Trapped in a Room That Doesn’t exist

Trapped in a Room That Doesn’t exist

I don’t remember walking in. But I know I can’t leave.

The walls are smooth—too smooth. Seamless. Featureless. Four of them, an almost-perfect square. White, but not sterile. There’s a faint grey mist in the corners, like the room is holding its breath.

There’s no door. No window. No ceiling light.

But I can see.

Somehow, I can see.

I’ve walked the perimeter over a hundred times. Counted my steps. Tapped every inch with my knuckles. Shouted until my throat blistered. My voice doesn’t echo. It absorbs. Like the room eats sound.

Or maybe it’s listening.

I woke up on the floor yesterday—or what I think was yesterday.

No phone. No watch. No pockets.

Just clothes that feel familiar and a numbness in my fingers that won’t go away.

At first, I laughed.

Thought it was a lucid dream. Maybe sleep paralysis. A stress coma. Something I’d wake up from if I just bit my tongue or screamed hard enough.

But the hunger set in. Then the thirst.

And now, I’m not sure what I am anymore.

The room changes when I blink.

At first, it was just the corners. Shifting slightly. Like the edges warped when I wasn’t watching.

Now, the floor tilts. Just enough to make me nauseous. Sometimes it grows wet. Cold. Breathing.

I swear the last time I blinked, there was something in the far wall.

A seam.

Like a vertical mouth.

Gone when I blinked again.

I tried sleeping.

Laid flat on the warm floor and closed my eyes for what felt like hours.

When I woke up, my nails were bleeding.

Not bitten—peeled. One by one. Like something wanted to see if I noticed.

I found the crescent scraps lined up in the corner. Like they’d been placed there. Arranged.

I didn’t do that.

I would remember doing that.

Right?

I’m not alone.

There’s no one here.

But I’m not alone.

There’s something in the walls.

I hear scratching at times. Not like mice. Too slow. Deliberate.

Like nails tracing a message in a language I’m not supposed to read.

Once, I screamed, “What do you want?”

The scratching stopped.

Then resumed.

Louder.

Faster.

I pressed my ear to the wall and whispered, “Please.”

Something whispered back.

It sounded like my voice.

The Room Remembers.

That’s what I wrote, over and over, with the tip of my broken nail.

Across the wall. Into the skin of my forearm.

THE ROOM REMEMBERS.

I don’t know what it means.

But I believe it.

---

It shows me things now.

Faces in the wall. Warped. Shrieking. My mother. My old boss. A girl I loved once and never kissed. A dog I hit with my car and didn’t stop for.

They float just behind the surface, mouths open, eyes bleeding.

Sometimes I see myself.

But taller. Confident. Wearing a clean shirt and smiling.

He places his palm on the wall from his side.

I press mine to it from mine.

And he walks away.

I tried to break the wall.

I rammed it with my shoulder until I heard something snap. Not the wall—me.

I headbutted it until I blacked out.

When I woke, the wall had a new mark: a perfect red circle.

It pulsed for hours. Like it was thinking.

Like it was considering something.

And then it disappeared.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here.

There is no time. Just heartbeat.

But sometimes I feel like I’ve lived my entire life inside this box. Like everything before it was a dream. A fantasy made up to amuse myself.

This is the real world.

This white, breathing coffin.

There was a door today.

I don’t know how or when it appeared.

Just a rectangle cut into the far wall. No handle. No knob. Just slightly ajar.

Inside: darkness. Pure, velvet black.

I crawled toward it like a starving animal.

Put my hand inside.

It was wet.

And warm.

And it gripped me back.

---

I pulled away.

The door vanished.

I heard crying today.

Not mine.

A child’s voice. Somewhere above. Screaming.

I clawed at the ceiling. Bled down my arms. Tore nails again. Screamed until my ears rang.

The crying stopped.

And laughter followed.

Not a child’s laugh.

Mine.

I think the room is inside me now.

I feel it when I breathe. When I blink. When I sleep.

I close my eyes and see white. I open them and see white.

I bit into my own wrist just to see a new color.

It was grey.

Not red.

Just... grey.

Like the mist in the corners.

Final Thoughts (If They’re Mine)

If you find this, you won’t find me.

Not in the way you’re expecting.

I’ve become the room. Or the room has become me.

I’m the scratches in the wall. The whisper behind the silence. The figure behind your reflection that moves when you don’t.

You may never find the room.

But if you do…

You’ll never leave it.

Because it doesn’t exist.

And now, neither do I.

END