Chapter 44: The Room of Silence
They dragged me here like I was nothing. Like I didn’t matter. Their hands were bruising around my arms, but I didn’t scream. I didn’t beg.
I saved my strength.
The moment the heavy white door slammed shut behind me, I knew I was truly alone.
The room was... blinding.
Everything, everything, was white. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, even the thin mattress lying on one side of the room. There were no windows, no shadows. Just white and light.
The fluorescent bulbs above buzzed faintly, never flickering, just glowing, do harsh, so unrelenting, that it felt like needles pricking at my eyes. I squinted, but it didn’t help. It didn’t go away.
It was as if the lights were alive, punishing me, peeling away my sanity one unbearable second at a time.
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The silence, too, was maddening. Not the peaceful kind. No. This was suffocating silence. The kind that wraps around your throat and whispers, you’re forgotten. It was so still, so oppressively quiet that when I whispered "hello," it echoed back at me, soft and hollow like a ghost’s breath.
I tried the door first. I hit it with my fists until they turned red, then purple. I yelled until my throat went dry. I shouted Astrid’s name, screamed for someone, anyone, to open it.
No one came.
No footsteps outside. No voices. No movement.
Just the lights. And the white. And me.