I Was Charlie

Day 365

I can see them crawling along the rough, gray walls like giant spiders with three heads. They taunt me, scream at me and watch my every move. Sometimes, they are black with huge, silver spikes protruding from their spindly bodies. And other times, they are yellow with shiny bodies that I can see my reflection.  

My once brown hair is now matted with streaks of white sewn through as evidence of the monster's effect on my sanity. My eyes, once a clear blue, are now cloudy, and my vision dull. I run a dirty, bloody finger over the marks I’ve scratched into the wooden bed frame and count how long the monsters have trapped me. Three-hundred and sixty-five days. A lifetime. An eternity. Only a blink of time seems to last forever.  

I haven’t always been stuck in this hellish landscape of four walls and endless torture. I  was, possibly, once, a typical human. A year ago, that all changed. I walked out of my third-story apartment and felt the ominous inkling of being watched. When I ran, they ran. When I hid, they found me—the monsters. Within the day of being chased, they’d caught me and brought me to this room.  

I’d tried every day for months to call for help, but only the monsters came. Although they all seemed to work together, they were all different species. There were giant, bipedal ones with horns and fluorescent skin. They dropped the tray of bland food at the door and seemed to attempt communication with me, but their language is not my own. 

My least favorite of the monsters was the Screamers. They came into the room with their slimy, ink-colored bodies and hundreds of ears that covered every inch of their scraggly frames. They simply walked into the room, sat on the bed, and screamed at me for an hour every day. No matter how I pleaded for them to let me go, leave me alone, or asked them why they captured me---they screamed. 

The spider monsters had moved on to torture someone else, leaving me alone and in a peaceful reprieve from the non-stop terror. I rested my head against the stone walls and tried to enjoy the rare moment. In the silence, my mind was clear, and I took in the room that had been my prison for an entire year. It was the same today as when they dragged me into this nightmare---cement walls, two small barred windows, and a bed with no sheets. I wore the same clothes I’d woken up in, although they were cleaner than you’d think they’d be. It's a matching pair of tan scrubs. 

Every day in this room has been the same. The food bringers dropped off breakfast before the spider monsters crowded the walls. Once the spider monsters moved on, the Screamers showed up, and by the time they left, I was emotionally spent. The food bringers dropped off what passed as lunch before the tubular monsters slinked their way under the door and out of the vents to cover the floor. After their hour of torture had concluded, the distributers forced capsules of unknown substances down my throat with the help of the food bringers. Soon, I drifted off into a black dreamscape no matter how I fought. 

I couldn’t remember what my life was like before this room.

I think my name was Charlie. 

*************

Day 183 

I ran a tired hand down the gray cement, tracing my name---Charlie---over and over. I’d never allowed these monsters to make me forget my name. I screamed it at them when they came to torture me, and I spend my days in this room drawing it repeatedly. I am Charlie. 

I rarely slept as the monsters plagued me, but at least the spiders no longer bit me, nor did the tubular creatures try to swallow me whole. I spent my days wondering what the weather was outside or if my family still looked for me. Would they ever find me here? I refused to give up hope, although my memory of my life before this room was beginning to fade. 

I think my mother's hair was red, and my fathers’ eyes were hazel. My husband's name was...something. We’d just adopted a child or an animal...maybe both. I worked as a high-price lawyer and wore expensive shoes. I believe. I was once an average human with a typical 9-5 and decent credit. 

There was this high-pitched keening that continued twenty-three hours a day, now. It had started a few weeks ago and was driving me insane. I couldn’t figure out if the noise was from the monsters as a form of torment or from another human trapped somewhere else in this nightmare with me. My head had a permanent ache from the wails, and I prayed, often, for silence. 

Three days ago, I tried to make a run from this room but couldn’t make it past the door. There seems to be an invisible wall or force field that is keeping me, prisoner, here. I still wonder if I’m alone in this prison of monsters because I feel alone. So, completely alone. 

I spend most of my days crying, but I no longer plead to be free. What’s the point? It falls on deaf ears. The monsters can’t seem to understand me any more than I understand them. I’ve noticed that some aren’t as scary as they look, and they try to soothe my troubled mind, but I want to go home. I want to leave this monstrous place and feel the sun on my face. Let the heat of the sun soak into my bones, dance with my husband, and be Charlie. 

I’ll always be Charlie. 

***************

Day 1 

Monsters have managed to capture me. I fought with tooth and nail, but they ganged up on me and have tied me to this metal bed in this cell. They stabbed me with small knives to drain blood from me and then pump me full of some suspicious fluid. Before delivering me to this room, they’d run me through a loud scanning machine to check my insides but I’d hadn’t known why. 

After I’d been in this room alone full of poison and toxin, a monster with diamond skin and sad, cobalt eyes sat on a stool next to my bed and took my hand. In a deep voice, he spoke a language I understood but couldn’t seem to process. The only word I truly made out was my name which he repeated over and over---Charlie. He seemed frustrated and confused when I only cringed away from him. 

When the walls started pouring blood, I screamed and thrashed, and the diamond monster was pulled from my room by a group of Screamers. The blood pooled onto the floor, swirled and crashed, like the waves of the ocean. My bed was tossed around the room like a buoy in a hurricane, and I felt the bile rise in my chest. 

“Why are you doing this? What do you want?” I repeatedly yelled until my voice was gone and my throat bled, but no one ever answered. 

My heartbeat wildly inside the cage of my chest when I saw the spider monsters for the first time, and I yanked at the restraints until I peeled flesh from my wrists, trying to get away from venomous fangs. They crawled their sharp legs all over my body and sunk those fangs into my delicate skin. My silent scream echoed in my mind until blackness swallowed me.

Coming to, I felt the painful itch from the spider’s bite and tiny lumps that crawled under my skin---panicking; I clawed and scratched my face until the monsters rushed in to tie my hands tighter to the bed. More of the poison was stabbed into my arm, and rainbow colors burst in front of my eyes before sleep took me. 

My name is Charlie and I am trapped with monsters.