A plain room

A man wakes up in a place he does not recognize.

He awoke in a strange, foreign place. A square room, four walls, all concrete. He could see everything clearly, despite there being no obvious light source. His feet were cold, why were his feet cold? Looking down, he could see that his feet were bare, exposed to the cold, unfeeling concrete floor. Right, that explains it. There was a wooden table with a chair next to it in the center of the room. It looked like something police might use to interrogate criminals, but he was no criminal. His eyes caught a glint of light from across the room. A doorknob. He rushed over to open the door, only to find that there was no door, only more concrete. “This is strange,” he thought. “Why would somebody put a doorknob on the wall?” He heard his thoughts echo throughout the room. Oh, he said that out loud. He began to grow worried. He felt his knees grow weak, and he sat down in the chair.

The chair was not comfortable. It made him feel like someone had grabbed hold of his spine and was gently squeezing it. Upon looking at the table, he noticed a sheet of paper. Maybe this would explain something. Nope, blank. He crumpled up the paper, and threw it away from him. That’s when he noticed it. A small imperfection in the concrete, up where the ceiling met the wall. He grabbed his chair and dragged it over to the wall below. As he climbed onto the chair, he got a splinter in his foot. Oh right, he forgot he didn’t have any shoes. The concrete had a dent in it, as if it had been worn down. He began banging on the wall. “Help! Somebody get me out of here! I’m not supposed to be here!” he screamed. He banged and banged, until his fist grew raw and began bleeding. He stopped, and laid his head against the wall, feeling the smooth concrete against his forehead. That’s when he noticed it: the blood. There was his own blood, of course, but there was more. It was dried up, as if it had been left there for days. He slowly backed down from the chair, and took a slow look around the room. He was confused, none of this was making any sense. He noticed a small hole in the wall, the size of a keyhole. He ran over to it, and tried to stick his finger through. No luck. He bent himself over and looked through the opening. What he saw horrified him.

He backed away slowly. Another room, identical to the one he found himself caged in. How could this be? How did he end up here? What was this place, and how was he going to get out? He turned around to find that the chair was back. So was the paper. Everything back in the same place as when he awoke. He rushed over, almost falling on himself as he did. He needed to keep his sanity, so he decided to do the only thing he could think of: write his name. He picked at the scab that had begun to form on his fist until it bled again. He ran his finger over it to gather his writing material. He began writing on the paper, B… R… A… D. That was his name, Brad. For some reason he had a hard time remembering that. He turned the paper over, only to find that Brad was written out dozens of times on the other side. This was not right. None of this made any sense. He felt a pressure in his head, as if his brain was about to burst out. His ears were ringing, and whoever had a grip on his spine was now crushing it. His knees grew weak, and against his will gave out on him. He collapsed into a twitching pile, struggling for each breath he took. The room slowly went dark, as did he.

He awoke in a strange, foreign place.