White Torture • often referred to as "white room torture, " is a type of psychological torture technique aimed at complete sensory deprivation and isolation. A prisoner is held in a cell that deprives them of all senses and identity. (Wikipedia.)
All around me was a white room, a pure white room. Not even a shadow appeared before me. Where could this be? The last thing in my mind was falling asleep in my bed. Death? Could that explain this phenomenon? I don't see any other explanation for this feeling. This feeling. This feeling? I felt my horror only grow at the realization that I could not breathe. Not because I was suffocating, but because I had no lungs, no mouth, no nose, and no throat. To add to that realization I attempted to look down at the rest of my body but found that I couldn't move. I had no neck. I had no arms. I had no body. I remembered something in the back of my mind. White room torture. Sticking prisoners in a pure white room to inflict psychological damage and the hope of extracting information. Yet- I don't recall there ever being a case of an out-of-body experience. So, I would again reject the idea that I be held prisoner by some government.
Then was this a layer of hell? Some sort of void? Though I can't imagine I did anything so bad to be placed here. If I could sigh, I would have.
More time passed and I eventually gave up count trying to tell if a day had passed or not. I didn't experience fatigue nor hunger or thirst. The boredom was slowly eating away at my mind, and I began to play word games with myself.
What rhymes with 'dog'? god. What rhymes with 'god'? Cod. What rhymes with 'cod'? Bod. Pod. Todd. Odd. Plod. Clod. Rod. Blot. Lot. Yacht. Hot. Caught. Cot. Tot. Taught. Pot. Dot. Rot. Fought. Ought. Bot. Not. Knot. Naught. Naughty. Haughty. Party. Artsy…
It continued on like this for a while. I even tried to play tic-tac-toe, but it's sort of hard to win when you know your opponent's next move. This only made me feel more lonely, and I found a sense of dread growing- wherever my stomach was supposed to be. Would I never leave? It seemed like that might be the case. I really believed that this must be hell. Is this what I got for being an atheist? For cursing, taking God's name in vain? For doing so many things the Bible would consider wrong?
All the questions were answered with silence or my own thoughts. I was going in circles, and I couldn't even pace around like I usually did when worried. The constant anxiety only increased because of my withdrawals from technology. In a whole day, I must have spent half of it on some sort of device. I never thought much of it, but maybe it was a problem. If I didn't rely on it then maybe I would have been in a better situation? No- I doubt that. Phones or not no human would be able to withstand this sort of torture.
More time passed by after that and another realization befell me. I was beginning to forget things. I no longer remembered what my family looked like. Their names were blurry as well, only the first letters remaining. I would have cried if I could, but- no eyes even if I could see. Wait- did I have a sister or a brother? How old was I? My name- my name my name my name mynamemynamemynamemyname-
Who am I?
I could still recall general knowledge, what things were called and what they looked like. So why was the first thing I forgot about my family? Perhaps the most important part of my life? I wanted to scream, say something- try to recite what little I remembered- but I couldn't. No voice. My identity is slipping away from me. I can't remember what I looked like. Sounded like.
It wouldn't be long before more than that was forgotten. The things that made me who I was disappeared, and I thought I had as well.