The White Room

The White Room

Our senses keep us sane. How depraved will she become for stimulation?

Chapter 1 by CharlieASIP CharlieASIP

I wake up with a jolt, disoriented and struggling to focus. The light is blinding, but not like sunlight—more like the harsh glare of an dentist's office. As my eyes adjust, I see that the room is tiled white. The walls, floor, and ceiling all match.

I try to make sense of it. My mind is foggy, but I know I haven’t been here before. The room is almost eerily simple: a narrow bed without a blanket against one wall, a small toilet and sink in the corner, a heavy door with no handle, and some sort of square metal hatch on the wall. No windows. No decorations. Just white, everywhere.

Panic surges through me. My heart races as I scramble to my feet. My bare toes are cold against the sterile floor. I realize now that I am wearing unfamiliar clothes: a white sundress over matching underwear. A realization strikes that someone must have removed my clothes and dressed me, but for the moment that detail seems unimportant.

I move quickly to the door. I press all my weight against it—to no avail. I step back until the sink blocks further retreat, then I rush the door with my shoulder. I bounce off.

'Ow...', I groan.

I examine the door again. It’s solid, heavy, and featureless, except for a faint seam where it meets the floor. There’s no keyhole, no visible lock—nothing to give me any hint of how it might be opened.

Dropping flat, I discover the seam is too narrow to peer through to the other side. So I stop trying. I hold my breath. I listen.

I swear I hear something in the next room. The creak of an office chair maybe? The sound is so quiet and muffled by the door that I can't be sure that I am hearing anything at all.

'Hello?', I ask anyway. 'Is someone there?'

The response is thick and oppressive silence.

I sigh and return to the bed; brushing my hands through my curly hair in frustration. The panic is becoming hard to contain now; threatening to overwhelm me.

'Think, Nancy,' I mutter to myself. The last thing I remember is leaving late from campus. I had done so several times before, always getting the 20:30 train home. I realize that I have no memory this time of getting on that train—or of entering the station. What remains is a blur: more a feeling of dread followed by fear than any concrete recollection.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I stare at the walls. The white tiles seem to close in on me. I need to calm down—to think clearly—but the fear is suffocating, and the emptiness of the room feels like it’s slowly crushing me.

It is then that I notice in the corner above me: the only non-white feature of the room. Staring back at me like a beady black eye is a camera. What should be terrifying is somehow reassuring: there is a person. I am not alone.

What does Nancy do?

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