Pain. That's the only thing I can think of to explain any of this. I back away from the room, and rush around panicking, looking for some sign of life. Barely able to see in the darkness, I catch a tiny glimpse of light through a doorway. I run to it.

"Back already?" It's the woman. "They were right about you." She's caressing a picture in her hands, her back facing me. Her words are but a mumble of sound, as if she is speaking to herself.

"Stop saying that." I can barely breathe, let alone speak. "Where... Am I? Who are they?"

"Good questions." She spins around on her dark red heels. The picture is face-down on the desk behind her. "Bad answers."

I look down, not interested in her games. "What do you want from me?" I beg. "What must I do?"

She glances solemnly at the turned down photograph. "I'm afraid it doesn't work like that-"

"Why not?" I interrupt. Why doesn't it work like that?" She stays silent, but something about her silence is... prideful. There's a maroon leather seat to the right of me. I sit an meet her eyes with a patient stare. I convey no emotions across my features.

She just stares at me, as if she is unsure what to do herself. Many moments pass, all filled with agonizing silence. Soon, my head becomes cloudy, and I feel a needle penetrate my skin.

***

When I awaken, I'm in another sterile looking white room. "Well, somebody loves the color white," I say groggily. I try to move my arms from the table I am sitting on, but my arms are stuck. Thanks. I try to pull away, getting annoyed.

"That would be you," that same woman says.

"What are you talking about?" I ask. My head is still unclear. "I hate this. I'm sure I've made that perfectly clear." I can feel it- the crazy monster in my mind, begging to be let free.

"You're not yourself right now, now hush."

"But why? Why should I? You don't answer anyway, at least I can say I've tried my very best," I say, smiling brightly and putting the backs of my hands under my chin and tilting my head.

"Do you remember your room?" she asks without hesitation.

"Of course," I state. "I'm not stupid."

"That's why you got this room," she says, coming to stand right in front of me. She pokes my forehead, and says, "You have an incredible mind, before you came here, you had such potential. Oh. well." She stands again, walks back to her desk, then turns. "Most patients don't retain knowledge of the outside world after being wiped. You're the first I've ever seen. And remorse is so rare!" This woman seems almost giddy about the whole situation.

And I'm crazy... I think to myself sarcastically. I sigh and sit up. "What do they remember?" I ask. I try to smell the room, but there's literally nothing.

"Absolutely nothing... except how to eat, breathe, and sleep... sometimes. Can't even walk."

"Oh," I say, looking around the room. "I need a new favorite color."

She laughs uneasily and stands, walking out of the room without another word. Weirdo, I think and stick my tongue out. Nevertheless, I can remove my arms. As soon as I do, I wiggle my fingers and stretch. I step out.

That's when the voices start, and the dark follows. Before I woke up before, she must have poisoned me. Injected me with something vile.

The world around me is just... space. Dark space.

A girl, five years old, maybe six, is whispering, a few feet behind me. I shuffle towards her, seeing that her black hair is dirty and messy, pulled into tight looking braids. Her dress is white, but at one glance you would've believed it to be gray.

It feels like the girl take all the air from my lungs. In a raspy cry, I ask, "Who..." Air leaves again. "Are..." Crippling pain begins. I know what she wants. "We...?" Air returns. I was right.

The girl stops her incoherency, and her faces comforts from demonic to cold and hard. "Dead..." A mixture of those whispers and a booming scream erupt from her small and dusted mouth.

Air leaves again. "Stop! Please!" My hands hold my throat, begging my lungs to accept oxygen. "I'm sorry!" I cry. "Whatever they did to you I'm sorry! Please listen to me, I'm sorry!"

Her cries become merely an echo in this infinite and infinitely dark space. I don't even notice when she disappears.

I just remember her telling me that we are dead.

My breathing almost stops, I'm barely holding on.

"Hey," a kind, feminine voice says, and I feel her hand on my shoulder. "You have to calm down. 'Kay?" I don't say anything, still gasping for breaths. She seems to cry a little, as if remembering something unpleasant. "You're the only one who can stop this," she says.

"I can't!" I scream. I can feel that child. I can feel the girl beside me.

"You have to..." she says gently, so much sympathy in her tone.

I nod my head, no. "No, no, please..." The pain is so strong. My head pounds. I'm crippling to the ground.

"You can... I know you can." She believes in me, even though she shouldn't.

My head feels like it's ripping open. There's a hard beat that bangs through My entire body, and I scream an eat splitting shriek.

The girl hugs my shoulders, almost saying, I'm sorry. I understand.

"Stop this..." she basically orders. "Push... the pain... away."

I can't. I don't even understand what's happening to me. How can she?

"You..." Can't breathe. "Don't understand."

"You feel everything," she says slowly. "All that pain is awful. It's going to destroy you unless you let it go. I can help you, but you have to do this. C'mon. Wake up."

I gasp for air as the walls begin to take form around me. The room is stifling hot, making me uncomfortable. I get up, my energy low, head pounding like a large drum.

I just open the door, leading to the corridor, the girl is there. The one who comforted me.

Then, she speaks. "And so it begins..."