The White Room
The first thing she noticed was the light.
It was everywhere — above, below, around — a flat, white glow that had no source and no shadow. There was no window, no lamp, no sun. Just light. Endless, sterile, suffocating light.
The second thing she noticed was the silence.
Not the quiet of a library or the hush of snowfall. This was a deeper silence, a pressure against her eardrums, a weight on her chest. She tried to speak. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. She tried to clap her hands. Nothing. She tried to scream.
Nothing.
She was alone in a room with no doors.
Her name was Iris. She remembered that much. Iris. Twenty-nine years old. She lived in an apartment in Chicago. She had a cat named Oliver. She had a job at a marketing firm. She had a mother who called every Sunday.
She remembered these things, but they felt distant, like facts about someone else’s life.
She looked down at her hands. They were her hands — the small scar on her left thumb from a kitchen knife, the chipped nail polish on her right index finger. But they didn’t feel like her hands. They felt like props, like gloves someone had put on her.
She stood up. The floor was smooth, white, cold. She walked to where a wall should have been. There was no wall. There was only more white, more light, more silence.
She walked for what felt like hours. The room never changed. No corners, no doors, no windows. Just the endless white expanse, the endless light, the endless silence.
She stopped walking.
She sat down.
She put her head in her hands.
A voice spoke.
Not aloud — there was no sound. But inside her head, clear as a bell, a voice said:
You’ve been here before.
Iris jerked her head up. The room was still empty. The light was still bright. The silence was still heavy.
Who’s there? she thought.
Me, the voice said. I’m you.
You’re not me.
I am. I’m the part of you you’ve been trying to forget.
Iris stood up again. Her heart was pounding. She could feel it in her throat, her temples, her fingertips.
What do you want?
The voice laughed. It was her laugh, but wrong — darker, colder, sharper.
I want you to remember.
She remembered the basement.
She was seven years old. Her father had locked her in the basement. She didn’t know why. She had been bad, he said. She had done something wrong. He didn’t say what.
The basement was dark, cold, filled with spiders and shadows. She cried for hours. No one came.
When her father finally opened the door, he acted like nothing had happened. He gave her dinner. He kissed her forehead. He said he loved her.
She never told anyone.
The memory faded, and Iris was back in the white room.
You remembered, the voice said.
I remembered.
There’s more.
I don’t want to remember.
You don’t have a choice.
The light flickered.
For a moment — just a moment — the room went dark. Iris saw something in the darkness. A figure. A woman. Her own face, but older, wearier, sadder.
Then the light returned, and the figure was gone.
Who was that? she thought.
You. In ten years. If you don’t get out.
Get out of where?
The room. The room you’ve been in your whole life.
Iris didn’t understand. She didn’t want to understand.
She closed her eyes.
The voice whispered:
Wake up, Iris.
She opened her eyes.
She was in her apartment. Oliver was curled on her chest. The sun was streaming through the window. Her phone was buzzing on the nightstand.
A dream. It had all been a dream.
She laughed with relief.
Then she looked at her hands.
They were covered in dirt..