I awake in darkness.
Or maybe I’d always been awake. I don’t remember going to sleep. Or much of anything for that matter. I take a few steps to the right- what I assume is my right, I can’t seem to see my hands. All of me is engulfed in the same darkness that stops me from seeing anything else. I wonder if there even is anything for me to see, in this…place? Were it suddenly bathed in light, would I be able to see something. Or would it be emptiness forever?
The darkness seeps into my memories, I don’t know how it is that I can speak when I can’t seem to remember learning these words or their meanings. I can’t see faces, even when I close my eyes and try to picture them. Everything in my imagination is blurred or erased. Like… Like something that’s washed away from another thing. I swear I should be able to think of the analogy. It doesn’t matter.
I hold out my hands as I walk forward. The floor feels smooth. I must be inside, I’ll have to hit a wall at some point, right? If I’m not, then what is this place? Hell? I was never religious, well maybe I was at some point, I can’t recall. I wonder, does my family miss me? Do I have a family? I hope that whomever I do have is okay. This probably isn’t hell, where would everything be?
It’s been hours, I’m unsure of the time, maybe it’s been seconds, maybe days. Having no frame of reference can really mess with your perception of time. What do I look like? What do I sound like? “This?” I say aloud into the void, there’s no echo, so the place I’m in is either really big, or the walls are made of that thing they use in sound booths. Hey! I remembered what a sound booth was. That must be somewhere I’ve been, somewhere something important happened. Or maybe it means nothing.
I’m certain if I keep walking in this direction I’ll find something, A wall, a person, a memory. I don’t know but I also don’t really care, I just need confirmation that the emptiness isn’t infinite. There needs to be a way out. But Even as my hesitant steps turn into a frantic run, I can’t find an end. After maybe hours, maybe days of this frantic run- I stopped. I didn’t feel hungry, I didn’t feel tired, I didn’t even feel my own breath. I tried sitting down and I tried clawing at the floor, my face, my throat. None of it worked.
Finally, I sat and thought. Contemplated on what could have brought me here. What memories I could dig up. Maybe, if I try hard enough, I’ll be able to grasp a memory of someone who made me happy. Someone who misses me right now. Someone I can look forward to seeing. I try and try but no faces come up, no grandmothers or siblings or even regular stock image people. It’s hard to even remember what a human is supposed to look like. If I were given the tools to draw one, could I? It can’t be that hard; one skull, one tongue, hair… I think.
It's been so long, or maybe it hasn’t and I’m just that weak. I can’t bear this. I have no release. I can scream as loud as I want but no one can hear me. I can’t even cause harm to myself, I couldn’t end this suffering if I’d tried. And I’m afraid to try. I’m not sure what it is I’m afraid of, however. My senses are fading away, slowly but undeniably so. I can’t stand this, I have to do something…
drip, drip, drip…
It’s so faint, so quiet I’m not sure if it’s real. I can hear something. Something for the first time in … a long time. I should be excited, I should be happy that something’s finally happening. But I’m terrified. Terrified is actually an understatement, I don’t have the vocabulary to describe the horrors ripping through my mind. What’s left of my mind anyways. I had no idea that a sound so incredibly small could make one feel so shook. The sound of the dripping is getting louder. Horribly, phantasmagorically loud in this context. The silence was unbearable but this, this scrap of hope that it’s not all over. It’s somehow worse.