Trapped

Time passed. I think it was hours, but it could have just been minutes. Or maybe it was days. There was no clock in here, and no one else to measure time by. All I did was sit against the blank wall beside the locked door, surveying every last inch of the room from my position.

It was square; about four metres by four metres. I think. Yeah, if the bed was about two metres long, or maybe just under, then it was about double the length of the bed.

Clothes.

The thought came to me so suddenly like a light bulb switching on in my mind. I was probably wearing clothes.

I jumped up, glancing down and trying to survey what I was wearing. It might give me a clue. It might help me remember something.

I was wearing ordinary sorts of clothes—a black vest top and dark blue skinny jeans. But I was wearing no shoes. Or socks, for that matter.

I felt my hair. The last thing I could remember was months ago, so had I been unconscious for months? Or was it just that I couldn’t remember the last several months?

My hair seemed to be the same length as it always was—a little past my shoulders. That was good. If I had been unconscious for months, it would have grown.

However, that also meant that a significant part of my memory; a significant part of my entire life, had been completely erased. That was almost as scary as if I had, indeed, discovered that I had been asleep for many, many weeks.

Was there anything in my pockets? I rummaged around, but I knew in reality even before I felt them that there was going to be nothing there. If someone had chosen to lock me up, then they would also make sure that I didn’t have a phone to contact anyone or a hairclip or something with which I could pick the lock.

Did that mean that I was in prison? Surely not. Why would I be in prison?

Why could I not remember the last few months of my life?

Okay, so it was all pretty frickin’ weird.

Once again, I could feel my heart rate increasing. I stumbled back and leant against the wall, my hands clasped behind my back, a lock of unkempt hair falling across my face. I didn’t push it away.

Tears crept into my eyes. For some reason, even though I was alone, I tried to fight them back, doing anything I could not to let myself cry. It wasn’t like I was trying to hide from anyone, in fact, I’d be pretty grateful if I could see someone now. But I just felt like I shouldn’t cry. Not here, not now.

Maybe it was the thought that, once I began to cry, I would lose it completely. I had been awake for what was most likely an hour or so, but as time held no meaning in here, I had no idea, but I was already beginning to feel my sanity slipping through my fingers. And I knew that as soon as the tears began to fall, they would not stop. As soon as I started crying, I would be drowning in the depths of insanity.

So I instead turned the energy boiling inside me into something a little more violent. I began to knock on the locked door, first softly, then harder, and harder still, until my knuckles were red and I could feel the bones beneath the skin beginning to bruise. I started screaming, calling. I had no idea who to call, so I just cried out anything that came to mind.

‘Help me!’ I screamed, feeling the tears prick my eyes once again. Still I refused to cry. ‘Please for God’s sake let me out! Please!’

It was no use. Once again, I could have been shouting for minutes, hours or days, but all the energy began to wane within me, and I collapsed to the solid, concrete floor of the prison cell, curled up in myself, scratching at my skin, pulling at my hair, screaming at myself.

I could have only been awake for a couple of hours, and already I was going insane.

It was like a revealing light had been turned on. I froze, my claw-like nails embedded in the pale skin of my arm, and drew them out. I hadn’t drawn blood, but long scratches, some white, some already turning red, laced the flesh on both of my arms, ugly slashes, some of them running right from my shoulder to my wrist.

My hands shook as I placed them, now limp and frail, back in my lap. Could I trust myself at all anymore?

All that I knew was this: if I didn’t either get out or sort myself out, I wasn’t going to survive until tomorrow.