on!� I plead with the voice, and my legs become too weak to hold my weight. I crash to the floor, and claw at the ground. Blood bubbles up from the scars, and I scream in agony. The coppery smell of blood fills my nostrils. I can taste its richness in my dry mouth. My head feels like it�s going to explode, and yet I don�t pull my hands away from the floor. My forearms are completely soaked in dark blood, and the voice is screaming.
     �Stop! You mustn�t continue doing that! Can�t you see what you�re doing?!� the voice shrieks.
     �There HAS to be a way out!� I cry, and I jump to my feet. I run to the wall, and start tearing at the cracks. Blood pours out of the cracks as well, and I am almost ankle-deep in the warm liquid.
     �Stop it! There are holes in the wall, try the holes in the wall. Please!� the voice pleads with me. I look around the room, astonished to hear that there have been holes in the wall the whole time and I hadn�t noticed. Just as the voice had said, there were two tiny holes in one of the bleeding walls.
     �Wake up, and look at yourself through your own eyes,� the voice persuades, and I find myself running toward the light.
      I stand before the spots. Light flashes across my chest, and my eyebrows turn inward in confusion. I bend my knees slightly, and become eye level with the two holes. I cover my right eye, and peer into the light.
     �What�s going on?� I gasp, but I continue to stare through the hole. I can see a brightly lit room, it�s almost too bright to endure. A girl is standing in front of a mirror. She�s screaming at the top of her lungs and tearing at her head. She pulls handfuls of hair out by their roots and shakes violently. My stomach leaps into my throat as I notice her long dark hair and the fresh red scratch on her cheek.
     �Oh God. This can�t be! Where am I?!� I erupt in tears, and hysteria takes over my body.
     �You must know where you are. Denial is a heavy weight. One must lift it over their head and feel its pain in order for it to be placed aside,� the voice invades my body.
     �But where am I? How can I be in denial if I have no clue where I am?� I scream into the room.
     �How na�ve of you. Of course you know, you�ve always known,� the voice rises and it loses its distorted tone. �Look, and you�ll understand,� I hear my own voice echo through the room, and yet I hadn�t uttered a word.
      I look through the hole, and I see myself with a glimmer of understanding in my reflection�s eyes.

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