Boxed In

The Walls Are Closing In

My fingers tapped soundlessly as the seconds ticked. Nothing felt real. Time seemed to stop and move too fast at the same time. Seconds blurred into minutes, minutes into hours. Hours into days. I stopped keeping track of how long they kept me here. No amount of time would be enough for me to forget this hell.

—

I blinked awake with a small frown. Nothing particular had woken me up, but I still felt agitated. It was going to be a long day.
I sat up on the bed. Well, calling it a bed was pretty generous. It was hard as a rock, and so was the one thin pillow that came with it. The agitation that came with waking up had vanished.
There was no way to tell what time it was; the bleary white room that I was in was pitch black. I knew it was early, though, because I couldn't hear the staff bustling around yet. Really early. I scowled to myself. At least I'm getting out of here today, I thought.
I blinked a few times, pointless due to the darkness of the room. I had always been a paranoid person, extra cautious, watching over my shoulder. Every little sound that my ears could pick up would make me jump. It was heightened in here. All my senses tended to get overwhelmed in this place. The constant noise of the nurses and the other patients, and the occasional white noise of the air conditioning— it was all too much. My nose was ambushed by the ruthless bleach smell. They mopped the floor like it was their deity. It was a never-ending headache. My eyesight had never been up to par; it was a generic thing, really. I had been in prescription eyeglasses since the bare age of 7, and my sight got worse after that. So now, at 15, I couldn't see within a foot in front of me without my glasses on. Not that it mattered in here. I had been stuck in this mocking white room for three days now. The back of my hand was still sore, a taunting reminder of how I got in here in the first place.
I glared at nothing. Sleepiness was washing over me again, and I got as comfortable as I could manage under the thin blanket. I fell back to sleep listening to the roar of the A/C unit.

—

The next time I was woken up was by Nurse Kenner to take my vitals. I bit down my knee-jerk reaction to lash out at her, and instead sat up and extended my arm. I didn't meet her eyes as she wrapped the blood pressure cuff around my upper arm. I immediately felt trapped, and the walls became too small again. I had to grind my teeth to keep my body still, even though my heart sped up a mile a minute. I struggled to keep my breathing even, so I barely registered the look of pity on Kenner's face. I still didn't look at her.
"Try to slow your breathing, sweetheart," she suggested.
I nodded while she adjusted the cuff on my arm. The pressure built on my arm, but I barely felt it. I did what she advised: tried to slow my breathing. But what came with that was my ability to escape into my own mind. I closed my eyes, measured my breaths, and then I was no longer with the nurse. I was somewhere else, somewhere no one could reach, ever. I was safe.
The only problem with finding refuge in my own head was that I tended to stay in there for longer than I can track. There's no measurement of time in here. Not even a clock on the walls. My eyes stayed closed, and the rest stayed faded.
When I finally opened my eyes, Kenner was gone, and my arm was sore. I didn't need to look down and see the mark to know that they had drawn blood again. I stifled a sigh, reminding myself it was only their job.
I heard the light footfalls behind the door before it opened. Dr. Lin was holding a clipboard and an ink pen. I frowned softly; why was this about?
"Odessa Mallen?" he asked.
Well, who else would it be?
I looked up at the doctor and nodded.
"One and only."