I've been locked up for 264 days.
I have nothing but a small notebook and a broken pen and the numbers in my head to keep me company. 1 window. 4 walls. 144 square feet of space. 26 letters in an alphabet. I haven't spoken in 264 days of isolation.
6,336 hours since I've touched another human being.
"You're getting a roommate." they said to me.
"For good behavior." they said to me.
"No more isolation." they said to me.
They are the minions of the Reestablishment. The initiative that was supposed to help our dying region. The same people who pulled me out of my parent's home and locked me in an asylum for something outside of my control. No one cares that I didn't know what I was capable of. That I didn't know what I was doing.
I have no idea where I am.
I only know that I was transported by someone in a white van who drove 6 hours and 37 minutes to get me here. I know I was handcuffed to my seat. I know I was strapped to my chair. I know my parents never bothered to say goodbye. I know I didn't cry as I was taken away.
I know the sky falls down every day.
The sun drops into the ocean and splashes browns and yellows and oranges and reds into the world outside my window. A million leaves from a million different branches dip in the wind, fluttering with the false promise of flight. The gust catches their withered wings only to force them downward, forgotten, to be trampled by the soldiers stationed just below.
There aren't as many trees as before, is what the scientists are saying. That our world used to be green. Our clouds used to be w h i t e, like purity and cleanliness. Our sun was always the right kind of light. But I have no memories of that world. I don't remember anything from before. The only existence I know now is the one I was given.
An echo of what I used to be.