Safe

This goes along with the "Asylum" piece. The other perspective.

When I awake, a blinding white light strikes me, and I slam my eyes shut to push it away. The light is relentless, and it takes several minutes before I can adjust to the brightness and begin to see the room around me. It is white, clean of any furniture besides the small (and quite uncomfortable) bed that presses against my back now. Pushing against the frame,  the sheets sliding beneath the cool surface of my legs, I hunch over weakened from the effort of sitting up. I take a deep breath, and quickly slide down off the bed, my feet chilling as they touch the white tile floor, sending a shiver up my spine. The white swirls around me, my bed becoming two beds, and then morphing back into one. The image before me changes and my whole body trembles with cold pressed up against the white tile. 

Wasn't I standing?

Perhaps I wasn't. I try to push myself off the floor but it's to no avail. My body throbs from my apparent fall and I am far too weak to handle the weight of my own existence. So instead I remain lying there, my breaths coming in uneven gasps. 

Countless ragged breaths, I feel eyes on me. Eyes all over me. They are looking at me, lying here on the cool tile floor completely naked. Exposed. I go instantly rigid and fight myself off the ground ignoring the cracks and pulls and groans of my body that begs me to accept that I am already done for. But I won't. Instead, I pull myself together and hold myself, covering every vulnerable part of my being. Eyes, eyes, eyes. Seeing me, watching me- judging me. I can feel their piercing eyes hitting me like a brick wall. And then, I can't breathe. I can't get enough air into these now deflated lungs, and I can't slow the hammering in my chest, can't stop the sweat that beads on my forehead, on the back of my neck. I can't function. They're watching me, watching me, watching me. A wall slams into my back, and I slide down it crouching into the smallest position I can create with this now seemingly large body. I try to breathe, I try to focus, but I can't. 

Breathe breathe breathe breathe. 

These walls seem to crush me, pulling in around me, crushing what little air I have left out of my lungs and then I'm just there. Just this girl crouching in the corner of a white room, shaking and crying. And then suddenly, the walls relent. The eyes disappear and I'm suddenly not alone anymore. I'm not naked and exposed, no I'm wrapped in this warm and comforting white wrap that holds me together. Hands touch my face, and a set of gleaming blue eyes reach for mine and I am okay. I breathe. I focus. I'm okay. The room around me is still white, but it's not cold and hard. It's warm and soft and safe. 

Safe. The word echoes around me, and then I realize it's not an echo. It's a whisper. A whisper coming from this blue-eyed stranger that touches my face. 

"You're safe. You're okay. You're safe." 

Safe. I begin to believe it. I feel the word and let it wrap around me like the strange white clothing I wear. Safe, right I must be. I must be safe. Always safe. My thin cracking lips slide over my teeth and I smile up this blue-eyed stranger. She smiles back. She nods her head, and I nod with her. 

"I'm safe," I say.

"You're safe," She agrees.