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1.02

I lie on my back, staring up where the windows had been. There was nothing there. The man hadn't returned, nor had the windows. I've waited for a long time. I can't remember exactly how long. I've tried to keep track of time, but failed every time. I've tried tapping on my leg and counting the taps, but I lost track at some point, and I couldn't remember when I lost track. My thoughts had simply drifted. The same happened for counting breaths. One time I had reached a thousand, another ten thousand, but always I forgot at some point to count, and when I returned to counting I had lost track for a long time I knew. The man hadn't come back, nor the windows.

I tried playing with myself to pass the time whilst waiting, but I wasn't in the mood. I couldn't even get myself in the mood. Listlessly I moved my hands, trying to evoke a primal reaction from my body, but nothing responded. It just felt bland, nothing happened, nothing responded. I gave up and continued staring at the white above me.

It felt like a room if It thought about it. I had a sense of being enclosed in here, instead of being in a free open space to the sky. If it is a room, there must be walls or borders somewhere to this white nothingness. But I couldn't see anything from where I lied. I couldn't even see the difference between ground and ceiling. It was plain boring here. The most interesting thing here was my own body. I sighed.

I lie on my back staring upwards letting my eyes search the nothingness, trying to find anything to look at. I scratch my leg absentmindedly, the nails dragging a trail over my skin, the sensation present in my mind. I relish in it, something to feel, to experience, where I couldn't experience anything else.

I sit up and drag patterns with my nails on my legs for a while. I try pressing harder and red traces start to build on my legs, but they quickly fade away again leaving a red line on my leg that is trying to catch up to my finger. I keep playing this game for a long while. I don't know how long I've done this when I stop. I lift my index finger to my face and study it. Clean. Not a trace of grime or dirt under it from the skin I must have worked free. I sigh and let my hand fall to my lap.

After a while of sitting there dejectedly, I stand up and look around me, letting my gaze go over all the white nothingness. I shrug my shoulders and start walking forwards. I don't feel like staying at that spot waiting for something that might not happen anymore. I place one foot in front of the other moving forward. I keep going like that for a long time, one foot in front of the other, eyes gazing on nothing, thoughts wandering. Just moving forward.

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If this was a room, if I kept moving, I might encounter a wall. If I encounter a wall I might be able to break through it. Maybe I'll encounter something like the man and the windows again to break the monotony. But for now I'll just walk. It gives me something to do, and as I don't get tired it gives me a sense of purpose. Just one foot in front of the other. I step on nothing, moving towards nothing. Everything is white except my naked body. I don't fuss that much anymore about being naked. There's nothing I can do about it. I could try to cover it up a bit if I tore the paper the right way though.

Suddenly I jerk to a stop. I had forgotten the paper! Panic grips my heart and I check all around. The folded up piece of paper isn't here! The one other thing that felt real in this whiteness was gone! I turned around and started running back with panic gripping my mind. I hoped was running back and not a totally different direction. I had no way to tell the difference. All the while whilst running I kept looking for the piece of paper on the invisible ground.

I started running faster, my legs pumped up and down, my arms moved rhythmically back and forth. My breath stayed steady. I didn't grow tired. I tried running even faster and found out that I could. Even still, this should have exhausted me after twenty paces, but I didn't grow tired. My breathing was still normal. Just my body moving through nothing, arms and legs pumping, but no pain, no strain, no ache. I wasn't even sweaty from the exercise.

I tried to remember if I had ever ran like this before, but I couldn't remember. In panic I went through my memories from before I was stuck here and found them fading. Things I had know all my life and were part of me were fading. My dog bandit who always hid my dirty socks in his toy box. The time I was locked up in the bathroom because the knob had broken off. The first fist fight I had with my brother. The loss of my father to a drunk driver... they felt faded, as if they were fraying at the edges, slowly disintegrating. I tried to recollect everything I knew from before the white room, the real world, doing my best not to forget, trying to fix the memories in my mind, to protect them, and failing. I felt them fading further, as if the white light was slowly chipping away at them.

I ran towards nothing, my body working, my mind fighting, and despair set in like tiny black tendrils creeping into my mind, working their way into the small crevices to settle there. I run... I keep running... I'm so scared....