Polystyrene Box

The 27th of May was a usual Saturday in Aristes, PA. It’s a quiet town so nothing really happens around there, however it is not far from Centralia, the town on which Silent Hill is based, the one that has a coal mine fire burning under it for a few decades now. Hell, you can’t really call Aristes a town, it’s just a Census designated place, the population of this tiny urban area is just over 300 people.

I spent that day the usual way I spent my Saturdays, relaxing and trying to forget the dry work routine I have during the rest of the week. I’ve a job at a nearby textile factory. I am currently living alone, that is, if you don’t count my Lab, Jessica. I tad bit of a loner, I don’t really have many friends and I don’t keep that much in touch with my family. I’ve moved to Aristes to stay away from crowded places, I like my peace like that. There is, however, one person whose company I enjoy around here, his name’s Donnie Ketch. I’ve met him first when I moved here. I like him because he’s this nerdy guy who likes to talk about sci-fi, life mysteries and other unusual crap people usually wince at.

So on the 27th of May, I was spending my evening at a local bar, with my pal, Donnie, and our conversation somehow drifted towards the subject of torture, specifically mental torture, like the ones they use in the middle east. Apparently, The Norwegian mass murderer from 2011, Anders Breivik is currently placed under conditions you might call mental torture, he has every kind of comfort in the world from a warm bed to video games and news papers being available to him however, he is completely isolated from other human beings. Donnie even told me that Breivik called his current condition “worse than a death sentence” at which I joked I’d like to take the man’s place at times. We shared a laugh and carried on with our conversation. Concluding it with the question whether mentally torturing someone has an effect on the torturer or not. I think I wanted to check the matter out but it flew out of my mind once I was thrust back into my weekly routine once again.

Wake up really early, walk Jessica, go to work, come back home, shower, walk Jessica, watch some TV or something and go to sleep, all this on repeat. My routine was broken on Wednesday, 31th of May, when after work I was riding my bike home and I heard tires squealing all of the sudden, I turned to look to my right and I’ve come to see a large truck heading in my direction, I wanted to move out of its way but it was too late. One moment later, I found myself flying through the air and falling on the ground hard. My head and back hurt like never before, everything went hazy and began to lose color. I could hear people screaming and cars passing nearby for a few moments but then everything went black.

I woke up, I don’t know how long after, in a pitch black room. I tried looking around to try to spot something or someone, but I couldn’t even see my own to hands. For a moment, I thought I was dead and on my way into the afterlife, I screamed “Hello, anybody there?” No response came. Just silence, cold, empty silence. Dread started setting in; I began looking around frantically to try to see something, anything in this black hole. I just couldn’t see anything. There was only darkness; my sense of dreadfulness grew stronger. I tried calling again; a few times now, still no answer, still only silence and darkness.

I started walking backwards in hope of finding something, maybe just a wall, only so I could just feel something. A couple of seconds later I hit my leg on something hard, I jumped out of my skin with fear. It took me a few moments to collect myself and then I slowly turned around and started moving my hands in the air in hopes of finding what my leg had hit before, turns out it was a bed. Once I’ve realized I was inside a physical building with a bed stationed in it, I figured there must be walls in there too, and an entrance of some sorts. So I’ve begun searching for the wall. I found it quickly and began feeling it for some door, or knob, or anything in fact.

I’ve circled the whole room I was in, but unfortunately I could not find anything on the wall, it was like someone had placed me in this box and shut it close completely with no ways in or out. Thoughts began to fill the mazes of my mind, ranging from me being dead to someone playing some sick joke on me, but who in the world would do such a thing.

My sense of dread turned into anger by this point and I began banging my fists on the wall shouting to be released. Soon enough my head and back had began hurting again, this helped me realize that I was in fact alive, however, it had also made me realize I was stuck God knows where, then, something even worse happened, I’ve remembered I live alone with a dog. Anger was quickly replaced with a bad case of dread again, thus I’ve begun banging on the wall, and screaming again, ignoring my aching body. No release came and after a few minutes of beating myself against a wall, I fell to my knees and started weeping. Mostly because of the realization that I wasn’t in control of what was going to happen to me.

I ended up dragging myself to the bed I had come across earlier and sitting next to it, all the while I bitch like a little girl, begging to be let out. I suppose mental exhaustion made me pass out some time later, because I found myself actually waking up, in the same position I was before I passed out, seated, leaning against the bedside. When I woke up the sheets felt wet against my back. I got up to my feet and began looking up, trying to find the source of the humidity, perhaps that would lead me to an escape route or to my captor. I couldn’t find anything. Just a bloody black hole of a room with a bed positioned slightly off its center. An idea had crossed my mind, to look under the bed, maybe there was something there, and much to my delight, I’ve found a small Polystyrene box underneath it. I’ve opened the box and touched its contents, there was water and what felt like some mash. I’ve licked my finger, the one that touched the mash and it had a familiar taste – rice.

Not thinking twice, I consumed the contents of the box, reaffirming my belief that someone had held me inside this cursed room after I was done stuffing down the rice and drinking the water, most of which dripped all over my clothes I threw away the box and began cursing at my presumed captor.

The room was so bloody quiet, I was sure I’m going to lose my mind there, I was already feeling dreaded out by that point. I tried talking to myself, I tried walking around the room, but nothing made the dread walk away. I felt as if I was wearing it, as if it was part of my skin. At some point I’ve started thinking Jessica again, I was worried about the poor thing, she was probably worried sick as to where her beloved owner had disappeared to, soon enough I’ve noticed something.

Something that I cannot wrap my mind around even today, the small Polystyrene box, it was gone. It was nowhere in sight. By then I was certain someone was fucking with me, I cursed my heart into the space filling the air, blessing my presumed captor with all sorts of blessings, but nothing came of it. I began questioning my sanity and then decided to just lie down on the bed and do nothing. Hoping this would end my tenure in this place for some odd reason. I guess I was really losing it there.

I lied down on the bed, the sheets felt wet, still, I tried thinking of something to distract myself from the situation, but nothing specific crossed my mind, it was this storm of fragmented thoughts, like a bad ADHD. After twisting and turning in the bed for some time, I decided to take a nap, thinking it might help me calm down.

Couldn’t fall asleep.

Thoughts, random thoughts, all fragmented, something about fire and smoke, coming and going.

After some time, things became real fun; I started seeing flashes of light floating around in the air, in my peripheral vision, I thought it was just my exhaustion and rubbed my eyes to make them go away, but they wouldn’t.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:16px;">Fire and smoke began filling my mind again, I don’t know why, I’ve no idea why, it just came and it stuck. I jolted out of the bed and the flashes stopped appearing in my vision.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:16px;">I set on the bed, for I don’t even know how long, must’ve been hours, and stared at the darkness. My mind was blank, I was beginning to relax, however after what seemed like a long time, I was sure I saw a person wearing all black and a gas mask standing at the edge of the room, staring at me with its head tilted slightly to the side. I called out to the person, but it would not respond, I called out again, this time rising onto my legs, no response still. I called a third time as I began walking towards that thing which was staring at me, but by the time I made two steps forward, he was gone.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:16px;">I froze in my place, dread set it once more, the sensation was stronger than before, and chills ran all over my body. Without even noticing I dropped an F-bomb in a loud scream, and ran towards the wall I was facing banging my fists against it as hard as I could screaming bloody murder. I kept screaming obscenities and hitting the wall until I collapsed on the floor.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:16px;">I woke up sometime later, at the same spot I collapsed, I got back up to my feet and to my surprise, there was a Polystyrene box placed next to me. I picked it up and began to feel the anger build up inside by body, burning its way through each and every inch of my being, I crumpled the box in my hand and threw it on the floor, spilling its contents all over the floor, once again shouting obscenities into the air. I began pacing around the room restlessly, filled with anger trying to find a way out of the nightmare I was stuck in, I kept on pacing and pacing restlessly, I only set down when my feet began aching. That is when I heard something, some noise, it sounded a bit like static, I got back up and began looking around for the source of the noise, but there was none. However, the noise became louder and louder with each passing second, as I frantically looked for a sort of an audio transmitter or some other noise producing apparatus. Soon enough I began hearing instruments; there were tribal war drums, violins, stringed instruments, even a bagpipe. I clutched at my ears begging into the air for someone to make the noises stop, but they kept going louder and louder. Suddenly something flashed past my side; I turned and saw a man lying on the bed, wearing a gas mask. I do not why I had done this but, I ran towards the bed with my arms stretched out in hopes to grab the masked man by the neck, the moment I reached the bed however, the man was gone and the noise had stopped. I fell to the floor.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:16px;">At that moment I realized I had lost my mind, completely, dread once again ran its course around my aching body. I just sat there, motionless, dreading for my life, dreading what I might do to myself the next time I see something that isn’t there. I kept on sitting there until I’ve gotten hungry and I was wondering how long could I last without food in the hellhole I was stuck in, that is until I remembered I had some rice spilled on the floor earlier. Being in my position, I simply crawled over to the rice on the floor and ate it, almost like a stray dog that hasn’t seen food in years. I used to own a dog, years ago, named Jessica, she was a lovely Lab, and she had died years ago, aged 17, impressive I might add, anyway, I’m digressing here.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:16px;">This stuff kept going on and on, for I don’t know how long, I kept having trouble sleeping, but whenever I did get some sleep, I would end up waking up only to see a creepy gasmask wearing man, or some other messed up thing, like the room is closing in on me. If I was unlucky, I’d get to hear stuff, sometimes it was music, other times creepy shit like anguished moaning. The boxes kept appearing and disappearing whenever I did not look and every single box contained the same barely cooked stale, tasteless rice, I’ll never eat rice again.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:16px;">At one point, I began seeing the gas masked man with increasing frequency, and for each time I have had the pleasure to see him, I’d bite my own arm until it bled, after the first few times I figured out it made him disappear. Now it’s all black, blue and yellow, I guess it had gotten infected, surprisingly it doesn’t even feel that painful, or numb, or anything really, it feels natural.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:16px;">After who knows how long, I went to sleep inside that room and woke up on the side of the road, next to a sign that says “Warning Danger – Underground Mine Fire”, I was just outside of Centralia. I’ve no idea how I had gotten there, but that was three days ago, on the 14th of July. Someone locked me away for two weeks, somewhere. I have no clue. I swear. The moment I’ve reached civilization, I had contacted local authorities regarding what had happened to me but something odd had happened during the questioning, I mentioned that before this whole thing, I was hanging out with someone talking about this sort of things, psychological torture and isolation and all, but I couldn’t name the person or describe them. In addition, I told the officers that I think I’m still being stalked or something, I keep seeing all sorts of people wearing long white coats, staring me with concerned looks on their faces, and they all seem out of place.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:16px;">The weirdest thing I’ve come to realize now is that there are injection marks all over my arm, but I don’t ever remember being injected with anything recently. They’ve only appeared this morning, right after the arm with the bite marks stopped burning with pain, just a few moments after I had caught one of those weird people with the long white coats staring at me again.