A Curious Insanity

Darkness. Who am I? Where am I? He opens his eyes. Blindness. A room. Everything slowly comes into focus. He suddenly remembers he has hands. Arms. Legs. He wiggles his body, remembering how things work, then proceeding to make them do so. He starts to look around the room. It's white. Entirely white. Clean. Impeccable, even, at first glance. The corners are rounded and all of the surfaces are smooth and well lit without being bright, despite the room lacking an obvious light source. He gets up and finds that the floor is made of something soft yet firm, almost like memory foam but possessing of a certain surface rigidity and toughness that makes it hard to grab onto and therefore pull at or tear. It seems to emanate the fact that it can't be damaged or used to do damage. The walls are the same, and he can't reach the ceiling without jumping but it appears to be the same. There's nothing in the room. There is, however, a door. He walks across, pacing it out, and with his feet being roughly 11 inches, he guesses that the room is about 10 foot square. A cube, in fact, because it looks to be the same in height, based on the slightly more than 2 foot gap between it and his fingers. As he walks he looks for details. He runs his hands over everything he can touch. He finds a tiny tear in the floor, the kind you wouldn't ever know was there unless you were looking for it. If you're facing the door, the tear is in the back right corner of the room. It's small, and he can't find purchase in it with even his littlest finger. He continues to look, and finds a small stain in the opposite corner. He finds this placement between the tear and the stain strange but he doesn't know why. In fact, he finds their mere presence in the otherwise perfect room irksome. He walks to the door, examining it closely. It's nearly seamless, but somehow still stands out from the wall. At waist height he notices another seam within the door, rectangular, about a foot wide, and less than half as tall. He goes back to the middle of the room and sits down. The temperature is comfortable. He looks down at himself. He's not too thin, not too muscular, but defined and clearly athletic. His fair skin looks as though it hasn't seen light in a long time, but has a tone that suggests he was once quite tan. He's wearing lightweight pants made of some sort of soft material that seems like it would tear easily. The same for his short sleeve shirt. He realizes he has no idea what his face looks like, and no way to know. He peeks into his pants. Seems normal enough, except that he has absolutely no pubic hair. That seems odd to him. He feels his face and it's completely hair free. Not even so much as peach fuzz. He feels the top of his head and finds it the same, as well as the rest of his body. He considers his next move. Well, I haven't actually tried to open the door. He stands and strides towards the door with confidence, reaching out as he approaches it. As his hand starts to come into contact with the door, it doesn't. The door ceases to be on the same dimensional plane as him and he falls through it, or maybe he falls down, he isn't sure. Maybe I'm not falling at all. He loses all sense of direction as he realizes he is enveloped by darkness. He quickly comes to the conclusion that it's not darkness, but in fact a swirling miasma of fractal patterns. Those patterns somehow become colorful, not through their own changing, but through a change in his perception. It seems important to him. As he falls, or doesn't, through this dense cacophony of geometric shapes, he feels a strange peace. Somewhere in the distance a song is playing. He can't quite hear it, but it seems familiar. Calming. Am I dying? Fear rocks his body. It's like a shard of glass appears within him, with no external wound, displacing his guts and shearing upwards through the bottom of his heart, leaving him breathless. The spiraling of the cataclysm intensifies, and he can feel his soul being tugged at by the centrifugal force of the spinning as he contemplates the loss of his existence. I don't feel like I'm dying. His body seems fine, or rather maybe his body seems nothing. Body notwithstanding, he can feel a certain physicality to himself, in the trailing of his soul in the pull of the void-spin. Suddenly, he sees a door. He reaches out instinctively but his hand never quite gets there. The door is white, with a single pane of square glass in the upper middle. The kind that has writing on it, like you would see for an office in a church or hospital. He can't make out the writing. Without warning, the door bisects itself into another state of existence and he is no longer aware of its presence. The undulation of the fractals settles into a pleasant rhythm. The music is back. It swells, coming closer, beautiful single note symphonies plucking at his soul like guitar strings, vibrating his consciousness. His eyes widen. I am small and the universe is large. I am both the most important and least important thing that has ever happened. Revelations rock his cognizance, but he swiftly remembers that he, in fact, doesn't know anything about himself. He wonders how he can even conceive of such notions. He feels tired. His eyes begin to droop as the patterns surround him and he falls victim to their overwhelming splendor.

He awakens to screaming and blackness. He remembers to open his eyes and the screaming stops. Was it really there? Reality forms around him and he sees the room. The ceiling, in fact, as he is lying flat on his back in the middle of the floor. He hears a voice. Female, and cheerful. An inflection that's too enthusiastic for even the most pleasant situation.

“Medicine time!” the voice says. The door opens and he scrambles away from it, putting his back up against the opposite wall. He is panting, fear pulsing out from his heart and coursing through his veins like venom. Two large men enter the room. Each is wearing full surgical scrubs – including gloves, mask, and cap – and a doctor's coat. Their heads seem to almost touch the ceiling, but that could just be the fear. They walk to him silently and with purpose, but never seem to look directly at him. They have a distinct aura that he doesn't understand. It intensifies his fear. It fills his body, the kind of horror that paralyzes you as you watch someone you love die while being completely incapable of helping. As they are gripping him, one on each arm, he indeed finds himself unable to move. They part from in front of him and a nurse enters the room, presumably the owner of the female voice from before. She is wearing a nurse costume like the kind you would see a promiscuous college girl wear to a party. It's a very small costume in fact, and she certainly is not a promiscuous college girl. She looks to be in her eighties but she's heavy, with flaps and folds of mushy fat deposits bulging and flopping from every crevice of the outfit. Her skin is leathery and wrinkled, and a surgical mask covers most of her face. Her eyes are sunken, obscured by deep fatty creases that make it appear as though they are shut. A few stringy gray hairs cling desperately to her head. She raises a needle in her left hand, filled with a clear liquid. The man on his right forces him to expose the crook of his right arm. The man is impossibly strong, making resistance inconceivable. The nurse ties a rubber band around his arm and slaps his tender skin a few times. She slowly slides the needle into his vein, and he feels violated. It burns as she pushes the viscous fluid from the syringe into his bloodstream. After what feels like an eternity she withdraws the needle from his arm. She wipes him off with what smells to be rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball. Surprisingly there's no blood, and no significant appearance of a wound. The nurse leaves the room and the men release him. They back all the way out of the door, never turning away but still never truly looking directly at him. The door closes and he hears the sounds of locks. He slides down the wall until he is lying on his back with just his head propped up. As his heart rate returns to normal his adrenaline crashes and he falls into the clutches of sleep.

His eyes fly open and he sits bolt upright. Panic ravages his body like a starving dog feasting on his guts. How long have I been here? He gets up and walks around, studying the room carefully. He sees the familiar door. He also finds a tear in the back right corner of the room. Its singularity offends him for some reason he can't quite grasp. He makes his way to the door and presses his forehead against it. He closes his eyes, imagining that he is somewhere else, somewhere serene and beautiful.

None of this is even real.

He screams, as loud as he can. He can feel the pain of his vocal cords tearing but he doesn't care. He screams that he's not crazy. He doesn't belong here. He berates whomever might be listening, calling them a litany of profane names for subjecting him to this iniquitous treatment. He proceeds to reason with them, employing a mundane list of dull-minded attempts to prove his sanity. After spouting several logically fallacious methods of demonstrating one's own mental soundness, he begins to cry. Finally his tears dry and he sinks to the floor, his eyes glossy and blank, back against the door. A sound rings out like a rock against metal and he jumps. He places it as coming from behind him and hastily shuffles across the room, tucking himself into the corner with the tear. There's another sound from outside the door and the flap in the lower half opens outwards. A smell hits him in the face like a tidal wave and his stomach does a backflip. Hunger claws its way through his body, starting with a tearing in his gut and ending with a strange sensation behind his ears. Something slides through the opening and he scrambles towards it without thinking, overcome by instinct. He grabs the source of the smell and the flap slams shut. It's a plate that appears to be made of garlic parmesan toast. On the plate is a steak, with mashed potatoes on top. Next to that is a heap of broccoli. It's a hefty meal, almost more than he can eat in one sitting. He devours every single crumb, stuffing food into his mouth at an alarming rate. The steak is cooked to perfection, juicy and tender with exactly the right amount of seasoning. The potatoes are creamy and thick, with just enough salt and pepper. The broccoli is pan-fried to optimal consistency, not quite crunchy but not totally soft. It is, as far as he knows, literally the best meal he's ever had. By the same standard it is also the only meal he has ever had, making the former seem significantly less impressive. He lies on his back, intoxicated by the fullness of his stomach. He splays his arms out and releases a deep breath. The door opens unexpectedly and he looks up sleepily.

“Medicine time!” A different voice this time, equally as mirthful as the first. The two men in scrubs enter again and part to reveal another nurse. She has chest length brunette hair, green eyes, and looks to be in her thirties. She's wearing the same small, sexy outfit the last nurse was wearing only it suits her embodiment in a much more pleasing manner. Her neck slopes gracefully down to shoulders that carry well proportioned breasts, perky but swaying as she moves. Her hips align ideally and she possesses an appropriately voluptuous posterior, which swings in opposite time to her bosom. Her legs are long and slender while still appearing strong, and she's wearing tall red heels with straps that accentuate her charming feet. He doesn't fight as the men hold down his arms and the nurse injects him, in the same place as last time. They leave and he lies there, unmoving. Thoughts cross his mind at a causal pace, bestowing small bursts of potential realization. He ponders a life never lived, imagining what could have transpired before he found himself in this accursed place. Am I even real? Do I exist outside of this place? Thoughts such as these string together in his mind, forming logical chains that always fall apart. He experiences no true epiphany and finds himself lost in loops.

Eventually he grows hungry. Some significant amount of time must have passed. He sighs and as he exhales, the world begins to spin. Actually, it's more like the floor that he's lying on is spinning in every direction while the universe is still. Adrenaline surges and his body tenses as he tries to grab onto the floor despite the fact that he doesn't seem to be flying off of it. He is flooded with fear, as though a hose were attached to the top of his head pouring the terror into him. He can feel it running down the inside of his body and starting to fill up in his feet, the level rising rapidly. He cowers as his vision fills with horrible monstrosities. Demons whose true faces lie on the backs of the faces of men scowl in disgust at him. Beasts with deformed heads and extraneous extremities roar from the

distal plane. A door appears and it seems familiar, but the relation is lost in the scream of the void. A wolf approaches him, massive and snarling with gray and white fur. He is unable to move as it attacks. It devours his innards and his ego dies. He sees the light of consciousness floating in the infinite universe, and understands its place. Reality is purely perception and its existence cannot be proven beyond such. He sees a vast landscape of grasslands, littered with trees and ponds. The sun shines down and warms his skin, a sensation he has no memory of knowing. Insects buzz by, one small part of the symphony of sound berating his ears. Nature cries out from the depths of the forest. I am nothing more than an animal, and I will be slave to the barbaric instincts of my body if I let them control me. He has the sensation of moving upwards, and the spinning begins to slow. He gathers himself and concludes that he is facing down just as he falls, putting his arms out to catch himself. He falls from the ceiling to the floor, landing on his stomach, and doesn't move after impact. His mind spins with questions but as the dull throbbing in his arms plateaus to a manageable level he becomes aware of a strange sensation, like a prickling on his back. He sits up and looks around. His heart stutters then begins to beat faster as he tries to see something, something he can't quite discern. They seems to always be right at the corner of his vision. As he turns his head and darts his eyes he catches but mere shadows of what he knows to be abhorrent aberrations. He trembles with fear and closes his eyes, but it only intensifies his panic. He rocks back and forth, alternating between looking around the room in hysteria and burying his face in his knees. He exists this way for some amount of time, long enough for his body to ache many times over.

Long after he truly believes the delirium will never end, he is struck by an overwhelming awareness. Thirst. He is parched. Everything else goes away. His skin is dry and papery. How did it get this bad? His mouth is a desert, and his tongue feels cracked and wounded. He panics all over again. His chest is tight, his heart hurting with every beat, making breathing difficult. He hears a faint sound and the flap in the door opens. His eyes are drawn to it as he awaits his prize, bearing the pain of his newfound thirst. An eight ounce glass of dark green liquid is put through and set on the floor. The gloved hand that bears it appears to belong to one of the men who comes in when they give him medicine. Next to it the hand sets a single french fry of average size. It withdraws and the flap closes. He scrambles over and quickly shoves the fry into his mouth. It's cold, but hunger leaves him uncaring. He picks up the liquid and inspects it. It's thick, and doesn't have a particular smell. He tastes it, and it is truly horrendous. Bitter, with an aftertaste that resembles the smell of the juice that collects at the bottom of a dumpster. He drinks it anyway, thirst driving him through. He shudders as the last of the goop slides down his throat. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, feeling his metabolism fire back up. As he opens his eyes he notices some light coming from the door. He reaches out towards the flap in the door, pushing against it, and it opens. They must have left it unlatched. He sticks his arm through and runs his fingers along the outside of the door. It's smooth. However, unlike anything in the room, it doesn't give when he applies pressure. A hand grabs his arm. He jerks back but the hand seems to disappear. Did that happen? He gingerly puts his arm back outside, continuing to feel around. His hand comes into contact with some sort of handle. It's a flat inset plate, with a gap to reach behind it and pull one side, rotating it ninety degrees, perpendicular to the door. He pulls and it moves easily. Several clicks are followed by three loud chunks and the door relaxes away from the frame, opening slightly to the outside. He peers out, and sees white-painted concrete block walls and floors of white tile with black speckles meant to make cleanliness ambiguous. Halfway up the walls on both sides of the hallway is a plastic bumper, lined with pale green and purple pads. He pushes the door open further and looks down the hallway. The ceiling is some kind of white plaster, with a pipe running down the middle. The pipe is dotted with a fire sprinkler every fifteen feet. In contrast to the room, which has no visible light source, the ceiling has a series of six foot single bulb fluorescent lights. They are positioned one on each side of the pipe about every ten feet. They do not seem to flicker, buzz, or hum in any way. The side of the hall he is on is lined with doors like his. The opposite side is a blank wall save the bumper, and is lined periodically with stretchers adorned with intimidating looking straps. He creeps into the hallway and looks the other way, around the door. He sees the same scene. His ears perk and he turns his head. He can hear screams and sobs coming from various distances, creating an awful discordance. He pushes the door shut carefully but doesn't latch it. He makes a left out of his room and goes to the nearest door. He picks up the sound of a woman crying from inside. He pulls the handle and hears the same click-chunk from before. He gazes inside and it takes a moment to realize that there is nothing in the room. Confused, he also realizes he can no longer hear the female cry he heard before, only the distant dissonant screams he originally heard. He proceeds down the hallway, checking three more rooms with similar results before giving up and ignoring the cries coming from behind the remaining doors. As he proceeds he becomes aware of footsteps echoing up the hallway from behind him. He crouches low and moves more quickly. Up ahead he finally sees an intersecting hallway, leading to the right. He makes the turn just as the footsteps begin to pick up pace, presumably because their owner has now seen him. This hallway is the same as the other, with doors on the left and an empty wall on the right. Just as he is about to duck into one of the rooms, he sees a door ahead on the right. He glances behind him and doesn't see anyone, but he can still hear footsteps coming, like an ominous soundtrack orchestrating his doom. He hurries to the door on the right. It's white, with a single pane of square glass in the upper middle. In the center of the glass, in bold letters, is one word:

Chief

He opens the door, steps in, and blinks in confusion. It looks just like all of the other rooms. He turns around and sees not the door from before but one of the ones like his room. Am I back ? He searches around and finds a small tear in the back right corner. As he is searching he notices he has bruises on his palms and forearms from where he fell from the ceiling earlier. In the corner opposite the tear he finds a droplet of some kind of stain. He feels some sort of significance but can't comprehend it and shakes his head, clearing his mind. He lies down on the cushy floor, for some reason finding himself remarkably exhausted from his excursion. As he drifts off to sleep, he begins to dream.

He awakens to the sound of the door flap and blinks sleepily. He has an abstract feeling, like a strange aftertaste on his subconscious tongue. A dream he can't quite remember that leaves him with nothing more than a vague sensation of loneliness. He hears the flap shut and latch, and sits up. Lying on the floor in front of the door is a single french fry. He dejectedly scoots towards the door without standing. He slowly nibbles the cold and mushy potato product, trying to savor it. It takes him some amount of time to finish it, and just as he swallows the last bit he hears that lively voice.

“Medicine time!” The door opens and the men enter. The old nurse from the first time enters, or at least it's her as far as he can tell from the skin hanging out of her suggestive outfit. She's holding something behind her back. This fact causes him to panic, but the two men grab him before he can move. She reveals the contents of her hands, a plastic medical bag attached to a tube with a tapered nozzle at the end. The bag is filled with a sickly green-brown liquid. He begins to struggle as fear takes over, but they flip him onto his stomach with no difficulty. They each grab one leg and one arm, pinning him. Lights flash in his mind, warnings, screaming of the danger he is in. The men grab his pants and he starts to thrash as they are pulled down. He capitulates as one man puts a knee in the middle of his back, making him focus all of his energy on breathing. He feels a latex glove against his buttocks, then a wet, cold pressure against his anus. He screams and begins to struggle again despite pain and lack of air. His screeching escalates as he feels what is presumably the tip of the hose penetrating him. It goes in some immeasurable distance, though certainly not as far as it feels like it does. It burns and he convulses, with no result other than further injury to himself. Suddenly, a gushing sensation as liquid rushes into his cavity. It's relieving at first, soothing the burn. However, it quickly intensifies his pain. After what feels like ages the flow ceases and they remove the tube. He lies on the floor, limp and blank eyed, feeling dirty and violated. They leave the room and he curls into a ball, sobbing. This doesn't last long – he feels a fervor welling up inside him. His being fills with passionate emotion, a pendulum swinging back and forth from great joy to intense sadness as reliably as the ticking of a metronome. What is happiness? Does it come from external stimuli or can we generate it from within? Which is true happiness? He is awash in euphoria, but the tide begins to recede and tears fill his eyes. He closes them and cries passionately, the kind of cry that comes from deep within and leaves you feeling empty afterwards. He opens his eyes and finds himself in the hallway again. He shakes his head vigorously and walks through the door back into the room. He's in complete darkness. He turns around and the door is gone. He's in the hallway again. Reality flickers, momentarily becoming a foreign landscape, a dry desert filled with sand and littered with small shrubs. The hallway returns and he begins to run as the walls seem to close in from the sides. He turns, the same right as last time, and finds himself standing in knee deep snow. A cold wind unfurls across his skin as a blizzard obscures his vision. In the distance he can see something, standing alone on the other side of the forest clearing he finds himself in. It's a door, the door he found in the hallway before. He runs towards it, but after two steps he falls straight down through the fluff as though he is clipping through the ground. His vision fills with whiteness. Oscillating bands of rainbow light radiate from his being, centering him in a nexus of psychedelic color. Transcendental thoughts concatenate across dimensional arrhythmias and into his mind. Perception of reality is always relative to the perceiver. More specifically, even for a single person, reality is relative and different based on situation and state of mind. Expectations and reactions shape your truth. The lights vanish and he falls, whiteness giving way to blackness. Fear rises but he pushes it down. If I feel no fear, then is this actually a scary situation? Relative to my perception it is not. Red eyes appear in the darkness yet he remains calm. A disembodied mouth with large, dripping fangs accompanies. It snaps at him, but he finds evasion effortless. He stares into the eyes and sees a door, the same door, the one that seems to be haunting him. The disembodiment howls and vanishes. Serenity prevails and he is no longer falling. Blackness recedes and he is floating in a deep blue water. A void rises from below and he swims upwards desperately, knowing that fleeing the abyss is only delaying the inevitable. It swallows him and he dies. Can consciousness transcend the physical body, or does it exist only in quantum vibrations produced in our neurons? Is death the end? He's back in the hallway. His head spins. Stumbling forward, he is accosted by frightful demonic apparitions. He sees goats with eyes made of satanic circles, standing upright like men and caked in the blood of mortals. Hellfires rage in a chasm of torment that's closing in on him from behind. He begins to run down the hallway. He sees someone on one of the stretchers along the right wall, strapped down. The figure is faceless and androgynous, but he feels a deep connection to it for some reason. The demons and fire seem to fade as he is filled with a profound sadness, as though this is the person he loves most and they are lying dead in front of him. He begins to weep. It is as though his heart turns to glass and someone hits it with a hammer. He aches, empty and alone. A comforting hand comes to rest on his shoulder. He sighs, looks back, and is greeted by a flayed skull with bloody flesh hanging from exposed bone. One eye remains in the socket while the other dangles by the optic nerve, perpetually looking down. A lipless grin sits below exposed nasal passages that draw in rattling breaths. A tall body is concealed by a long black cloak. He screams and it screams back, a shrill, high pitched, blood curdling caterwaul that causes him to recoil in pain. He pushes it away and it falls to the ground, breaking into many gory pieces as it hits the floor. He runs down the hall, and runs, and runs, never a turn, never a door he can open. Finally he comes to a door that is slightly ajar. He crashes through and slams it shut behind him. The click-chunk of the latches is comforting for once. He takes just enough time to look around – finding a small stain in the front corner of the room and another one near the middle of the ceiling. He feels as though he is back in the same room, but still something seems wrong. Too drained to consider the possibilities, he lies on the floor and goes to sleep.

A sound. The food flap. He doesn't move, not looking forward to the potential disappointment of what his meal could be. He bolts upright, however, when he hears hissing. He glares towards the door and sees a giant cockroach on the floor on its back, legs waving frantically as it hisses in anger. His stomach pangs with hunger. He approaches slowly, contemplating what he is about to do. He breathes deeply and, in one swift motion, grabs the cockroach and shoves it in his mouth. As he closes his lips the bug squirms, its legs tickling against his tongue. He bites instinctively. A loud crunch and pop lead to a flow of gooey liquid. He shudders and almost gags, but hunger drives him forward. He chews a few more times and swallows. His eyes tear as he has to swallow two more times to get the cockroach down his dry throat. The taste isn't actually that awful, and his brain gives him a clear rush of dopamine in return for the consumption of nutrients. As soon as he finishes, a voice rings out with the exhilaration of someone picking up a winning lotto ticket.

“Medicine time!” He cowers in the corner in fear, terrified after his last encounter. Only the food flap opens, and a styrofoam cup of hot tea is set on the floor. The flap is closed and audibly latched. He moves forward and grabs the cup. He sips it slowly, enjoying the flavor and warmth. As the last drops of tea pass his lips he pushes the cup into his mouth without hesitation, chewing and swallowing it as though it were a savory treat. Time passes slowly, or at least it seems to, despite him having no way to track it. He does whatever he can to keep busy, pacing the room, doing handstands, push-ups, and other various exercises. Occasionally as he moves his body he can feel an ethereal tug at his soul as he almost slips into some terrible place, but he manages to stay grounded for now. Hunger builds in his gut like a colony of insects making a nest, gnawing a home into his stomach. He has long conversations with himself, attempting to find companionship in his own psyche. He begins to weaken with the apparent passage of time, finding it more difficult to move his body as his thirst and hunger grow. Eventually he does nothing but sit with his back against the wall opposite the door and his eyes closed. This state persists until even his thoughts become an empty wasteland. If I don't move and I don't think, do I exist? Reality slips away, and void prevails. A room of doors materializes, encircling him. Each one is different in type, and they seem to taunt him from within their frames. The door he knows is not present. Twenty-four doors transform into twenty-four execrable obscenities, a grotesque opus of some wickedly licentious god. Their malformed bodies writhe against one another as filth rains down from the heavens. In the sky a mouth appears, its bite encompassing all of existence. The putrescence is precipitating from the orifice, intensifying as it grows nearer. The mouth is attached to something too large to comprehend, with only the red-violet lips and a small amount of surrounding skin being visible from his position. The black, rotting teeth pass by as the mouth consumes the scene and shuts. He is now drowning in the foul matter, yet not dying. He breathes in the feculence and it coalesces in his body, fusing with his essence. Inundated by ordure, the mind becomes a cesspool of cynicism and trepidation. Adrift in waves of vacillation, his soul aches. He makes an arduous journey through gore filled hallways that seem to pulse with life. He sees a light ahead. The walls close in, as though they are pushing him towards it. He is expelled in a deluge of vile refuse. He lands on his feet in a serene landscape, surrounded by plains of grasses blowing gently in the wind. Before him is a door – tall, oaken and sturdy with a large brass ring for a handle. He grabs it and pulls downwards. The mechanism clicks and the door creaks away from him. He pushes it open and walks through, finding himself in a cozy den with a crackling fire set in a stone hearth. The walls are wooden and hung with the occasional portrait of a friendly face. There's a large, cozy rug in front of the fireplace. A rocking chair sits next to it, with a half-knitted blanket hung over the back. A table is set in the corner, a vase with lilacs in the middle, four chairs and four plates awaiting a lovingly served meal. Overcome by a warm feeling of safety and family, he takes a seat in the rocking chair and breathes in deeply. He closes his eyes and holds the breath, dreaming of a life surrounded by loving kin. He opens his eyes and exhales. As he breathes out the room deliquesces, forming a putrid swamp. The rocking chair is actually a half rotten stump, covered in slimy green moss. He instinctively recoils. I am in control of my perspective. He relaxes, and the feelings of shelter and familiarity return. Home is where I make it, and if I find home within myself I will always be at home. He begins to laugh, filled with joy. He falls to the ground, rolling in the muck, overcome by ecstasy. He feels inviolable, secure in the cozy embrace of the muddy earth. He pushes his hands into the ground, feeling the grains of silt flow across the intricate ridges of his fingertips, each point of contact sending jolts of electricity up through his arms and into his brain. He closes his fists, grasping handfuls of saturated soil and hears the sound of the food flap opening. He blinks as a styrofoam bowl is pushed through the slot and set on the floor. I'm in the room? He's propped up against the wall opposite the door, clean and dry, no swamp in sight. He struggles to move his body, dragging himself to the bowl. Angry hissing spills from a writhing mass of cockroaches in the bowl, as large of a meal as his first one, and just as appetizing at this point of inanition. He clumsily slams his hand into the bowl, grabbing a fistful of roaches and knocking the remaining contents asunder. Adrenaline surges at the idea of letting even one morsel of nutrition escape and he scrambles to grab all of the scuttling bugs, squishing them into his fists, shoving handful after handful into his mouth. Guts drip down his arms, and he quickly licks those up as well. He scours the room, devouring every last piece of insect. As he collects the remains he munches on the bowl. He scrapes the final puddle of viscera from the front left corner of the room, leaving a small stain to match the rest that now litter the once clean floors and walls. He falls onto his back, feeling his body fill with energy. A voice pierces his bliss.

“Medicine time!” The door click-chunks and opens as the words echo in his mind, the speaker's intonation as effervescent as ever. As the men enter a rage begins to build in his abdomen, fueled by the fat and protein resting in his belly. They take hold of his arms and he sees the shapely young brunette nurse enter the room. Struck once again by her beauty he finds himself filling with desire, adding to the fire building within. Her enchanting green eyes meet his as she pushes the needle into his vein. Too soon the moment ends and she withdraws, backing out of the room. The fire conflagrates into a whirling inferno and as the men release him, he jumps up, lashing out at the one on his right and lunging at the one on the left simultaneously. Caught by surprise, the men hesitate. His hand glances off the man on the right's chest, but his mouth slams into the neck of the left man and he bites down, tearing the flesh as much as he can. He rips away chunks as the man screams. The other man slams a giant fist into the back of his head and he falls to the floor. As his vision tunnels he hears the nurse speak.

“Dammit, get it together! We can't hu...” Her voice fades out as consciousness slips away from him. He comes to moments later. The room is empty and the door ajar. The fire within rekindles and he jumps to his feet, moving swiftly and quietly. The men can be heard arguing with the nurse, their voices drifting from down the hall to the right. He looks out and sees the same scene, white-painted concrete block walls, floors of white tile with black speckles, green and purple plastic bumpers lining the walls, and pipes on the ceiling. He makes a left and rushes down the hall, ignoring screams and voices from within the rooms. Shouts echo from behind him. He looks back, sees the men in pursuit, and begins to sprint. He picks up speed, pushing his tired body as hard as he can. Time seems to slow as he reaches the apex of a stride, both feet off the floor momentarily. Reality becomes static. He is rent in two and the universe is double, one on top of another, like a VHS tape being rewound. As his front foot touches the ground again the images converge back into one and he can see the hallway ahead on the right. The men close in on him as he rounds the corner, reaching out, grabbing and narrowly missing. He can feel their breath on his neck as he reaches the door. It is identical to all of his other encounters with it, except this time he is filled with a feeling of salience as he grasps the knob and thrusts it open.

He opens his eyes. Blinding light focuses to reveal what seems to be a typical hospital room. An average looking blonde nurse stands at the foot of his bed, wearing actual nursing scrubs and writing on a clipboard. Behind her, next to the door, a window looks out onto a brightly lit hallway bustling with various medical professionals and patients. All manner of tubes and wires trail from different points on his body and lead to machines that beep steadily. He can hear the buzz of fluorescent lights, and his body feels different. He runs his hands across himself and discovers hair almost everywhere, including a full mop of it on top of his head. His movement startles the nurse and she looks at him intently.

“Sir? Sir can you hear me? You've been in a coma for a long time, try not to move too much. Can you tell me your name?” She sounds concerned, but her tone is comforting. His voice croaks out reflexively, sore and unused.

“Paul Ellis.” How did I know that? He struggles to make sense of foggy memories.

“Very good, Mr. Ellis!” she replies. “If you'll just stay put for me, I'm going to go contact the doctor and your family, okay?” Her voice is reassuring and he nods despite his confusion. Questions begin to formulate in his mind. She returns soon after and he immediately launches a volley of interrogatives.

“How did I get here? Is this real? You mean none of...none of that before...was real?” His mind descends once more into confusion and she looks at him questioningly.

“I don't know what you saw while you were unconscious, but it's over now. You're back with us, just try to relax.” Her mellifluous voice soothes his fears. “Are you in any pain?” she asks. Indeed, his body aches, but not from malnutrition like before, it aches as though what she says is true and he has been lying in this bed for years on end.

“Yes, yes everything hurts, it aches.” he utters huskily.

“Okay, we can do something about that.” she replies with a smile. “Everyone is going to be so happy that you've woken up.” He smiles back, filled with true glee. His nightmare is over, he can finally get the answers he seeks. A man opens the door slightly and leans in, dressed in similar nursing scrubs.

“The family is on the way.” he says, then withdraws and closes the door. She flashes him another smile.

“So exciting! The doctor will be here soon, he can prescribe you something to help with the pain. In the meantime I'm guessing – ” she is cut off by a new, urgent beeping from one of the machines hooked to him. “Yep!” she exclaims merrily. “Medicine time!”