Fragments Gallery
Lost Journey: Waiting
I awaken slowly in the white room. I’m on my back on the bed staring up at the unblemished smooth ceiling. I've been in there long enough that it now felt familiar. With no timepieces or windows to see the sun I had no way to gauge how long I'd been trapped in the small room, all I knew was that I'd been trapped with my thoughts for far too long. I was confused and I wanted answers.
That man… the man who was forcing me to relive those memories, who was he really? I haven't seen him since the day I was left in this room, but he always haunted my thoughts. I felt that I knew him, that he was somehow important to me. He was the reason I didn't feel I needed to escape. Something about him brushed against a memory buried at the back of my skull. Maybe he was one of my teachers, maybe a favoured uncle. I couldn't remember. But the feeling I had told me that I safe, that I didn't need to escape. So beyond looking for a way out of the room, just in case, I was content to wait.
They'd be back eventually.
I rose from the bed and shuffled over to the small table which held the water pitcher, cup and the vegetables. Even though I had eaten all of the vegetables on the platter the night before it was once again full. Same with the water pitcher, even though it had been half empty it was now full to the brim. This had happened every other time I had gone to sleep so it wasn't too much of a shock now. It worried me though; I hadn't ever seen anyone refilling the platter or pitcher. I still hadn't even found the door. It was as if I were stuck in some kind of time loop out of a sci-fi out of an old television show. It was as if each time I fell asleep I went back in time to the start of the previous day. So when I woke up the water had not yet been poured from the pitcher, the platter had not yet been touched. I almost expected to see a ghost of myself walk through the hidden door as time repeated itself.
Of course that never happened.
Instead the room remained the same, reset each time I slept to its original layout with one small exception. When I had first walked into the room there had been no other doors, just smooth walls. But after I had first slept a door had appeared in the back corner of the room, upon investigation I had found a small bathroom. Otherwise everything was as it had been when I had arrived.
As I stood at the table I heard something behind me. I turned but not quickly enough, a bag was pulled over my head once more and I was led from the room. We travelled down the hallways again and once more I couldn't make a mental map of our path, there were just too many turns. Before long I was pushed into a chair and the bag was pulled from my head again. I was back in the room where I had relived the memories. I was back in the same chair. In front of me stood the man, his teeth bared in something that resembled a smile.
"It's time to go, are you ready?"
I nodded. Maybe if I did this enough I would get some answers. Maybe who this man was would eventually get explained. And if not? If not I guess I would have to find a way to escape. I’m sure an opportunity will arise.