DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what was done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time and keep it as raw as possible.
The Story
What have I done? You’re unsure of where this thought comes from, standing in a room doused in ocean hues. Looking into a room smoldering in underworld hues.
This room sits open in front of you, and you wonder if you if you opened the door. Were you returning or leaving? You face the room so think returning. Or is this the first time you’ve been here?
You look for clues to these questions. Nearest you, a chair sits against a wall. A strange place for someone to sit. You look beyond into another space that must lead to a hallway, splitting the distance between where you stand and the room in question.
In that alleged hallway, you see a hutch upon which sits a digital clock glowing with the same tones of the room. It reads 2:30. AM or PM, you wonder. The color temperature where you stand tells you AM, unless its storming outside, which it could be. You listen for rain but hear nothing. Except your breathing, which is comprised of a slow inhale and sharp exhale. You try to remedy this.
A photo sits behind the digital clock, obscured by darkness, distance, and digital interference. That’s when you notice everything shares that feature, as if you’re looking through eyes that can’t capture the resolution you need.
It makes you think of video games. Maybe you played them once. Maybe you didn’t. That dichotomy prompts your mind to dig deeper. You stop it before it delves too far. The puzzle in front of you is what you need to solve at the moment.
The wall opposite the hutch is bare except for a vent near the floor. You’re tempted to walk to it, to touch it, but changing your vantage will change your perspective, and everything in the red room will shift into something else entirely.
So you remain.
A chair, much like the one near you, sits in the room. It faces you, empty. Wooden blocks are strewn around it. Behind it, three are stacked in a pyramid configuration while three under it aren’t stacked at all. You wonder what that could mean? Construction and destruction. Togetherness and separateness. Wholeness and brokenness.
You feel none of those things.
Behind all of this, a curtain drapes from behind a rod. There is no attachment you can see. The curtain is also too long, collecting on the floor behind the chair. It moves slightly. Bulges slightly. You wonder if someone is behind it. Waiting for . . . you?
Who would be waiting for you?
Stranger still is the window behind the curtain, the fraction of it you can see. You think of a cage. Horizontal bars divided by patches of a diamond pattern. Chicken wire, you think. But thicker. To resist things larger than chickens.
The bottom of your left foot feels different. Cooler. You look down and realize you’ve taken a step. Why your left one? You look at your hands, assuming you’re right handed. Like everyone else. You don’t think you’re like everyone else.
Your hands are smooth. Soft. You check for calluses on your palms to see if you’ve lived a life of labor. You check the backs of your hands for scars to see if you’ve lived a life of turbulence.
You find neither.
You decide to move your right foot to join your left. Detaching yourself from the floorboards warm with your body heat is jarring, unsettling. Maybe it’s what you need. Maybe it isn’t.
You look up to make sure things haven’t changed. You haven’t solved the puzzle yet. Things haven’t changed much.
There is something behind the chair, near the curtain. Something you didn’t notice before. A whiteboard? If it is, it’s blank. A canvas? The light in the room isn’t any an artist would paint to. Unless . . .
You almost had it. A trace of something. Then something else catches your attention. Another detail in this room you seem to want to enter, albeit at a crawl. What appears to be another chair peeks around the corner against a wall you cannot see, and in front of it lies a mattress, a pillow, a thing upon which a body might lay.
Could there be a body in that room? Is the light indicating what you might find? You shake your head, wondering why your thoughts immediately went to the macabre. You’re not a person who thinks dark thoughts, are you?
You could be anyone. If there were a mirror, you wouldn’t look. Why are there no mirrors?
You study the carpet in the room from where you stand, looking for dots of blood. It’s clean. Unless the killing happened out of frame.
You rub your eyes, wondering why you’re thinking of yourself as a character in a film, your eyes the camera, directed to create a sense of dread for the viewer, who sees the narrative play out as you see it.
No. You hear that word, your word, your thought. You’re not a proxy. But why are you here?
You step again. Twice again. If you lean over you might be able to touch the chair. Sitting down sounds nice. You imagine it, with your back to the red room, and your skin prickles.
You leap into the hallway, unsure as to why. Like tearing off a bandage, you think. You don’t fall. You land soundly.
The time on the clock hasn’t changed. 2:30. AM, you decide. The photo behind the clock isn’t any clearer, still a digital mosaic.
You don’t bother looking to your right down the hall. That isn’t your destination. If someone is waiting there to get you, then let them have you, you think.
Two more steps bring you to the threshold of the room. The air is warmer here, the floor. You place your hands on the frame that should have hinges and a door open into the room. There are neither.
You look inside.
What have I done? That question is answered.
What do you see?
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