Her vision was blindingly bright, the fluorescent lights wreaking havoc on her newly opened eyes. Everything was too sharp - smells, noises, sights, but she didn’t know why. She only knew her name. Grace. As her eyes adjusted to the harsh lights, she lifted her hand to her face, closely inspecting it. Her fingers were long and tapered, ending with nails painted fuchsia. Confusion settled on her face as she wondered where she was and more importantly, who she was. Grace peered around the room, finding herself sprawled across the hard linoleum floor. White dominated the room, except for a small black door.
With a drum beating inside of her head, Grace heaved herself onto her feet and slowly stumbled towards the door, her aching feet protested with every step. The five feet to the door seemed to stretch for miles, the quietness was ghostly. Grace released a sigh, wondering how she had happened to find herself in the white room. Who even was she? As her mind cleared like the sky after a storm, thoughts entered her head, zooming around her brain and capturing her attention.
Grace was awoken from her reverie by the sound of her nails clicking gently against the metal doorknob. Turning it, the door swung free from its prison as Grace’s eyes raked over the hallway. No one. The air in the hallway was stagnant as she stepped out of the white room and entered the completely black hallway, lit only by sconces secured to the wall. Grace walked slowly, scared out of her mind. As she turns the corner, the hallway begins to brighten, turning less personal and more industrial. Sounds inundate her ears, from the constant beeping of machinery to the dripping of a leaky faucet. This new hallway was full of windowed rooms and people rushing about. But not a single one noticed the damaged girl with the tear-stained face shuffling down the hallway.
"Help," she croaked, "Can anyone hear me? I'm so alone." Suddenly all the figures in the hallway disappeared. Slowly, Grace turned around to look behind her, but nothing was there. All that was left was a solid white wall. With her heart beating like a drum in her chest, Grace screamed, a bone-chilling scream that echoed through the cement building.
To the right of Grace, a black door opened. A tall, blond boy with piercing blue eyes emerged from within. Whispering, she said, "Can you hear me?"
"Yes."
"Who are you?" She asked.
"I don't know, but my name is Sam. Do you know what this place is? I woke up in a white room, and I don't particularly like white rooms," the blond boy responded.
"I'm Grace," she uttered, "And this whole mess is as confusing to me as it is to you. I just knew I had to get out of that atrocious white room."
"So, just to be sure we're on the same page, you only know your name and that you feel like taking a stroll down this lovely white hallway?" Sam questioned, raising his left eyebrow as he spoke.
Grace sighed, "Yeah, but whenever I turn around, there's nothing but a solid white wall."
As if he didn't believe her, Sam spun around, astonished at what he saw. "There's nothing there!" He exclaimed. “I swear there was a hallway behind me when I got out! How can that happen?”
But Grace didn’t know the answer to her questions, nevertheless Sam’s questions. She still felt the pull that was dragging her forward through the maze-like building. Sam felt it too, as they walked side by side, not speaking, just listening to the other. Their breathing matched their footfalls as Sam and Grace walked through countless hallways, some blue, some green, some patterned. In each one, they remembered events from the past. It seemed like they were unraveling their past, similar to the way people untied stubborn knots. The second the pair turned a corner, however, those memories were erased.
“Sam,” Grace spoke softly. “I’m scared. What if we can’t get to the end? What happens then?”
In a calm, cool voice, Sam responded with, “Then we find a way to get there. Obviously we are here for a reason. We just have got to keep fighting.”
Grace didn’t know how long she had been walking, but the connection between her and Sam was growing stronger. Each moment, each breath of air that they shared drew the pair closer and closer. Grace found herself sneaking glances at Sam, staring at his beautiful smile. Sam did the same, falling for her charismatic personality.
Although neither one of them knew their own past, Grace and Sam grew to know each other, just by the little things that they remembered. Somehow Sam knew that the small scar on Grace’s face was from falling off the swings when she was five, and Grace knew that the crook in Sam’s nose was from breaking it playing football.
These little things, these moments forged an unbreakable bond between Sam and Grace. Instead of walking sadly down the hallways, Grace had pep in her step and a smile on her face as she held Sam’s hand.
At the end of a vibrant, sunny yellow hallway, a mirror placed at eye level beckoned. Grace attempted to inspect her forgotten features in it, but all she saw was her mousy brown hair, vivacious blue eyes and a brilliant white smile. The rest of her face and body was not visible. When Sam gazed into it, he only saw his eyes, his crooked nose, and his wide smile. The mirror only showed the features that the other remembered about them.
Gradually, the color of the hallways turned brighter and more homely looking. The pull that was drawing Grace and Sam on their journey was growing stronger by the second, signaling that they were very close to their final destination. Memories flooded Grace’s head- she could see her family, her friends, even winning the national swimming prize. Her tabby cat, bounding towards her and the perfect score she received on her algebra test. There were still holes in her memory, fragments missing from her story.
Turning a corner, the hallway turned angelic white. The walls gave off a sheer glow, illuminating the aisle without any artificial lights. At the end of the hallway, a slender fuchsia door beckoned. Along the walls were pictures of Sam and Grace, completely in love with one another. But they were from before the maze, before either of them lost themselves completely. The pictures spanned years, showing them from middle school all the way up to graduating high school.
Simultaneously, Grace and Sam turned to look at one another, and all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. The holes in Grace’s memory were all of Sam and the love that they had shared. From Sam asking Grace to dinner for the first time, to sitting in Sam’s treehouse promising to be together forever.
The images stopped when the car crash appeared. It had been a dark, rainy night when a drunk driver crashed head on into Sam’s red Mustang. The pain Grace had felt was unbearable, as her heart beat slower and slower, her breath becoming labored. Sam had died near after, his head forever slumped onto the steering wheel. Grace’s last memory alive was her saying, “I will love you forever,”
Sam had responded with, “I love you too, never forget that.”
Their gravestones were side by side, sitting directly under a weeping willow tree, with a lazy stream bumbling by on the right. Both of them were inscripted with, “I will never forget you.”
Brought back to reality, Grace whispered, “I’m dead. I’m really dead.” Her eyes watered, threatening to break into tears as the reality of their situation sunk into her brain.
Sam placed his hands on her shoulders and said, “This is not the end. We’re together and that’s all that matters. I remember me and I remember you. I remember us.”
Grace sniffled and wiped her tears away. “I remember us too.”
And with that simple sentence, the fuchsia door opened, revealing a cloud-like golden paradise within. Sam grabbed Grace’s hand and with massive smiles on their faces, the two love-struck teens stepped into their paradise.
