Behind the Last Window

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. She was so close to reaching for the stars, they were right there, why couldn’t she reach them? Lora turned around; his body was still laying there from the last time she was there.

Lora had woken up in a dimly lit room, she didn’t know where the light was coming from, but she couldn’t remember anything before waking up. All her previous memories were gone, she only had her name. She looked around the room and saw a window in the wall. She stood up and walked over to it, it opened to another room. Lora climbed through it and looked around. There was another window adjacent to the one she had already climbed through. She walked over to that one and looked through it before climbing through. She looked around again and saw another window and climbed through. She kept climbing through windows and went from room to room. Lora was getting hopeless she would never find a way to the outside.

Lora sat down to rest after a few hours. As she sat down, a plate of food materialized in front of her. It startled her. She looked at the food skeptically as she slowly reached for it. She poked at the food and sniffed it. The food seemed fine. She saw bread, cheese, and ham on the plate. Lora started to slowly eat the food; it wasn’t half bad. When she finished, she spent another few hours exploring empty rooms before finally getting tired and deciding to rest in the room she was in.

That was three months ago. Lora is still going room to room, but she’s weak and malnourished. She’s only been receiving one meal a day. She doesn’t know how she’s being watched or who’s doing the watching, but she calls those people the Watchers.

About a month ago, she found a room that had a window in the ceiling as well as the body of someone the same age as her. She assumed he had been here just as long, if not longer than her. He looked just as malnourished as her. It was a sad sight, but it made her wonder how many of them were down here. How many of them were the Watchers playthings? She edged her way closer to the man, she had to see if he had anything on him that could help her. He only had a piece of paper crumpled in his hand. Lora pried the paper from his closed fist and opened it up, but it was just blank. All hope lost again, she continued searching his body and found nothing. Lora then climbs through windows for hours and hours looking for something to help her climb out that high window because she believes that is the only exit.

Every room is the same. Every room was square and made of cold hard cement. There are no cracks, no secret crevices, the only way to tell the difference of each room is the windowsill is slightly different in each room. Some are different colors, some have patterns, and some are just cement with cracks. It’s getting harder to stay sane enough to tell the difference of each window.

Lora eventually travels back to the room with the ceiling window. She’s given up hope of getting out or someone helping her. She’s all alone, she’s starving, dehydrated, and exhausted. She’s not ready to die, but she can’t keep her eyes open anymore. She lays on her back, staring up at the stars through that one high window. Her eyes start drooping until she falls asleep.

Lora wakes up in a white room. She is connected to a bunch of monitors and has wires connected to her. She starts to realize where she is and that she failed the test. No one was there when she woke up, she sat up and looked around and started to remember what she was doing there. Her body is no longer malnourished and dehydrated, only her consciousness was sped up in the machine. Her mind was now older than her body, she felt exhausted and weak still. Her body had only been laying here for a few days. This was her fourth attempt at trying to get through the window. Each time her memories were erased, and she “died” in the program. Every time she only lasted a few months before she died and woke back up. Lora was frustrated, she needed to pass this test to finally leave her body and move to the Cloud. She hated her life here, she wanted to leave.

Lora looked around again and saw her clothes sitting on a chair, she climbed out of the bed and got dressed. She then walked out of the door. She doesn’t need to talk to anyone after her tests, they receive all the information they need through the monitors, and she knows the doctors and scientists don’t really care about her wellbeing. It’s hard to move your consciousness to the Cloud, only a few people have done it.

Lora turns a corner and see’s the exit. Before she makes it to the doors, she commits to herself that at the next test, she will make it to the cloud and get out of this slum of a life.