Story / It's Just a Room - Part 5

Part 5 of It's Just a Room! To read from the beginning, click here.

PART 5

2:32

Footsteps, footsteps. ’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door… I was sitting here at the desk, reading that… book, and I heard three very distinct footsteps, one after another in quick succession. Three footsteps… Why only three? They couldn't have gotten far, they weren’t very heavy either, not like my dad’s anyway.

It bothers me to think someone stuck me in here, but that has to be the answer. The question is why? Did I do something wrong? Did I offend someone? God forbid, did I kill anyone? No, I didn’t. Dammit, I should not be here, I should not! I should be at home, or all the way on the other coast, it doesn’t matter, I just don’t want to be here. There is nothing here, no good at any rate, only emptiness and hatred. And someone is watching me, I can feel it.

I can feel it when I’m asleep, two dazzlingly green eyes that shone like a cats in some fictitious light, watching me from some fictitious keyhole. Staring, waiting to pounce. I can feel them threatening me, telling me nothing will be okay, telling me I should hang myself from that light bulb cord. This someone, it knows my name, it knows why I’m here. It isn’t the one that put me here, no that someone is much, much darker. That someone sits atop an iron throne and watches as the one who watches me reports back. That someone says nothing, he only sits, staring, waiting, listening, knowing.

That someone wants me to be here. They want me to suffer, but why? Why me? Why here? Why couldn’t I just leave?

What if I could get out? I could dig my way out of this terrible room and find those dark hallways beyond. I would creep through them slowly, very slowly, through the endless shadows and twisting corridors--cavernous. And I would keep my eyes peeled, adjusted to the darkness, as I listen for any sounds, any footsteps, any voices, and when I heard those sounds I would stop. I would listen, and determine exactly where they are coming from, and then I would stalk those sounds, and find them in their darkest corners, alone and afraid, and I would leap on those fowl sounds, killing them with a single strike--earth and blood.

I would end it, sound by sound, as I worked my way until I found someone. I would hear them, and I would follow them until I knew I was prepared to strike. Then I would leap out at that someone with all my might, and I would pin them to the wall, and demand them to let me out of here!

And if they begged for mercy, I would give them none until I was gone, far away from the wretched hole. But until then, I would grip that foul beast with my own twisted and snarled yellow claws. I would choke it tight, and bend close to whisper into its ear the darkest things it has ever heard, darker than the hole it crawled out of. I would rip into its flesh and scream, because who else would hear me? I would scream at the top of my lungs, and I would carve its skin raw. I would rip its twisted horns--antlers--off of its scalp.

That would be the end of it, and if I was not free, I wasn’t going to be any time soon. But I’ll have killed it, I’ll have won. That buzzing will finally go away.

4:36

Fuck this noise, I’m getting out of here. I don’t give a god damn about someone wanting me here. I don’t care if they want a new puppy, they can go fuck themselves. I’m finding a way out of this room, even if I have to dig my way out.

7:10

I lost it.

I kept looking for a key, looking up and down, side to side, in every drawer, I searched everywhere I could think of. I tried everything. There was no key. I thought maybe the key was hidden underneath the floorboards.

Tear up the planks! here, here!--It is the beating of his hideous heart! Old memories of high school English class, my friend Paul acting out The Tell-Tale Heart. Stomping up and down, revealing to the officer, Jimmy, his crime of insanity. And now here I am, and I can hear that hideous beating, but it isn’t anyone’s heart, it’s some key just beyond my grasp, some fictitious key that must be there. Maybe it’s the keys I lay my finger upon, beating, beating, with every single keystroke, beating, beating. So I did… I grabbed the chair upon which I sat, and swung it wildly at the boards. But they didn’t move free. Hell, they didn’t so much as budge, or even scratch. To my surprise, the chair didn’t even break.

Suddenly I heard something, even if it was simply the sound of the chair on that hardwood, or the echo thereof, it sounded strange and all too familiar.

The crashing of waves.

9:21

By my count it’s getting kind of late. I just want to leave this terrible room, I want to be free. I’m going to try to get some more sleep because it’s crucial to stay rested, I suppose. My eyes feel heavy, and are starting to itch. Goodnight, Oliver.

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