Head Straight To Your Own Demise

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As he opened his eyes, he could instantly feel the strangeness around him. Throwing away the fact he somehow managed to come here without knowing it, the unsettling cleanliness of the white walls that made them practically shine gave him an uncomfortable feeling he knew he hadn’t experienced in years. There were no doors or any other kinds of exit between the walls, as if he was in a gigantic cube of some sort.

As he turned his sight from his surroundings to himself, he noticed that he was wearing clothes he had never seen before. The white shirt seems too large for his body, hanging off like a gigantic bag. The white trousers were just right for his size. Did somebody change him when he was asleep? He wondered. Deciding that he probably had enough information for the timing, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The blinding color of white was starting to get under his nerves.

Just as he opened his eyes once more, a question suddenly came into his mind. Where is the light source in this cube-like room? He immediately inspected the room once again, but eerily, he could not place the area the light came from. Even shadows were not present as he tried making one with himself. It was as if he was in a piece of canvas where the artist forgot to add the shadows.

That was when something clicked in him. He was clearly in some supernatural situation. He could feel his heart thumping rapidly at the thought, and his palms sweating as he tried to feel if there were any hidden doors among the walls. All he could feel was an unnaturally smooth surface, without the slightest trace of having an exit.

He pinched himself in the arm. As the pain signaled to his brain, his assumption that he was not dreaming was proven. He could feel the wheels in his brain turning rapidly, trying to find an answer to his circumstances, but there was nothing, not even the slightest similarity could be found in the knowledge he had inside him.

Afterall, the school doesn’t teach one how to deal with sticking inside white cubes with no doors.

If I got out of here, may as well add it into the curriculum, he mused to himself, “101 Ways to Escape From White Cubes”, sounds like an interesting lesson.

He shakes his head, turning his view once again to the scene before him. Now is not the time for his imagination. He knocked on one of the walls, trying to see if there was a hollow space behind it.

It sounded very solid at first, but as he continued to knock as he moved to his right, right in the middle of the wall, a hollow sound was emitted from the wall.

He finally found the breaking point to this situation. Overjoyed, he reached out his hand to knock the wall again, but all of a sudden, a screeching noise came from the wall.

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He immediately backed from the wall, hands on his hip, even if he knew he didn’t have any weapon on him.

Smoke emerged from the middle of the door, blocking his sight to his surroundings. As he curled around himself, covering his mouth and nose with one hand, touching the floor beneath him with the other for assurance, the screeching sound ended with a sudden stop.

He raised his head to the direction of the wall. The smoke in the cube was leaving, he noticed. Sure enough, the white smoke was dispersing, disappearing into the corners of the cube.

He slowly stood up cautiously, hand still over his nose and mouth, looking around for any traps. Once he was certain there was nothing else, his eyes went back to the wall, to the newly conjured opening at the middle of the wall he knocked previously.

The opening was a perfect square right in the middle of the wall, which is above his head. From what he could see, there seemed to be a road leading from this cube to somewhere else, but he couldn’t see the end of the road from his position.

Reaching out to the opening, he tried to hoist himself up, but both the wall and the opening were too smooth and slippery for his hands to grasp.

He looked around, trying to see if there were other ways to go up. Just as his eyes brushed through the white walls, he suddenly noticed a black marker lying silently at a corner of the room. Was this marker here before? He thought as he furrowed his brow, kneeling down to take a good look at the marker. 

The marker was black from top to bottom, and the cap was closed tightly. There were no words on the marker that can indicate where it was made or what brand it was from. Just a black marker, lying at the corner.

He picked the marker up. It was especially eye-catching, being the only black colour in this blindingly white room. He would have surely noticed it before if it was here. No, it was clear that this marker had only appeared just now.

Was it some kind of hint to escape here? Or a tool that would be needed later on? He removed the cap of the black marker. The tip of the marker looked like it was full of black ink.

Just as he planned to put the cap back on, the black marker suddenly moved. 

He stared at the marker, and the hand that was holding it.

The marker jerked again, this time a lot more vigorously. He immediately tried to loosen his grip, to keep a distance between himself and this new threat, but he found that the marker had stuck onto his palm.

Holding the marker as if he was stabbing something with it, he tried to keep it still with his other hand, but the strength of the marker doubled, pulling his whole body forward, to the front of a wall.

He could feel his body losing control to the marker in his grasp, no longer being able to struggle, even if he knew that he tried his best to fight back and drop the marker.

He could only watch as the marker, controlling his right hand, wrote something on the wall.

There, on the smooth and blindingly white wall, a few scrambled and large words appeared as the marker left its ink behind its trail:

HELLO

I AM YOUR FRIEND