The Forbidden Room

There’s this building. Everyone can go wherever they want in the building, except for one room.

There’s nothing stopping you from going in, the door is not locked. Yet, no one goes in it because it’s dangerous. The room hurts you. Everyone avoids the room, but you.

There’s this pinch in your mind and it keeps bugging you, it keeps pinching and poking, pulling and tapping until you finally give in and open the door.

You go into the room.

Everyone says it is so dangerous, but when you step inside it is the best room you have ever been in. It feels so good to be there you never want to leave. There is a softness to it. Inside you can’t hear any noise. Not from the outside world, not even from your own mind. Your steps are muffled as if when you walk, it’s on a cloud. If you fall you don’t feel it. If you smile it’s bigger and brighter. Bigger and brighter, yet you could hold it all day, it is completely effortless in that room.

The other rooms now feel dull. Soft, the forbidden room never feels dull. 

No, it is beautiful and warm.

It is complex, how it can make you feel so simply safe.

Outside that room, smiling is like lifting weights. Laughter is like pushing mountains. In the forbidden room you are light as air. You are like air because you are invisible. You are invisible and the monsters can’t find you

Isn’t it great?

You leave the room as you must return to your normal life. You step out and leave the door behind you. The building and its rooms feel scary now. It’s rigid and unforgiving. The solid walls do nothing to hide you from reality. Not like the fluid nature of the forbidden room.

People stare at you in the halls.

Exposed, you rush to hide yourself. You rush to find answers.

The mirror gives you just that. In your reflection, you see the cuts covering your body. Your feet, your hands, your face, and legs are marred as if you laid in glass shards.

People know you have gone into the forbidden room. Everyone, they all know.

There’s no covering your wounds and even if you never go in again, your scars will never fade.

Your life was bleak before but now, you walk through it in pain and pain that won’t go away.

It follows you like your own shadow. Everywhere you go the consequences of that forbidden room follow. You feel the sting with every step, every stretch, and you feel it with every judging eye, every reprimand from your peers. 

What hurts worse is the emptiness . You have the same pinch in your mind. It’s not a curiosity this time, it is a yearn. It’s a constant reminder. A nagging, begging you not to forget that room. To sprint towards that door, wounds and all. It pushes into your head the memories not of the room, but how you felt in it. So much so, you can’t even remember what it looks like. You want to go again to see what it looks like.

Yes, that’s it,

Simply that you want to see what it looks like, not anything else. You have forgotten and are visiting the room only to reclaim that memory. Then you will never entertain the pinch in your mind again. 

You walk to the door and think of the stares.

You think of the cuts that will taint you for life.

It flashes through you but the pinch is quicker. It steals the doubt from you just before you can grab hold of it. 

You turn the handle.

Yet again, you float through the room.

You are enthralled by the way this room wipes your mind clean. Any stain on your consciousness is cleaned. You are a blank canvas . This room gives you insurmountable hope. A hope you wish to always contain. You are confident to approach the rest of the building now.

You step out of the door and it is all gone.

You begin to visit this room more and more. Your body is cut more and more.

The floors must’ve been replaced with knives instead of glass shards, yet to you it is all a blanket of joy. Yet to you, the room is a place to lay. You bask in its warmth, you trust your whole heart and soul with this room. It’s so soft, so comfortable, you close your eyes in this room, and never realize that blades and glass are driven into your back.

Not until you leave.

It’s been a while.

You stayed away from the room for as long as you could. That’s what you tell yourself. That’s what you say. But you could hardly bear the pain when you were anywhere else but in that room. You could hardly bear the pain.

After more visits, you can hardly walk. Hardly talk. You can hardly recognize your face in the mirror. It’s been cut off. You bleed. So much.

You used to walk to every end of this building just for fun. You’d say hi to your neighbors,

run up and down the staircase with your friends. 

Now you can’t think. It is too cold. The blood is so wet. It sticks to your arms. The flesh gets caught on your clothes. Their eyes chill you to the bone as they accuse you. They accuse you of exactly what you’ve done. You have nothing to defend yourself with. They’re right. You’re… you’re alone. 

All except for he shadow of pain that follows. Now a trail of blood too

Chains of pressure rap around you tying you up like a prisoner. They never let you leave. They circle your whole body and squeeze. They circle your body with noise. You hear, who you thought was your friends call you ugly. You hear yourself hate you. You hear that pinch telling you to return. You hear as they laugh at the marks on your body you can’t change

You know it’s your fault so you can’t complain about the pain nor the loneliness.

It’s so lonely in a loud building when your life is so quiet, so empty. 

So, you go to the only place that makes you forget that you hate what you’ve done. The only place where you are liberated from regret and hatred. You are no longer a prisoner to your own life in that room. Somehow being alone isn’t lonely.

It’s when you are with people, that the loneliness pins you to the ground, outside the forbidden room.

Again, you swear you will never go to that place again. You’re okay with the scars, you have to be, but you promise you will never get any new ones. 

You don’t last as long this time. You hardly wait before you are standing in front of that door again. You couldn’t take that building any longer.

They treat you like you’re not human. You barely look human. You barely feel human

But that room makes it all better.

You feel happy.

You feel occupied.

Occupied as if you have a purpose other than being the laughing stock of the building. It feels good having something you love. You’ll take it over possessing nothing but suffering

You leave again and this time when you step out of the door you can’t walk. You collapse in front of that door. You sit for a while with your back against it. So close to your ruin, but you can’t move. You stare at the unexciting hallway. It’s so dark. You hate it. The floors are dirty and uneven. It’s a perfectly horrible background for your bright red blood. The blood you sit in that steadily streams from your body

You have nothing to give. Why is the building taking this from you too?

You hate the way people walk by and don’t help.

They just stare.

“I know it’s my fault!” you wish to scream.

“Help me!” you try again.

You don’t have the strength, so you say it all in your mind.

You know you can’t be mad at the pain.

You know you can’t be mad at the scars.

At the mess you have made.

You hate it. This view disgusts you. You feel nausea grow from the pit of your stomach. You know soon you will puke if you are forced to stay in this building, forced to stay away from the forbidden room. The view burns your eyes worse than the wounds burn. You wish to forget it all.

You just want freedom.

You are tired.

You are sick.

You hate this life that you ruined.

You wish to stop feeling.

You wish and pray for it to stop.

And suddenly it gets harder to breathe. Your open cuts burn as the blood paints them a deeper red. You’re drowning in your own blood, you think. You think, as breathing feels impossible. You are drained and shriveled, but feel so heavy. The weight on your lungs allows no air through. You struggle to see. All the ugly, you struggle to see. The darkness in the hallway somehow grows darker. You feel almost hopeful. Your wish comes true. 

This horrible world, these horrible people, you can’t see them anymore. What a relief. You would sigh if breathing came easier.

You feel glad.

You can no longer feel anything.

You look up to see your arm has reached for the handle of the door behind you. You look forward and realize you are not where you thought. You had opened the door. Drowning in your despair you had returned to your doom. Your vision blacks out and you forget everything.

In a puddle of blood, in the forbidden room