It is dark in the room, to the point that you could hardly see even the faintest outline of furnishings if you were to look inside. The darkness is all-consuming, like an infinite void that devours everything it touches. There is no sound apart from the gentle chirping of birds seeping in from outside, through the walls, and into this little room. It is like a hole carved out of the fabric of reality itself that leaves nothing behind. Most would find it unsettling, disturbing even. The ck of light, sound, life. But to the owner of the room, it is a sanctuary.

  She would lie there on her bed. Day in and day out. Just existing. Lying there. Arms stretched out wide, spyed across the fabric of her bed. Just breathing. Thinking. That's all you could ask of her after all. Just simply living in her own little safe space.

  There was hardly even a name for this creature sprawled out on her bed. The one given to her at birth never felt right to her. It was a bit of an older name, not one you would commonly see in this day and age, but that wasn't what she disliked about it. She wasn't sure why she didn't like it. It wasn't a bad name per se, there were considerably worse things to call your daughter, but for whatever reason…

  It’s so disgusting.

  Now, she simply goes by E to those few she could call friends.

  As E lies there on her bed, numb to the world, she can feel the pang of hunger beginning to build in her stomach. How long has it been since she's eaten now? One, maybe two days? Who can say. Either way, even in her near catatonic state, E knows that she'll need to get at least a little something to eat here soon. So, after lying there for a few more moments, she slowly, cautiously, begrudgingly, stands up from her bed, rising to her feet, and makes her way over to her bedroom door.

  She can't see much due to the darkness, so when she reaches the wall near the door, she instinctively flicks on the light switch. As the first light in a long time hits the room, E reals back in pain, her eyelids smming shut like a vice as she tries to adjust to the sudden onsught of brightness. She's not used to this after all, seeing stuff for what it is. It takes her a couple minutes, but she slowly starts to open up her eyes, and takes in the sight of her room.

  Her room is fairly pin. Simple grey walls, simple grey carpet, simple grey bed, simple grey dresser. All in all, just a simple grey room. The light overhead is starting to go bad. It isn’t outright flickering, but it's in that state all too familiar to E where it's not quite where it should be. It would definitely need to be changed here soon, that is, if E could ever muster up the will to do so. The carpet lining the floor is a dull greyish brown, something you could easily find at a supermarket or somewhere equivalent. There is nothing remarkable about the bedroom, but it is a bedroom nonetheless. A bedroom that E spends the majority of her time in.

  She stands there by the light switch for a few moments, trying to adjust her eyes to the sudden invasion of light that's now exorcising the room of darkness. She never really went outside, so she was not used to the sudden brightness that she's experiencing now. She looks at her room for a while, letting out a tiresome sign as she takes it in. After a few moments, she turns back to her bedroom door, and puts her hand on the handle.

  And stands there.

  And keeps standing there.

  She doesn’t want to go out. Why would she? She likes it in her room, despite how pin it is. It’s cozy. A nice pce to stay. So what if she was hungry? Surely she could st a bit longer. It's not like she’s desperate. She just wants to stay here. Where it is comfy. Where it is safe.

  But she knows deep down that she should go out. That she should go get food. That she should just do… something. So, after steeling her nerves to the best of her ability, she opens the door of her bedroom and walks out into the hallway.

  …

  The door to her bedroom clicks behind her. She now stands beyond the security which was her refuge, already a sense of longing nearly overtakes her to head back now and call it quits, but she manages to push on. She turns to her right, heading down in the direction she vaguely remembered was the way to the steps downstairs.

  The darkness of the hallway is oppressive. It isn’t as dark as it was in her room; there’s a dim hue of moonlight seeping in through a few windows on the opposite wall. Yet despite this, it doesn’t make the ck of light any less all-consuming, and certainly doesn’t make it any less unsettling for E. She was never exactly scared of the dark, but something about the eerie atmosphere of this darkness, and the fact that she’s outside of her comfort zone here, filled her with unease.

  E uses the wall for support as she walks. She doesn’t want to bump into anything as she makes her way to the staircase. Her eyes had just adjusted to the light in her room, which was making it difficult enough as is. That's why it was so silly to turn the lights on. It was dumb. You might as well keep them off if there’s no need to have them on anyways, right?

  As she walked down the hallway, it felt like it was never-ending. She would walk and walk, step after step, and yet she would never even catch a glimpse of the stairs leading down. It was never this long before, this doesn't make any sense. And yet here E is. Walking. And walking. And walking some more.

  E’s breath starts to quicken.

  Clearly this is a mistake. Something is very obviously not right.

  She starts to panic.

  The walls feel like they’re closing in to her, like they are trying to trap her and prevent her from going any further. This hallway was endless. She had to have been walking down it forever now, hours at this point. Something had to be pying tricks on her.

  The darkness thickens and starts to cloud her eyes. Sweat starts to pool along her brow and drip down the side of her face with an intensity equivalent to a river’s rapids during a summer storm. Her hands leave a trail of moisture along the wall as she slides along it, praying to the Lord that this will be over soon.

  She should've never come out here. She should've just stayed in her room where it was safe. It is not safe out here! Any sane person could see that! This hallway, it's too long. It's too dark. It's too scary. It’s-

  It’s the staircase. The only stairs in the house, the one that leads downstairs. Right in front of her. It had come up so suddenly she nearly tripped down it, but as if on instinct stops herself in time, clutching onto the railing to catch her fall. Her hand rests on the railing now as she gazes down. Down the staircase, into the depths of darkness.

  It is so dark.

  There is only a hint of moonlight coming in from the nearby windows, fixing a faint glow to the steps. Yet despite this faint light, E cannot see the bottom of the steps. It looks like it went down forever, and ever, and ever…

  She stands there at the top of the steps, her breathing never slowing down for even a nanosecond. Her chest feels tight. Like her entire being is being squished by the sheer oppressiveness of what she is looking at. It's like every nerve ending, every fiber of her being is screaming at her to turn back. Her very soul begs for mercy and for her to just return to her room and rex there, to be happy in her hideout.

  But she had made it this far. Surely she can make it down the stairs now. The journey here was tough, sure, but surely it can't get any worse. She just had to go down. Down the staircase. Into the dark…

  After a long moment of hesitation, she quickly turns around and runs back in the direction she came, and in only a few seconds, she finds herself right back at the door of her room, and locks herself back into her haven.

  …

  About a day passes by. Not a whole lot has changed. E is right back to lying in her bed, rotting away in her little corner of the world. She’s lying there, fiddling with the pink sheets of her bed absentmindedly, her head resting on a pillow that was just a bit too firm for her liking. Just thinking to herself. She gnces around her room from time to time, admiring her little sanctuary. The nice pastel carpet covering the floor, the pretty wardrobe she had to keep her clothes in, the little potted pnt in the corner with a fluorescent glow light hanging above, and a singur window in one corner of the room with bckout curtains covering it up. She just admires it all, she never really noticed how pretty her room looked despite the pinness of it all. It wasn’t a lot, sure, but it was trying.

  Despite all this, the hunger pains have grown much stronger now, to an incredible level. She is ravenous at this point, her body begging to be fed even a morsel or a crumb. She has to hold onto her stomach whenever they happen in an albeit futile attempt to soothe her aching belly.

  She knows that she needs to eat. Knows that she needs to try again. But for some reason, she just can't bring herself to do it. It’s too much for her to handle, too much of a commitment to walk all that way just for food. So, she closes her eyes, hoping to just sleep the hunger away, and forget about it in its entirety.

  It only takes a few more minutes, however, for her to rise to her feet and head to the door. She knows she has to go get food eventually, so she might as well just get it over with. Surely the way back to the stairs will be easier this time. She’s already done it once after all.

  Surprisingly enough, she was right. The moment she takes a step outside of her bedroom, she turns to see the staircase leading downstairs just a few feet down the hallway. It’s not far at all actually. The faint moonlight seeping in through the nearby windows illuminating the outline of the railings with a vibrancy that makes what she's looking at clear.

  She looks on in confusion for a moment. She takes a step forward, hesitantly at first, like a child dipping their toe in a pool for the first time to make sure it's safe. Then another, and only a few more ter she stands at the top of the staircase, looking down into the depths once again. She still can’t see the bottom, it’s just like the hallway her first trip through, but something about this time makes her feel slightly more confident.

  So, she takes one step down the staircase, and starts to go further and further down into the dark. She can't back down now, not that she's made it this far.

  She walks down each step of the staircase with extreme caution and a snail's pace of slowness. She’s incredibly nervous, sure, but it’s the darkness that’s her main inhibitor in this moment. The light that's now coming from the hallway above seems to abruptly cut off at the top of the steps. She can hardly see the next step she would have to take. She's like a little girl lost in a shroud of darkness, unsure of what to do or what's to come.

  So, she walks down with calcuted precision. She would drag one foot along the step she was standing on until she just hardly felt her toes go off the side, and then she'd slowly, cautiously slide her foot down along the backside of the step until she reached the one right below her. Then she'd do it with the other foot. Over, and over, and over again. All while holding onto the railings on either side of her for dear life, as though one slip up here may cost her severely.

  It was painstakingly slow.

  Each single step down would take E nearly 5 whole seconds. But she had to do it. She couldn't afford to mess up now. She had to do this perfectly.

  The darkness that now surrounds her is very different from the one she was used to in her room. In there it was peaceful, like she could be alone to just herself, away from prying eyes. But in this moment it’s more like a cover, a veil that hides the eyes watching her.

  It’s like she’s being observed, silently being judged from the shadows for every step she takes. Her mind is at a constant back and forth between if something is actually there, or if she’s just being silly. It had been forever since she was down these steps after all, anything could've changed during that time.

  And yet she still pushes on. She wants to make it down to the kitchen. She wants to make it to the end. Despite the constant feeling of being watched, she still does not give up. She wants this. She wants to be strong enough to make it through this endeavour. But the eyes are only getting more and more pervasive.

  Try as she might, there's only so much a person like E can do in this moment. The feelings of anxiety, it's just too much for any normal person to handle by themselves. She can feel her breathing start to quicken once more. This feeling, it's starting to overwhelm her. She isn't deserving of this. She isn't deserving of making a change, that's what keeps rolling through her mind with each step.

  Each step is a constant reminder that she should not be here. Each feeling of being watched, of being ughed at, it persisted in her brain.

  Her nerves are finally starting to catch up with her. And finally, with one small slipup, with one small mistake, one unintentional slide of her foot over the edge of the step, her body lunges forward, and she falls down the stairs into the abyss, everything going bck.

  …

  As E starts to wake up, she finds herself lying at the bottom of the staircase with her back to the floor. Her arms are sprawled out to her sides, her breathing fairly raggard from having the wind knocked out of her. She lies there, eyes fixed above her to the top of the staircase. She lies there. Staring at the entrance of the hallway at the very top of the steps she had just walked down.

  Just staring.

  And staring.

  She can’t help but ugh at the sight of it.

  She lies there for a solid minute, ughing like a woman possessed, before she slowly starts to stand up. She struggles a little bit, a dark blueish-purple mark forming at the base of her left ankle, making her fumble a bit as she gets onto her feet. She doesn’t pay it any mind though, and instead clutches onto her head slightly and leans against the nearby wall. She was dizzy, who wouldn’t be after a fall like that, but she had no time to waste now, she was so close after all.

  As she leans against the wall, she can see the faintest outline of a doorway just a couple feet in front of her. It was her goal. Her light at the end of the tunnel. Her salvation. She just had to walk a little longer now and up a few steps leading to the doorway, and she'd finally be there.

  Her lips curl up into the faintest glimmer of a smile as she makes her way over to the doorway, to the kitchen. Her stomach grumblings intensify as she nears the kitchen door, but in her delirium she hardly even processes it. After what feels like an eternity in her head, she heads through.

  The kitchen is a simple one, though you can tell that it has not been used in quite a while now. There’s a mild musty smell to it all, like the air has been sitting still in there for a long, long time. Other than that, it’s your typical kitchen area. It has an oven that doesn't appear to have been used recently, an isnd counter that has a piece of cloth draped over it, and a singur window in the corner of the room with bckout curtains closed shut over it. It’s average, one would even say cozy.

  Right next to the open doorway where E entered is a refrigerator, covered with pictures of E’s old family, her parents. She hasn’t seen them in years now, but here they are now. There aren’t many pictures, E only put up a few to show that she put up any at all. They were simple pictures of her mother and father. In most they were dressed up in casual attire, simple lounging clothes, though it was clear that each picture was taken with a purpose. E’s mother and father were smiling at the camera of each of them, putting up their best appearance. It was clear that they were all pnned methodically, and none of them were taken on a whim. They were the epitome of the perfect picture, and E featured in none of them.

  E hardly pays any attention to this, however, and quickly opens up the fridge to get something to eat.

  There was nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  E stands there, her face completely frozen as she takes in the white void inside the refrigerator. The buzzing of the fluorescent light inside being the only thing that could possibly overwhelm the growling of her stomach at this moment.

  Surely there had to be something here to eat.

  And so, she leaves the fridge partially open and moves over to the cabinets, rummaging through them for any bit of food that she could eat, but to no avail.

  To say she’s devastated would be an understatement. A disservice even.

  It’s all pointless.

  She slumps down onto the floor, leaning against one of the cabinets. She brings her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, as she simply sits there, facing the refrigerator, facing her family.

  They are ughing at her.

  She could see her parents on the fridge cackling at her misfortune, at what’s come of her, just like they always have. An ethereal glow around them all, further burning their faces into her brain. Their wisdom of all they said in the past is coming to haunt her like the devil himself.

  It’s always the same.

  E leans into her knees, trying to obscure her view from her parents, but their visage pgues her mind. She can see bugs crawling out of the fridge behind her family’s faces. Big, brown bugs the shape of grasshoppers, but with wings as big as her first start spewing out from the fridge. Then the cracks of the wall. Then the floor. Then out of the cabinets. They start filling the room, the swarm consuming the emptiness near the ceiling with their putridness

  She can’t help but cry.

  She sits there, tears streaming down her face like a baptism of sadness coating her very being. The ughter of her family’s scrutiny piercing through her mind like a bullet through the skull. Their words echoing through her ears.

  E turns to see that the isnd counter that once adorned her kitchen has now been repced with that of a coffin. Her coffin.

  And so, she slowly stands up on shaky feet, gingerly walking over to her resting pce, and lying down in the spot that is all too familiar to her, holding onto her head and she cries her eyes dry and then some.

  …

  E lies there, crying all alone in her bedroom. It’s dark in here now, much darker. The bars lining the inside of the windows glisten from the red hue emanating from the overhead light, reminding her constantly that she won’t escape. The hard mattress of her bed soaks in the moisture from her tears as they fall beneath her. The metal framing of the bed creaks underneath her. The leaves of the potted pnt has what appears to be bite marks in it and is starting to wither, rotting away not unlike E herself, to the point where the smell is next to unbearable.

  She lies there for a long, long time. Who can say for how long specifically. E sure can’t. Nor did she really care. All she wanted was to stay right where she was, wallowing in her sorrow, not wanting to disturb or be disturbed by anyone else. But try as she might to block out the world around her, there is something that disturbs the contempt she wishes to endure. A consistent buzzing noise was coming from somewhere around her, somewhere in her room.

  It was very loud. Deafening even. It wouldn’t happen too often, but when it did, it would go on for what seemed like forever. Buzzing and buzzing and buzzing and buzzing and buzzing. It was maddening. She didn’t want this, she didn’t want to listen to this damned buzzing noise for the rest of her life. She just wanted to lie there in her little mindscape and live a peaceful life all by herself. That’s what she wanted, but the damned buzzing noise wouldn’t let her! It was making her ears bleed from the intensity of it all, and it’s getting to the point where she can’t stand it anymore.

  So, she just lies there, holding onto her head as she sobs. Visages of everything py through her head; the hallway, the staircase, the ughing, the eyes, they all pyed through her mind over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and o?v?e?r? ?a?n?d? ?o?v?e?r? ?a?n?d? ?o?v?e?r? ?a?n?d? ?o?v?e?r? ?a?n?d? ?o???v????e???r??? ????a?????n????d???? ????o????v????e????r???? ????a????n????d????? ????o????v????e?????r????? ???a????n?????d???? ???o????v???e???r???????. ????a???????????n????d?????? ???o????????v?????????e????????r???????? ???????a????????n??????????d??????????? ????o????????v??????e???????r???????? ???????a????n???d????????? ?????????o???????v???????e???????????r???????? ?????a????????n???????d??? ????????o???????v????????e???????r????????

  It was unbearable. It was torture. No, torture would be preferable to this. Her head was filled with thousands of needles begging to pierce through her skull and into the world outside. She could no longer feel her legs, like they had just been removed. Her eyes were bloodshot from the exertion of shedding that many tears. Her fingers bled from how hard they were digging into her hair. She needed out. She had to leave this pce. She had to get rid of that fucking buzzing sound.

  Finally, in a fit that could be perceived as either desperation or anger, she stands up from her bed and starts rummaging through her room in hopes of finding where that ear-piercing buzzing is coming from. It has to be in here somewhere. She has to find it.

  E tosses the decrepit sheets off her bed and onto the floor, looking under the hard mattress in hopes of finding it, but finds nothing. She tears the drawers out of the ratty old dresser she has, tossing out all the boring clothes in hopes of finding anything that could be making the sound, but to no avail once more.

  By the time she’s done wreaking havoc, her room is destroyed. Clothes are scattered everywhere, bed sheets are piled up on the ground. It looks like a tornado had gone through the pce. She’s exhausted by this point, both physically and mentally. All she can possibly do in this moment is fall to her knees, close her eyes, and start crying once again.

  And as if on cue, that damned buzzing starts up again.

  As she opens her eyes again, she sees something. Something was peeking out from underneath her bed, a faint glow creeping out from under it. She stares at it for a few moments before crawling over and reaching underneath it. She rummages around underneath it for a few moments before she feels a small, boxlike object under her bed, and as she touches it, she can feel it vibrating in time with the buzzing sound she was hearing.

  As she pulls it out, she’s surprised to see that the object making this noise all this time was in fact her old cell phone. She had completely forgotten about it. She never really got any messages or calls that were of any importance, so she never really cared too hard when it went missing. But lo and behold, here it is, in her hands once again.

  E sits there on her knees, staring at it for a few moments, unsure of what to make of any of this, until the phone vibrates once again. It was a message, a text from one of her old high school friends. E hadn’t spoken to them in forever now, she wasn’t even sure if this friend would remember who she was. And yet here they are, texting E. And it wasn’t even a one-time thing. All of the times E heard the buzzing sound, every single time, they were all text messages from this friend.

  As E unlocks her phone to look at the messages, all she can do is sit there, her hand covering her mouth, as she reads through them all. They were all messages concerned about her. Asking if E was ok, and that they were worried for her since no one had heard about her for so long now.

  It was overwhelming.

  A good overwhelming.

  …

  A lot of time passes by. E’s room had changed considerably now. Various boxes line the walls, each packed full of various personal belongings. E’s bed, along with their lush potted pnts and their dresser, are still out in the room, too big to be packed up in any reasonably sized box. Their bed frame, now just a boxspring and mattress with no covers or sheets coloring it, still sits in the same spot that it always has. The room, now void of all the color that had littered it before, is more vibrant than it ever has been. The sun shines in through the window next to their bed, giving a beautiful golden hue to the surroundings.

  Just outside their bedroom door stands E, moving some of the boxes out of their room and into the hallway where they’re lining them up against the walls. There isn’t a whole lot left in their room or in the hallway; most of their old belongings have been hauled away now. E finishes moving one particurly heavy box into the hallway, giving off a deep sigh and a stretch as they admire their work. They’d been working on moving all these boxes out of the house for the past few days now so they can be sold for new ones. E never really liked a majority of what was in their room anyway.

  After checking out their work, E makes their way over to the steps leading downstairs and goes down to the main floor. They still use the railings as they make their way down, the bump on their head from the st incident on the steps aching at the memory.

  Once E’s feet hit the ground floor, they make their way to the kitchen to grab some breakfast. The kitchen isn’t in the best condition from not being used in so long, but it’s not bad exactly. It’s pretty dusty in here, to the point you can tell there hasn’t been much upkeep to it, but it’s clean enough that it’s workable. Overall it’s pretty standard, having all the basic utilities you would find in a kitchen. There’s some basic decorations hanging on the walls, some cheap paintings here and there, some more potted pnts like the one up in E’s room, and the sole thing on the refrigerator being a calendar marking the dates of various appointments E has in the very near future.

  E quickly puts together a rather hearty breakfast. Their doctor had suggested they eat a little bit better to help put back on some weight they had lost over the months to get a bit healthier. It was a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs that they cooked up on the stove. They come out a little charred, E never had the knack for cooking like some do, but it was a breakfast nonetheless. Once E finishes, they move over to the small isnd counter they have in the middle of the kitchen and sit down to eat at it.

  Once E sees what time it is, they quickly finish up their breakfast, gulping down the st remnants of eggs, and quickly make their way to the front door. There, they throw on some shoes and a jacket. Once dressed, E turns to look at the door and takes a good few moments to just stare at it despite the hurriedness they are to get going.

  After a few moments, E gives off a small chuckle to themself. E puts one hand on the doorknob leading outside and opens it up. E takes another, albeit much smaller, moment to admire the outdoors before he heads outside.