Room 93 (FIRST DRAFT)

Day 12

I rub my hands together weakly and brush away small crystal tears that cling to my face. My watch reads eight forty-five. The room in still surrounded in a curtain of black that washes over me and drapes me in its thickness. I rub my eyes wearily and try to conceal the puffiness of my eyes. I don't want the others to know I have been crying. I don't want them to think I am a wuss or a baby. I keep crying in the mornings now, even in my sleep. I can't stop it I can only release it all in bursts of despair.

Astra is curled up to my left, her nail beds red and angry looking. Her nails have been chewed down past the base till she can no longer bite them. Her blonde hair has been tied back with a piece of greying string she found in the far corner of the warehouse earlier yesterday. The whole room stinks so much I can barely breath sometimes. I don't know why I am only noticing it now but that's the way it is. I would give almost anything for a bath. Everyone in the room stinks from twelve days without showering.

Eric breaths heavily beside me. I wish he was awake so we could talk. His brown hair is even more matted than ever and it has grown considerably. He looks healthier and cleaner than all the others but I wouldn't go as far as saying he looked healthy, because he doesn't.

Darren is refusing to sleep. He crouches in the corner of the room shaking. He looks the worst of everyone. His pupils are dilated and his eyelashes are constantly covered in a thin coating of fresh tears. He has been growing thinner and thinner, he refuses to eat more than a nibble and he drink a little more. He is thinning down quickly and his cheeks are hollowing out. I watch everyday as his eyes grow a little more distant, a little more crazed. He rarely blinks from what I've seen. He just sits and stares at the wall searching for something he has lost.

Watching everyone breakdown, slowly falling to pieces sickens me. We are little more than creatures in a zoo to whoever's out there. Something to prod when your bored or laugh at when you have nothing else to do. I wonder if whoever - or whatever - is up there is laughing at our stupidity. I wonder if to them we are silly stupid creatures that can't even work out a simple riddle.

Samantha sits up, her blue crumpled. She stretches her arms and moans at the aches and sores in her weak muscles. There isn't much to do in 'the room' just sitting around and talking and waiting and sleeping. There is barely room to walk around and stretch are weary legs, so often we don't bother. We normally just sit and watch the hours slowly trickle by.

Samantha tries to stand up but her weakness gets the better of her. She flops onto the floor, whimpering as her head thuds against the smooth white marble. I wince at the sight of her pain but she doesn't seem to notice. She merely gets up and attempts to heave herself up once more. I glare wishfully at her stamina and lay back down onto the floor. My cheek caresses the cold dull surface and soothes my burning skin.

I see a pair of dark brown shoes appear before my eyes as Samantha walks over to me, her long browny-blonde hair waving behind her.
'What's up, Liz?' She asks, her normally chirpy voice blunt and quiet. She evidently doesn't want to wake the dozing Eric beside me so I force myself to whisper too.
'Nothing just thinking,' she giggles,
'You do that a lot?' She tries to make the conversation different to every others days conversation, but she is failing. Everyday it's the same questions and the same replies. It has almost become routine now. When I don't reply she lays down beside me and smiles. 'Are you always up first?' She encourages me to speak but I am attempting to minimise the conversation as much as possible.
'I like to have time to think while everyone's asleep. Everything is more peaceful, more passive when everyone's asleep. It almost appears, some days, as if everyone is enchanted like in the old fairy tales.' She grins once more and sighs. Her eyes become dazed as she thinks about her old life. About the people back home. I wonder how much she remembers about life before the room. I turn over to once more face Eric as he sleeps. His even breaths quiet and shallow.