Sunshine and shadows

Black and white

Content warnings: being trapped in one's own mind, claustrophobia-inducing, memory loss, panic attack. 

When I open my eyes, all I can see is black and white. The rest of my senses don't seem to be working and I feel groggy and tired all over. What is this place? How in the world is everything around me so achingly white? It feels like I'm in the Himalayas; surrounded by a staunch white that seems to emit a chill of its own. I take a moment to compose myself and then look around to get a hold of my bearings.

A chill goes down my spine as I realize that this plethora of white is my room. It has my bed, my fur rug, the shelf with a painting that holds my name, 'Arya Madan' in fancy lettering, and the really cute lamp I'd recently bought. Everything is the same white color... except for the curtains. This time, I truly scream and jump to my feet, belatedly noting that I was sitting on a chair, pointing to the deep black curtains. I don't know why that color surprises me so, but in that state, they truly shake me to the core.

I decide that I can't stay in this horrifying room for a second longer, and I hurry toward the door. Even my beloved door is white, I think with a shudder, and try to twist the doorknob. The doorknob doesn't give in to my sweaty hands, and I wipe them and try again, but it remains firmly jammed in place.

My eyes widen and my breath quickens, and I pull and push at the door frantically, but it refuses to budge. In desperation, I take a few steps back and ram my shoulder into the door. Pain blossoms in my head at once, and I fall to the ground, clenching it tightly. In the wake of my injury, only one thought persistently sticks in my head.

I'm stuck in my own mind.

It is a horrifying realization to come to, but true, nonetheless. In my frazzled state, I try knocking around the walls, yelling loudly for someone to rescue me, and banging on the locked windows, but they just invite more pain until I'm forced to stop.

My next step is to take my hairpin and try to pick the doorknob, the way detectives in movies do. When even that fails miserably, I throw the white metal across the room and throw a silent fit.

It's true then. There's nothing else to it. I'm stuck in my own stupid mind and there seems to be no way out.

I collapse in a heap on my soft, furry rug and bury my head in my hands. My shoulders shake and I take great heaving sobs in a moment of weakness. My mother always tells me, 'Crying provides no solution to a problem. It just tampers with your ability to think and renders everyone around you helpless to take decisions.'

My tears flow even harder as I remember her words, and I clench my knees tightly around my face. Calm down... calm down and try to remember how you got here, I tell myself and stop my downpour of tears forcefully. Then I screw my eyes shut and think clearly to myself.

Right, so I was... I was in my... in my what? I was sitting in my, no, standing. I was standing in my... Argh I can't remember anything! I actually can't remember what happened.

I open my eyes in frustration and slam the rug beneath me with fisted hands repeatedly. Anger courses through my veins and all I can think about are this ridiculously white room and its black curtains that stick out like a sore thumb.

My trembling hands cover my face again but pause in their tracks as I realize something with a frown. My cheeks feel dry, and my eyes are burning up. This means I just cried. But I can't remember why I cried.

This thought brings in full-blown panic as I frantically try to recall the trigger that caused me to cry. I remember something about my mother, some saying, but it quickly evaporates from my memories. My mother... whose face I can no longer recall.

My eyes fly open as I try to piece what my mother looks like, but my brain comes up with a blank, dark screen. I can't even remember her name anymore, and my memories of her are slowly slipping away like water held in a fist. With her memories flow mine, including those of my name and the ones around me.

To distract myself from my growing panic, I look at my surroundings again. But this time there's a small change to them. The rug which had once sparkled with a pure white was slowly turning black like the curtains. I scramble to my feet and step back from the rug with growing nausea as the darkness spread through it like ink spreading on paper.

I can only stare as the darkness devours the rug and moves onto the floor, seeping into the floor and flowing like water across the wooden flooring. The worst part is, along with the furniture that slowly starts to turn black, my memories fade into wisps of air that I can no longer catch.

My family, my friends, my real room, and home and school. All of them slowly start fading from my head. I clench my hair in my hands and scream as loudly as I possibly can, but it does nothing to stem the loss of memories and the spreading black that has now covered the entire floor.

My entire body trembles now as I try to take deep breaths. I end up coughing though and collapse onto the blackened floor. I now understand that my memories are not mine anymore and that they are fleeing my mind rapidly.

Whether this is permanent or not, I cannot ascertain. 

At that moment, I realize that while I cannot hold onto my memories, I am able to use my head and allow thoughts to flow through it.

This energizes me and I try to think of a way to escape my predicament. The only thought that occurs to me is that to escape to your mind, you need to fill your head with all sorts of thoughts until they take over and create a world of their own. So how do you escape from your mind?

By emptying it, my mind whispers back to me from its depths. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes, so I cross my legs, place my hands on my knees and close my eyes. I keep the thoughts coming in my head and let them pass through me like sunlight through a glass window.

Slowly but surely, I start to calm down and relax. I can even feel my body getting lighter and lighter, though I don't dare to open my eyes and check, lest I break my concentration and peace. Very soon, I feel myself drifting off into the nethers of darkness.

When I open my eyes next, I'm greeted by the riot of colors from our world.

wow, I don't even know where all this anguish came from! I didn't originally mean for this story to be this dark when I wrote it, and I was reconsidering whether I should publish it or not. But since someone else might enjoy this story, I'm putting it out here for you