I was awakened yesterday ago by a familiar yet unexpected sound. The noise of an old school alarm clock, the kind that all but disappeared since smartphones became a thing. I groggily swatted at the thing, just like I used to do as a kid. Still got some old reflexes. I first thought I was still dreaming. I was back in my old room, surrounded by the things I used to love so much. My old, now embarrassing, posters were covering the walls. Messy school books on my desk, cleanly arranged comic books on the shelf. Everything was as I remembered it. I got up from the bed and walked on a loose lego brick, the sharp pain made me more than sure that I was not asleep.
It was impossible. My parents sold the house shortly after I moved. This room doesn’t exist anymore. Unless somehow the new owners kept it as is, which was both unlikely and worrying. But even so, I don’t even live in the same country anymore. I got transferred for work a few years ago and I haven’t been back since. My confusion about how this happened was quickly overshadowed by my will to get the hell out. I first took a look around to see if I could find my phone without success. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and saw that I was wearing superhero pajamas. At the risk of surprising you, that’s not my style anymore. They were the same kind I used to wear as a kid. I opened the door and was surprised to be face to face with a metal wall. I opened the curtains to see another metal panel, this time it was painted with a crudely drawn picture of the view I had back then with a light bulb where the sun should be. Both of the metal panels felt thick and unmoving, I was trapped.
I took a look at the room to see if there was anything of use. It became quickly clear that this was not the room I left when I moved out. I found a few of my old toys that one of my cousins broke on my 13th birthday. They were good as new, well, at least not broken. I was somewhat happy to find them, nostalgic for a simpler time. The trophy I got for second place at a sports tournament was there. I had won it when I was 11 and it was displayed proudly, collecting dust, until my parents sold the house. I checked the few comics series that I was following religiously at the time and found all of them up until around a month after my 12th birthday. I was in a recreation of my old room.
Seeing all of my old stuff, made me think of something that could not have been copied. When I was 10, my uncle had given me a small copper box that he made himself. I used it growing up as a sort of treasure box. When I was in my twenties, he told me that he actually made a secret compartment in the box. He said my actual present was in it but I had liked the box so much that he chose not to tell me and find it by myself. This was news to me so I checked the box as soon as I got back home. I had found a message and a few bills which I had decided to leave in there. I still had the box, it had turned green to oxidation but I still loved it and used it. It was unique and only the two of us knew about the secret compartment, a secret that he took to his grave. Making a copy of the box would be impossible. I checked the back of my closet where I kept the box hidden back then and I found it. It was shiny orange copper, exactly as it used to be. I observed the box for a while, looking for any difference with the original I knew so well, finding none. I reached for the secret compartment and found it missing.
It was both comforting and unnerving. The small difference made me hopeful. Whatever trapped me could make mistakes. It wasn’t an all knowing magical entity. There was a chance it could just be a regular human. A regular human with access to incredibly specific information and resources. Not reassuring but at least there was an explanation. It helped me stop panicking and be calm enough to think properly. I needed to find a way out of here. All in all, it wasn’t the worst place to be trapped in. My old bedroom had an attached bathroom, I had water and electricity and a drawer full of snacks. It was a habit I had as a kid and the recreated room was accurate on that side. Even if it wasn’t the healthiest food, I wouldn’t have to worry about it for a few days. In my situation, the most useful thing in the room was my old computer. I had saved for a few years to be able to afford my own at the time and it had been an integral part of my life growing up.
As I turned it on, the fans whirred loudly. A familiar noise that brought back happy memories. I waited patiently for the computer to start. I was no longer used to the time it took and was squirming in my chair. When it finally started, I ignored the shortcuts to classic games and went straight for the browser. I was surprised that it was working. I was expecting to connect to some sort of older version of the internet but everything seemed up to date. Surfing the modern web with a computer and internet connection from the early 2000s was an incredibly frustrating experience but I had at least a chance to connect to the outside world. After an absurd amount of time, I managed to connect to my email and send one to my girlfriend. I first intended to contact the police but searching for an actual email address was a haunting task with the time it took to load each page. I tried to explain my situation the best I could and told her to contact the police.
I wasn’t sure I would actually get an answer. But I got one quickly and it took a few messages to convince her that it wasn’t a joke and that it was actually me. From what she told me, I had been missing for close to a week. I checked my computer’s clock and confirmed it. She had already contacted the authorities who didn’t have any leads. During the time between emails, I explored my room. Seeing all of my old stuff brought back so many memories, good, bad and cringy ones. In another situation, I would have been ecstatic and spent hours combing through everything. The room felt comfortable, reassuring, in a way. Even with all the time that passed, it still felt like home. After all, this was still the room I lived in for the longest time in my life. Or at least a copy of it.
I received a message from the person in charge of my case and started following their instructions. They sent me links that they could use to track my connection and locate me. My location showed my old address which made sense for a little while until a quick internet search told me that a mall now stood where my old childhood home used to be. I gave all of the information that I had to the police with a painfully slow exchange of emails. As I said before, I moved to a different country a few years back so my case needed international cooperation which I was told would be slow. With that came the end of my first day, the light from the fake window started to dim. I turned on the light in the room for a while but it turned off by itself. 9pm, my old bed time.
The only source of light left in the room was the glow of the computer screen. It was a familiar sight but as opposed to the daytime, it didn’t bring back good memories. I was terrified of the dark as a kid. I don’t remember how it started but I slept with the light fully on for a long time. My first girlfriend understandably hated it so I had to change quickly. Luckily, my fear of the dark had all but disappeared by that time. I kept the lights on mostly out of habit. However, in my situation, the darkness started to feel as it did back then. The thick shadows felt like they were coming to life, wrapping around me. And then the computer screen turned off. I did the exact same thing I used to do, I hid under my cover, curled into a ball. It was not comfortable. The bed was my old childhood bed and didn’t fit my adult size. The heat from my breath was trapped inside the covers. It was hard to breathe. And yet, even making a small opening in my cocoon terrified me. It was the same terror that plagued me as a child.
I tried to rationalize it. After all, my situation had been engineered so I would feel as I did as a kid. Whoever trapped me here wanted me to be afraid. Was this the whole point ? I tried to calm myself down, I wasn’t going to let them win. This was just a kid’s irrational fear, I needed to get over it.
And then I felt it.
A cold coming from the other side of the cover, moving as if touching it. Slowly checking every spot of my protection but never moving it. I was startled and poked the cold spot with my elbow by accident. It felt like I had put my elbow in a bag of raw, cold rice. Which might have felt nice if it didn’t start moving around irregularly like a swarm of insects. I pulled back immediately. I remembered that feeling, I couldn’t believe I ever forgot it. The cold. The movement. The smell of wet dirt. The clicking, like bones hitting bones. This had happened before. This was why I was afraid of the dark.
I stayed still for as long as I could. It never left, I could always feel it near me. Sometimes it was just the cold moving. Sometimes it was that skin crawling noise close to my ear. A few times I felt it touch me through the cover. It was a soft and short tap, and yet it tensed me more than anything else it was doing. This game lasted for the whole night. It was always there in one way or another. At first I was petrified in fear. The pain and discomfort from my position slowly became more prevalent. Yet I was too afraid to move and risk exposing a part of me, even if it was just for a moment. No matter how many cramps I got, my instinct to stay covered always dominated any other feeling. Hours passed, I was as afraid as I was as a kid, maybe even more. As an adult, I was acutely aware of the abnormality of the situation. A kid is more used to things they cannot explain, they can accept the strange more easily. I didn’t have that privilege anymore. I had enough experience and knowledge to know that it should not exist. But it was still there and making sure that I knew it was.
When morning finally came, I was exhausted. It left when the light came, just as I remembered. Staying the entire night in one position combined with the tension made my muscles sore and my bones were cracking every time I moved. I moved to the computer to check my email, stretching the best I could. I quickly saw a drastic change of attitude. The day before, I had managed to convince everyone of who I was and they were trying to help me. Now, it seemed everyone was in agreement that I was just someone toying with them. Some of them even seemed to think I was the person that took me away. I spent the morning trying to convince them otherwise. Even when I gave information that no one else knew, they only became more hostile. And then I stopped receiving messages altogether. I was on my own. I tried to figure out a way out of the room by myself but I was so tired that I couldn’t think straight. I tried to take a nap, hoping that changing my sleep schedule would help me stay awake at night. Every time I started to fall asleep, a loud noise came from the fake window. Construction noises, car crashes, loud arguments, gunshots, all sorts of noises that you might hear in a big city. Something was keeping me awake.
I decided to stop trying. I ate a bunch of candy from my snack drawer to try to jerk my brain awake with some sugar and I started looking around. I searched the internet for any useful information or other ways to ask for help. As I was waiting for the slow internet to load the pages, I searched the room. I emptied every drawer, every bookshelf, every closet, putting their contents in a messy pile in the middle of the floor. A pile of priceless childhood memories, now only fueling my confusion and fear. I moved the furniture around, hoping for any crack that might lead outside. I tried to make a hole in the wall, only to be met with a metal plate behind the plaster. All of this effort only served to tire me even more than I already was. Exhausted by all of it, I sat down at the computer to write my story. Sort of a bottle to the sea, hoping for anything that might help me.
As I’m posting this, the lights in the room are already off. Only the screen is keeping the darkness away. Soon, I’ll have to hide under the covers again. I need to stay covered. I need to stay awake. If I sleep, I might move and make an opening. It doesn’t matter how tired I am, I can make it through the night. As long as I stay covered, it can’t take me. And then tomorrow, I will find a way out, everything is going to be alright. All I have to do is stay awake.