Player: Katrina

  Location: Unknown

  It was dark. That’s all I could remember. Not just the kind of dark you get when you close your eyes—but a thick, absolute kind of darkness, like being swallowed by ink. I tried reaching back—grasping at memories from before the darkness—but nothing came. No names. No faces. Not even a single word that felt familiar. Just silence. A void where my past should’ve been.

  I started running, arms out like a blind person reaching for something—anything. Almost immediately, I hit a wall. Cold, solid, unforgiving. I turned around and stumbled forward, hoping for open space, but slammed into another wall. My head throbbed. That tends to happen when people run into walls, I reminded myself, trying to find humor in it. It didn’t help.

  I shuffled to the right—dead end. To the left—more of the same. The walls boxed me in like a forgotten package no one wanted to open.

  There was nothing in here but me, the dress I was wearing, some underwear, a bra, and a weird smell that hung in the air like a bad memory. I thought it smelled like chocolate. Or maybe sugar. But then again, I couldn’t remember what chocolate actually smelled like. Maybe it was poo. That thought made me sniffle—just a little—but even that sound felt foreign. Like it came from someone else’s throat.

  The silence settled again. Heavy. Watching. Waiting.

  I screamed for someone in a cape. I made sure to specify “no villains,” because I was already too busy being stuck in a box to deal with clowns, talking crocodiles, or any other nonsense. I didn’t need to be dealing with that on top of everything else. I wanted someone with a proper cape—nothing too frilly, just the kind that flaps dramatically in the wind. I screamed until my voice went hoarse. My throat burned with every breath, but I kept going, convinced that someone—somewhere—could hear me. The last thing I managed to shout, when my lungs felt like they were about to collapse, was, “No crocodiles, please!” Just in case, I added, “No crocodiles that are supervillains!” because what if they showed up wearing capes, and I had to make that distinction? You could never be too careful about these things. It’s hard to make clear distinctions when you’re panicking in a box that smells like flowers—or maybe pleasant-smelling poo. Either way, it wasn’t the fresh air I needed.

  When no one came, I switched tactics. I started banging on the door in Morse code. At least, I thought it was Morse code. The rhythm seemed right in my head, though sometimes I mix up “S” and “B,” so my desperate “S.O.S.” may have come out as “B.O.B.” I stared at the door, as if I expected some kind of answer—anything that would tell me that I wasn’t just screaming and tapping for nothing. That’s not my name, though. Actually, I don’t even remember what my name is. I tried to picture it, the name that belonged to me. But nothing came. I was left with this eerie feeling of being nameless. But I was pretty sure I didn’t like the name Bob.

  The sound of my fists banging against the door stopped eventually, and all that was left was the ringing in my ears. Silence, broken only by the dull thud of my heartbeat in my chest. I slumped against the wall, exhausted. My body, heavy with fatigue, slid to the floor. It felt like every bone and muscle in me had given up. The exhaustion spread over me like a blanket—soft and warm—but not nearly as comforting as it should have been. It wasn’t just the tiredness, though. It was the fear. That was the real weight pressing down on me. My stomach clenched painfully, and for a split second, I thought maybe I was dying. Maybe something had gotten to me while I was asleep, and I was on the verge of some kind of horrible transformation. I wondered if an alien was curled up inside me, waiting to burst out in some kind of chest-burster moment. My stomach twisted even more at the thought.

  Then I reminded myself that my stomach was empty, that there was no alien—just hunger. Just that gnawing emptiness that had been there ever since I woke up in this bizarre, suffocating place. But even that reminder didn’t make the ache go away. It only made it worse, because now I was sure of one thing: I was alone. No one was coming. No one was there.

  And the darkness, the suffocating silence—it pressed in even tighter.

  Then I panicked because my stomach was empty. It felt like a deep, gnawing void, and the pain started to radiate from my core, sharp and insistent. I pressed my hands to my stomach, trying to soothe the ache, but it only intensified. It was as if my insides were screaming for something I couldn’t provide. The more I thought about it, the worse the feeling became. My breath hitched in my chest, and the walls of the box seemed to close in on me. The isolation, the emptiness—everything was pressing in, suffocating me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten, and now the hunger was all-consuming.

  I stood up, hoping that somehow moving would help. Maybe if I jumped high enough, I could reach the ceiling and find a way out. I leaped, pushing off the floor with all the energy I could muster, but there was nothing—no ceiling, no escape, just the dark, oppressive space that stretched endlessly around me. My feet hit the floor with a dull thud, and my legs wobbled beneath me. My body betrayed me, failing to provide the relief I so desperately needed. I felt weak, dizzy. The hunger was getting to me, and the air felt heavy and thick in my lungs. The pain escalated, becoming unbearable, like something inside me was clawing at my insides.

  And then, like a switch flicking, I fell over.

  I passed out—probably from hunger, I told myself later. Or maybe it was just the fear, the panic, the sheer exhaustion that had taken over. My body had given up before my mind could.

  When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was the sensation of something cold and foreign against my skin. I tried to move, but my limbs felt sluggish, like they were made of lead. I blinked, trying to focus, and realized I was lying down.

  I looked down at my arm and froze. There were IVs stuck into my skin, the sharp needles pressed into the soft flesh of my arm. I winced at the sight, my mind rushing in a hundred different directions. The tubes were attached to the wall. Going through it. The tubes gave off A faint glow. I reached out weakly, my fingers trembling, and ran them over the raised lettering on one of the tubes. It was engraved, tiny and almost imperceptible. As I traced the letters, I realized they spelled out: A Shoe’s Vision.

  What was that supposed to mean?

  A shoe’s vision? The words made no sense, like a cryptic riddle, but somehow they chilled me to the bone. Was it a code? A name? Or something worse? It didn’t sound like a cure —it sounded like something out of a nightmare. Maybe they were pumping poison into me, some kind of slow-acting toxin. Maybe this was all part of the alien-growing experiment, the one that was supposed to make me into… whatever they wanted me to be. The fear crept back in, spreading through my chest, tightening my throat.

  But as I sat there, lost in my spiraling thoughts, I noticed something strange. My stomach, the one that had been hollow and aching not long ago, now felt... better. Not perfect, but it wasn’t screaming at me anymore. It was as if the pain had dulled to a low, bearable hum. I pressed my palm against it, confused. Maybe the alien growing inside me had something to do with it. Perhaps it was feeding on whatever had been pumped into me, absorbing it like some parasitic thing. Maybe it was making me feel less empty. Or maybe, just maybe, they were actually feeding me through the tubes. The thought made me shiver—if that was true, then I had no idea what they were putting inside me.

  I glanced at the IV bags again, trying to make sense of everything. But nothing made sense. I was alone. In a place I didn’t recognize. With no idea how I got here. And no clue who was behind this.

  I had to get out of here. I needed to move, to do something other than lie there feeling like a lab rat in a cage. So I stood up, wobbly at first, and staggered toward the edge of the room.

  I started walking—or, more accurately, running—around the room, panic flooding my veins. My heart hammered in my chest, and I couldn't seem to control the frantic pace of my steps. The room was too small, too confining. I needed to escape. It was like a fire had been lit inside me, and my legs just wouldn’t stop moving. But then again, when you're stuck in a situation like this, sometimes the only way to stop the panic is to just keep screaming. Just keep screaming, screaming, screaming.

  I screamed, loud and sharp, hoping that someone—anyone—would hear me. But no one came. No sound but my own echoed back at me, filling the space with the strange, unsettling feeling that I was truly alone.

  Then, in the middle of my chaotic dash, I tripped. One second, I was running—footfalls frantic, breath ragged—and the next, my feet caught on something, sending me tumbling forward. I hit the floor with a loud, jarring thud, my hands instinctively reaching out to break the fall.

  I lay there for a moment, dazed. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, and I could feel the sting of the floor beneath me. My hands searched for what I tripped on.

  A bracelet.

  Except, this wasn’t any ordinary bracelet. The beads were tiny hairbrushes, each one delicately shaped, their bristles thin and fine. The string threaded through the handles, winding around them like a strange, twisted necklace of miniature grooming tools. I stared at it for a moment, still on the floor, trying to make sense of it. Why would there be a bracelet like this? And why was it lying right here, like it had just appeared out of nowhere?

  I didn’t have time to think about it. I quickly grabbed the bizarre object, slipping it into the safety of my bra. It was odd, but in this place, who knew what was important or what might come in handy later? The whole situation was unraveling into a series of bizarre, nonsensical events, and I had to assume nothing was purely coincidence.

  I didn’t stop moving after that. I continued to walk—well, run again—screaming, my heart racing, the odd bracelet pressing against my chest. The room felt smaller and smaller with each passing second, the walls pressing in on me, my mind whirling with unanswered questions. What was going on? Who had done this to me? Why? And where was I?

  I had no answers. But I had the bracelet. And for some strange reason, that gave me a small, shaky sense of control.

  I did not stop screaming. I don’t know how long I kept going. Maybe an alien burst out of my chest without me even noticing. Eventually, I fell asleep. I dreamed of sheep—except they were aliens, and they burst out of people’s chests. I’m pretty sure aliens aren’t supposed to look like sheep, but what do I know?

  I continued screaming. Not just once, not twice—continuously. My voice tore through the stale air like a wild animal trapped in a cage. It wasn’t a cry for help anymore. It was a release. An exorcism. The kind of scream that feels like it comes from somewhere deeper than your lungs—like your bones are trying to make noise too. I screamed until my throat was raw and every inhale burned like I’d swallowed sandpaper.

  I don’t know how long I kept going. Time had stopped meaning anything. Seconds stretched into minutes, minutes twisted into something unmeasurable. I could’ve been screaming for five minutes or five hours or five eternities. No one came. No sounds answered me back—not even an echo. Just the dull buzz of the room, the pressure in my skull, and the screeching echo of my own panic.

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  Maybe, somewhere in all that chaos, an alien *did* burst out of my chest and I just didn’t notice. Maybe it was quiet. Respectful. Maybe it slipped out while I was distracted with my vocal cord demolition project, whispered a polite goodbye, and crawled away into the vents or something. Honestly, I wouldn’t have blamed it. I wasn’t exactly great company at that moment.

  At some point, everything blurred. My muscles trembled from the effort. My knees buckled. The room spun like a carousel that no one remembered to stop. I collapsed onto the floor, my body folding like a puppet with its strings cut. My voice was gone—completely burned out—and the silence afterward was deafening. Not peaceful. Not comforting. Just… empty.

  Eventually, I fell asleep.

  Not the kind of sleep that sneaks up on you like a gentle tide. No. This was the kind that hits like a hammer to the back of the head. One minute I was gasping for breath, face pressed against the cold floor, and the next, darkness swallowed me whole. Heavy, inescapable, final. My mind shut off mid-thought, like someone had pulled the plug.

  I woke up in a pink bed. Pink sheets, pink pillows—but thankfully, no pink aliens. I could see again. I seemed to be in a doctor’s room, judging by the equipment scattered on a nearby table. A framed picture sat on the counter: a teenage girl crying on a couch. On the wall was a painting of a smiling doctor with the caption, “I’m a doctor, but sadly my last name isn’t ‘Who’.”

  There was a counter, a sink, and a ton of lights hanging from the ceiling.

  A wave of fear washed over me. What if I was a test subject? What if an alien had burst from my chest and now the government was testing how I react to green rocks? I had to get out. There could be people watching. I spotted a single door. If I could get through that, I could find a regular doctor—someone who could confirm I hadn’t had an alien pass through my system.

  The door was brown with a see-through glass pane near the top. Blood was splattered across I screamed:

  “Clowns that are heroes, I could really use your help right now! If you exist! If you’re actually villains, feel free to carry on with your villainy—I won’t stop you!”

  That’s when a man walked in. He looked like the doctor from the painting. Same pink clothes, same smile.

  “Hello, Mrs. Screams-a-Lot. I need to ask you a few questions.”

  Questions? Oh, I had a few of my own. Like: What’s the dark room for? What’s my name? What’s his name? And what was with the crying girl portrait?

  “Questions! Where am I? Who am I? Who are you? Answer those, and then I’ll answer yours.” I was pretty proud of that line. Cooked it up in the middle of a full-on panic attack. Not bad for someone who woke up in a pink bed with zero memory.

  “This is a doctor’s office,” he replied, his voice oddly calm. “You’re a patient. And I’m a doctor.”

  Fiddlesticks. Figured as much. At least he didn’t give me some weird, cryptic answer like "Who." Still, no name. Just “doctor.”

  He started walking toward me and bumped into one of the ceiling lights. He winced, shook his head, and then smacked into it again.

  “You know these boots are sooo oversized, right?” he asked, clearly more concerned about his boots than, you know, the fact that I was tied to a bed in his office.

  Not exactly what I expected. The light flickered overhead three times, making me wonder how old this place really was. But that was a minor detail, given that I was the one strapped to the bed. Figures I’d be the one answering questions.

  “No,” I said, trying to sit up, but the restraints kept me pinned to the bed. “I can’t see your boots.”

  I was lying too high up. All I could see were his thighs and his head. Tall guy, I guess—taller than the average tall guy.

  “You can’t see them,” he said with a slight smirk. “But you still know.”

  I didn’t care about his boots. Unless they had spikes and he planned to stomp on me with them. Actually, now that I thought about it, that did make me care a little. But mostly, I cared about being restrained.

  “Um, why am I tied to this bed?” I asked, voice trembling despite my attempt to sound casual.

  The restraints were tape. Pink, of course. Around my wrists. I hated restraints—pink or otherwise. Maybe I’d like them if they were on someone else. Someone who looked scary.

  I stared at my wrists, trying to ignore the creeping sense of panic. I really hoped I wasn’t the scary one. But with no memory… who could say?

  “Visibility doesn’t matter,” he said, dramatically gesturing toward his boots. “Of course you know!”

  He took a step closer—and smacked into the light again. This time, he punched it, sending it swinging... right back into his forehead.

  “Ouch,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead like that was supposed to make it better.

  “I don’t know,” I clarified, trying to keep my tone even.

  “Then why didn’t you say so?” he replied, his large eyes wide with exaggerated innocence. He looked about mid-thirties, but those eyes? Those made him look like a lost toddler. It was... terrifying. Maybe he’d drunk some kind of de-aging potion only for his eyes.

  “I didn’t,” I said slowly. “But I guess now I do... since you told me your boots were oversized.”

  I really had to get off the boot topic. There were bigger concerns—like how to escape this pink-walled nightmare. And the lights. I probably shouldn’t mention the lights. They seemed to be a sore subject.

  The guy grinned, unfazed. “These boots are made for walking, but you know what else they’re made for?”

  Suddenly, a flash of memory hit me, sharp and quick. No context—just a flash. People are generally afraid of doctors. I don't think I had A fear of doctors.

  “Let’s just cut to the chase this time and say no,” I said, trying to steer this conversation away from wherever it was headed.

  “You’re just kidding—of course you do,” the doctor replied with an overly confident smile.

  Nope. I wasn’t afraid of doctors, with A plural. Just one doctor. One very weird, pink-clad, boot-wearing doctor. Hopefully, I wouldn’t need to make that a plural.

  “Then why would I say no?” I asked, genuinely curious, but also wary of what was coming next.

  He threw his hands into the air, hitting a ceiling light in the process. With a grunt, he yanked the light out of the ceiling and hurled it across the room. It collided with another light, sending it swinging wildly before it smacked him square in the head.

  “Because you’re joking!” he shouted, clearly frustrated.

  “I’m not,” I said, shaking my head. “And... I don’t even know if I’ve ever joked in my life.”

  The doctor stomped over to the offending light, yanked it from its socket, and threw it aside. Then, he pointed directly at me, as if I were the cause of all his lighting issues.

  “I think you have—because you’re doing it right now.”

  I let out an exasperated breath. Talking to him felt like arguing with a mirror that screamed back at me. This was technically an improvement from being trapped in a box, but only by the thinnest margin. I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely this... ridiculous, or if he was just messing with me for fun.

  He pulled out a notebook, flipping it open. “First joke, I’m guessing. Not a very good one,” he muttered to himself, scribbling something down. His face twisted into a mildly annoyed expression as he sat down in a chair. I tried to guess his age for a moment, but then stopped myself. How could I even guess someone else’s age when I didn’t know my own?

  “What else are your boots made for?” I asked, desperate to impose some kind of structure on this madness. “Please... just tell me.”

  He sighed dramatically. “Fine, I’ll play along just this one time. These boots are also made for walking in puddles.” He resumed writing in his notebook, which was pink with a large black bunny silhouette on the cover.

  I imagined kids running into the rain, splashing joyfully in puddles. I saw myself among them—smaller, maybe six or seven—but I stopped just short of the road. I watched the others keep going, wondering if they remembered what it felt like to be that carefree. Either way, they really should get off the road.

  A noise snapped me back to the present—footsteps outside the room. Maybe there was a hallway behind that door?

  The doctor, meanwhile, was still giddy about puddle-jumping. He was skipping around the room.

  “Okay, I guess that can be fun,” I said, hesitant. I really hoped he wasn’t planning to jump in puddles next to me and drench me in mystery water. I had enough to deal with—like being tied to a bed with a possible lunatic for company.

  “And spreading germs around!” he said cheerfully.

  “That’s disgusting!” I shot back. “Aren’t you a doctor?”

  “Oh, not on my patients—just on the floor.”

  “So your employees have to clean it up?”

  “Trust me. They deserve it.”

  I wasn’t convinced. Maybe they’d been tied up like me once and said something he didn’t like. I wanted to ask—gently—if I could leave, but something told me bringing that up might ruin his mood, especially while he was still on his boot tangent.

  “And you know the extra joy these boots bring?” he asked, his voice full of enthusiasm.

  “I don’t think you’ll believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  “I already did.”

  He stopped scribbling and raised an eyebrow. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “No.”

  “No, what?”

  “No, I don’t know the extra joy from the boots.”

  “Really? I’ll give you a hint,” he said, placing his notebook on a counter under a painting of a crying girl. Suddenly, I understood her pain. She must have heard about the boots too. It all made sense now.

  “Yes, really,” I said.

  “But I didn’t even give my hint!” he protested.

  “But I can guess.”

  “Fine, fine! Guess what the extra joy is.”

  I closed my eyes in frustration. “No—I meant I can guess that I don’t know what it is.”

  He slammed his hands onto the counter, and his smile reappeared, tight and controlled. But the anger behind his eyes was unmistakable. That look was exactly what I wanted to avoid.

  “But you could also guess the extra joy,” he said.

  “Is it... that they’re comfy?” I asked cautiously.

  “No, better,” he said, the anger slowly draining from his face. “So, tell me.”

  “Um... that they’re too small?”

  “Oh, come on. Just tell me what else is so great about the boots!”

  “Or you could tell me,” I offered, raising an eyebrow.

  “I think I’ve asked enough to earn an answer.”

  His eyes shifted, and something about them made my skin prickle. There was a faint red hue to them—not blood-red, not quite "demon" red, but definitely... off. Maybe he was a demon. That would be awful. I really hoped I wasn’t stuck in a room with one.

  “But I really don’t know,” I said, my voice steady despite the growing unease.

  “But you know your next guess.”

  We’re still guessing? I thought he was convinced I already knew. And every wrong answer seemed to upset him more. I had no idea how to calm him down.

  “I don’t know my next guess—I haven’t made it yet,” I said honestly.

  “Well, now would be a good time to start,” he replied.

  “Is it… that they help you run away from scary monsters?”

  “As if!” he scoffed.

  “Well, maybe you should actually give me the hint this time,” I said, remembering he had mentioned one.

  “It has to do with size.”

  I hoped this would be over soon. The whole boot conversation was exhausting and honestly terrifying. Please, let him just accept something and move on.

  “Are they… the perfect fit?” I asked.

  “No, but you are getting closer.”

  Still wrong. But maybe I was circling the right idea. Something about the amount of something… perfect size, but not comfort?

  “They have the perfect amount of fluff inside?” I guessed.

  “No!” he shouted. “I said it wasn’t because they were cozy. It’s that they’re bigger than my feet. So they make bigger footprints. And if I step in puddles of slime and goo, you know what that creates? A bigger version of a…”

  “Mess?”

  “Well, I was going to say ‘annoyance,’ but yours works better. It can mean both literally and figuratively. Sigh. I wish my word was better.”

  He looked annoyed, but then his expression quickly flipped to cheerful. He pulled a phone from his pocket and tapped it a few times. Music began to play. I didn’t recognize the song—but then again, I didn’t know if I’d recognize any song.

  “That’s really mean to your employees,” I said, still trying to process the fact that I had zero memories. Not even a favorite song. What if he asked me that next? I wouldn’t even be able to name one.

  “They were mean to me first,” he said. “They’re the reason I ended up stripped down to my underwear, standing in a field as a scarecrow with a giant ‘S’ painted on my chest. And the worst part? No one ever told me what the ‘S’ stood for.”

  “Oh... sorry,” I said, genuinely. “Maybe you should try going to the police?”

  “I did! And do you know what they said to me?”

  “Um… ‘I’m sorry you went through that’?”

  “No!” he shouted. “They said I was scary! Me! Scary!”

  His eyes started bleeding.

  Not metaphorically. Actually bleeding.

  The whites of his eyes were now a deep, sickly red. He pulled a napkin from his pocket—where was he storing all this stuff?—and dabbed away the blood like it was nothing.

  “Please,” he said, suddenly serious. “You must tell me—and tell me true. Are you scared of me?”

  I looked at him. He was bleeding from his eyes. There were faint bloodstains on his pink coat. He had smiled multiple times, but I’d never seen his teeth. That was suspicious. And I was still strapped to a bed, even though, as far as I knew, there was nothing wrong with me—aside from the whole amnesia thing.

  I took a deep breath.

  “You know the answer.”

  He tilted his head, thinking. Then he pulled a bottle from his pocket, poured its contents on the floor, and stomped in it. Goo splattered. He began walking in slow circles around the room, leaving behind grotesquely large footprints.

  Then he turned back to face me.

  “I know the answer,” I said gently, “but I want you to say it. Please.”

  He looked… sad. Real tears welled up in his eyes, dripping down his cheeks. For a moment, I didn’t see a monster. I saw someone crying for help. Sure, maybe he went around intentionally spreading germs across the floor—but his employees had also left him half-naked in a field, marked like a scarecrow. Maybe what he really needed wasn’t a patient… but a friend.

  I had to be honest.

  “Yes,” I said softly. “I am scared. Scared of you, scared of this place… and scared to stay. But I won’t be, if we figure this out together. We could even become friends.”

  He smiled—just with his lips, not his eyes. “You know, I’ve barely been acting like myself lately. It’s strange… how much this is affecting me.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black rectangle with a switch on it. He flipped the switch, and a TV mounted on the wall flickered to life.

  On the screen was a woman in a white dress, blood pouring from her mouth. Her clothes were soaked crimson.

  I screamed. I shut my eyes and tried to launch myself out of the bed, but the restraints held me down. When I finally reopened my eyes, the image was still there, burned into my mind.

  He casually walked over to a nearby table and picked up a syringe labeled "Shoes for Shots." He smiled again—this time revealing a row of chocolate teeth.

  Chocolate. His teeth were literally made of chocolate. I briefly wondered how he didn’t have a mouth full of cavities. Just one square of chocolate and I needed to brush mine. If he brushed his, they'd probably melt right off.

  “Now tell me,” he said as he poured something into the syringe, “are you calm?”

  “I was just screaming my head off.”

  “Does that mean you are calm?”

  “Do you think that’s what that means? Because if so, maybe you should be the one in this bed. We could switch places.”

  He chuckled softly.

  “Well,” he said, holding up the syringe, “this will make you feel calm.”