Note: This is based on the "The Basement" challenge by Krysy Winters. The title and main style choice are based on the book "Room" by Emma Donoghue.
I have always lived in one room. It is a cold, dark room. The floor is sticky. The walls are hard. The walls crumble in rooms sometimes. Sometimes liquid drips out a round thing in the ceiling. I drink the liquid to get rid of the thirsty feeling.
The room is mostly black and gray. There are only colours when Light comes out one wall. Then I can see there is brown and yellow on the floor. There is some blue on the wall near Light.
Light coming through means Big Man is there. He blocks out some Light with his bigness. He yells out some words to me. Sometimes he throws food. The food is rough on the outside and soft in the middle and in a square-ish shape. It tastes wet some days and hard other days. Sometimes there is other stuff on food. I like the soft, sticky, sweet stuff best. Food always gets red of the hungry feeling. Other times Big Man does not throw food. It is mean to not throw food.
Big Man thinks it is funny when he does not throw food. I know because Big Man always laughs a mean laugh. I do not like Big Man.
I can see some shapes in this room. The shapes I see with my eyes are not like the shapes I see with my hands. The shapes I see with my hands are the same. The shapes I see with my eyes always change. I see with my hands more often than with my eyes. Big Man does not like it when I try to see him with my hands. He kicks me if I touch him.
The corner across from the light is the Crinkle Corner. I call it the Crinkle Corner because it crinkles when I move there. Crinkle corner is white with black, yellow, and brown smudges. I have to relive myself in the Crinkle Corner or Big Man hits me. The Crinkle Corner gets stinky and less crinkly after a while. Big Man makes the Crinkle Corner crinkly again every seven sleeps.
I sleep in the corner furthest from the Crinkle Corner. The air is warmer and less stinky there. I curl up into a ball to sleep there. Some nights the air is very warm, and I sleep well. Other nights the air is chilly. I shiver until I fall asleep then. The heat of the air helps me tell the season. Right now it is the end of the Hot Season.
There is not much to do in this room. I can eat food. I can use Crinkle Corner. I can sleep. I can listen to voices when they are loud. There are usually three voices, sometimes more. There is Big Man's low voice, a high-pitched voice, and a voice in the middle. I do not understand them, except when they say "no". The voices say "no" a lot, and Big Man says "no" most often. The other voices are rare. They do not last long. I think Big Man scares them away. Once I tried to add my own loudness. I hit my hands on the door where Light comes. It made a "boom" sound. Big Man did not like the "boom" sound. He came to this room just to hurt me. I was in hurt for a long time.
The only other thing I can do in this room is think. Sometimes I think of this room exactly. I think about the changing shapes. I think about colours. I think about Light signaling food. I wonder about where Light goes when it is not here. I think of hard food, soggy food, and liquid coming from the shiny round thing in the ceiling. I think about Big Man not liking me, and wonder if I can make him like me. I think about the world beyond room. It must be a scary place since Big Man always keeps me here. Thinking about this room exactly makes me sad.
I usually think about this room, but with changes. I wish that Big Man would always throw food when Light comes. I wish I could change Crinkle Corner on my own. I wish Big Man would not hurt me. I wish I could make this world real.
But that room is always in my head. It always will be.
Author's Notes: I hope you find this story as interesting to read as it was for me to write. I know Harry's world may seem a bit confusing now, but as it is explored both in and out of the narrative, it should become clearer.
Next Chapter Quote: "The stranger is much nicer than Big Man, I realize."
Questions & Answers
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