The Room

It’s dark. Your mind is foggy and you can’t see. You know you’re stuck in a room somewhere. There has to be a way out. There’s a drip, drip, dripping of water. You take a few steps toward it, your hand outstretched before you, reaching for the wall that you will eventually come into contact with. It feels wet. Slimy. Stones. A room made of stone? Your eyes are adjusting slowly. You see the outline of your fingers. You touch the wet stone again. Mossy. The liquid on the rocks… What is that? Sticky. Your fingers feel sticky. You bend your neck to meet your hand halfway to allow yourself to smell the liquid. You pull back slightly, before your nose reaches the substance on your fingers. Sniff… Sniff… Metallic. Sniff. Your eyes adjust slightly more. You start to notice the dark and light colours. You look at the liquid, it’s dark on your fingertips. You graze the surrounding stones with your hand, trying to feel for more of the liquid covering your fingers. You hear it dripping, there should be more; there should be a source. You feel a slow stream coming from the top corner. You notice it’s a small ledge giving a bit more space in a cramped room with no windows and as of yet, no door. You start tracing the walls following the path to feel for the door that is bound to be there. You count the corners of the room to give yourself a point of reference for when you’ve gone around the whole space. One, two, three, four… One, two, three, four… No, this can’t be. One... Two… Three… Four. No door? No door. Your breath hitches in your throat. It’s okay, don’t panic. The ledge! Get up on the ledge. Maybe there’s an opening up there. Ok, you can climb this. Easy peasy right – right? At least the stones aren’t flush with each other. You grab hold of the ledge at the tip of your arms. At least it’s low enough to grab from the ground. You start feeling for a good place for your first foot. You push yourself off the ground. Easy enough. Now you just need to get high enough to be able to pull yourself up with your arms. You feel for a good stone to put your other foot. You start pushing up to do it again with your first foot. You slip. Hanging onto the ledge is the only reason you don’t fall backwards, and instead press against the stones. This - is going to be difficult. You try again, keeping notes of the stones you step on in case you slip again. You slip again. Third time’s a charm. You grip the ledge again. You end up high enough up on the wall to pull yourself up with your arms. Using the remaining stones to give yourself a small boost. You make it to the floor of the ledge. Exhausted and warm, you lay on the cool stone staring up. You turn away from where you just pulled yourself up. Hoping to find an exit. An opening of some sorts. The floor is wet. The same type of liquid that was streaming down the wall. You pay no mind to it as you notice a tunnel. A way out. It’s a tight fit, but you start crawling anyway. Light. It’s dim, but you start getting excited. That’s how you get out of here. As you get closer, it gets brighter and brighter. Bright enough for you to notice the liquid on your hands is red. Blood?