Rooms Without Exit

Prologue

This is for Mikeydred's Octoberon challenge.

Our worries are plenty, and can entrap us, like rooms without exits.

May we find the exits to all our rooms.

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The hall encloses, planks of wood,

Each creak under me, a sign of doom.

I clutch at doors that bang abrupt,

The house looms large, then eats the room.

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Curtains sob with icy breath,

The mist distorts my ancient shape.

No sky, no stars—just utter dark,

Each room an outlet for escape.

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The floorboards sink, pressed by my weight,

Their murmurs winding through thin cracks.

I shove, I tug, the doorknob grins—

A corridor, but the path turns back.

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Homing in with quiet dread.

Walls buzz and shiver, thrum like veins,

I’m pacing through a throbbing head.

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My fingers flounder, wet with sweat,

Locks turn and snap, forever barred.

I strain for air that gathers, fades,

The house’s pulses cold and hard.

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Each of my treads widens the gap,

The end’s not near, no light ahead.

The house, it grows, my head shrinks small—

The rooms I find, their exits call.