What she saw was herself, alone in her childhood home, at age four. This was Mimi's earliest memory, now come to life on the a screen in this tunnel.
She was alone and friendless in the bedroom of her run-down New York house. It was late at night, and her mother was out, probably sleeping around for drug money. Mimi almost couldn't bear these early memories of her mother, as Mrs. Marquez had since reformed and made a complete turnaround to become a caring parent.
The bedroom door opened, and Mimi's large, muscular father appeared, drunk as usual. Though this movie lacked sound, Mimi remembered the dialogue. "Where's your mother?!," he bellowed with slightly slurred words. "I…don't know," the young Mimi squeaked meekly.
The real Mimi knew what would happen next and didn't watch. She closed her eyes, but couldn't help reliving the subsequent events in her head and experiencing the pain of her childhood all over again.
Her father drew near her. She tried to cower away, but he grabbed her by her neck and pulled her gaunt body up to a standing position. Mimi heard the sounds of violence clearly in her head: the punching, slapping, twisting, breaking, screaming. Her father had ended the beating that night by throwing the defenseless Mimi across the room.
Knowing that the worst of the memory was over, Mimi opened her eyes again, and sighed out of pure relief. Her father had often been too drunk to do anything, but every once in a while, all of his anger and frustration exploded and was taken out on his only child, as she was often the only other person in the house.
When sober, her father was still far from kind and loving, but he was not dangerous. Mimi's mother had never physically hurt her. That was mostly because, during the height of her drug addiction, she barely even spoke to her daughter. The first six years of Mimi's life had been dark and lonely.
Back in the tunnel, the screen showed the injured, crying, four-year-old Mimi alone again. In an instant, the screen vanished. The square beneath her turned, sped forward again, and brought her to the next screen, which appeared as soon as she was turned toward the proper spot on the right side of the tunnel.
