Trapped

It’s been some time since I woke up in the room. Well, it feels like it has been. My room is usually ten paces by ten paces square, and what appears to be the same height. It always seems to be a perfect cube. The walls, ceiling, and floor are made of the same uniform white plastic material with slightly more give and bounce than one might expect. There are no identifiable marks in my room, not even on the ceiling. There are no light fixtures in my room; the light seems to simply come through the surfaces. I usually sleep in the corner. When I awake there are always two large white bowls in the center of the room. One is filled with a white liquid similar in taste to milk, yet slightly thicker. The other is empty and I use it to defecate and urinate in.

My awake periods are spent exercising and meditating. I’ve become quite adept at simple gymnastics movements such as pushups, hand stands, flips, and jumps. I have tried many times to mark the walls in such a way as to keep track of how many times I’ve slept, but I never can. My fingernails and hair have stopped growing or are somehow being trimmed without my knowledge. I cannot give you an accurate assessment of how long I have been in my room, I estimate I have fallen asleep six hundred times now but I cannot be sure. The temperature is comfortable despite my lack of clothing.

I have no distinct memory before the room, no particular names or faces, no places I could call home besides my room. However, more unsettling to me is that I do know there is a world outside of this room. There are rivers and oceans and mountains. There is a planet called Earth with a species called Homo sapiens on it. There are creatures in the oceans and the skies and on land. I know their respective names. I know there is a thing called science and its various disciplines. I can find the derivative of a simple equation; I can describe to you the chemical structure of a molecule of water. I know I’m a living being, or at the very least I feel like I am one. I know there are women and that you can marry one and have children. I know there are fat people and skinny people. I know the world but I know nothing in the world knows me.

My first few days (although I now count time by my sleep cycle) in the room I adamantly studied my prison. To no avail could I find a single crack, door, window, vent, or blemish in my prison. No evidence suggested this room had an entrance or exit other than the repeated refilling and emptying of my two bowls. My desire to escape the room has not diminished, but my strategy has changed.

My next few sleep cycles I tried desperately to fake sleep, the key to this room, I figured, was the two bowls and their repeated emptying and filling. Alas, never have the bowls been moved an inch unless I was truly asleep.

The next few cycles were spent trying to damage or alter my room in any way. I failed to scratch the walls with my nails or teeth. I could smear or fling feces on the walls or ceiling and those blemishes would be removed next time I slept. I failed to even damage the bowls in any way despite my best efforts.

When I awake I usually check the size of the room, for sometimes it alters. Usually it stays near ten paces by ten, but the greatest it has been is twenty by twenty, and the smallest was six by six. The size changes perplex me, as I have yet to determine any pattern or system by which the room size is determined. Currently, I feel it is random.

My current strategy is to maintain my physical fitness, keep my mind sharp by doing arithmetic in my head, and (most importantly I feel) study my captors. My captors have some sophisticated technology at their disposal, including a monitoring system to determine if I’m asleep or not. My guess is it’s based off of some form of brain wave monitoring that only allows the bowls to be moved and replaced when I’m in my deepest sleep. They clearly don’t want to kill me yet, as I have been in here for some time. Perhaps they are studying the effects of isolation on human behavior, but I am determined to not let my lack of human contact get to me. Often in my meditations I will imagine I have a family or am driving a car with a friend or simply watching television. This seems to be working so far to preserve my mental faculty.

My best guess is that their nature is only somewhat sinister and mostly observational. I have toyed with the idea that my captors are not human but have reached the conclusion that they most likely are.

I have tried various methods to elicit a response from my captors. I have tried shouting, singing, exercising at maximal intensity, pleading, reasoning, threats of suicide, none have worked so far.

I have considered that this room may be a part of the afterlife, but were that the case I feel like I would have some sort of personal memory from before the room. Whenever I wake up from a cycle I make a mental note of how many times I have slept. I also say aloud to my captors “I do not wish to be in this room, I wish to live a life in the real world, I will continue to try to escape until I die, please release me.” Currently no response in any way has been given. I have written these same words in feces on the walls numerous times.

I just want to get out.

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Trapped