what is happening

i wake up. or at least i think i do. it might still be a dream because i’m not sure where i am exactly. the mattress i’m in does not feel familiar at all. the duvet covering my sore body reeks of a detergent i have never used before. my head aches because of it. the room is set up all wrong. i would never put my bed facing the window. it’s all wrong. 

i try to position myself to get out of the foreign bed so i can explore this stranger’s room, but i can barely feel anything past my knees. i try to swallow down my panic at the loss of movement. everything is all wrong. this is all wrong. but i need to keep my cool. 

i try to wiggle my toes to get something, anything out of my feet. but it’s no good. no amount of brain power will make my toes even flinch. i feel a tingle, almost as if my legs fell asleep along with me in this unknown bed. but it seems that i have woken up before them. 

i frantically try to look for something, anything to help me hoist myself up. my panic is setting deep into my bones. i’m extremely aware of the fact that my legs are like deadweight anchoring me in place. 

if this was my bed there would at least be some bedposts. i eventually just decide to grab hold of my legs and swing them to the floor, hoping some movement will come to them. god my head is pounding. i wish i could remember what the hell happened, or at least get a clue to who’s bed i’m attempting to get out of. 

something under the bed catches my eye as i struggle to move my legs to the floor. it’s a picture. of me. my face, clear as day is smiling up at the camera, a photo from one of the many disposable cameras my family would take on our annual trip to our cabin. 

my picture is under this strangers bed. a picture with no copies made. my heart leaps to my throat, panic suffocating me and roaring in my head. 

i plop my body down to the floor, my legs still unable to support any weight or movement, and i start scooping pictures out from under the bed. i’m in all of them. every single one. one after the other, i pull pictures out from under the bed. there are boxes and boxes of them. pictures i don’t even remember taking. pictures i didn’t even know were taken of me. there are ones of me sitting in my school yard, some of me lounging in my living room, and the ones that make my ears ring and my hands shake are the ones looking down at me in my bathtub, my naked body barely covered by the milky water. 

it’s a scrapbook of every year, every age, every major event, every private moment, or what i thought was a private moment. my life is right before my eyes. i look around the room, trying to find something, anything to figure out what the hell is happening. 

there are pictures of me hanging on every wall, frames meticulously placed in tasteful symmetry. i feel a twinge of déjà ve as i’m surveying the room. this can’t be my room, but memorabilia that i know is mine is also practically placed on each surface. the books in the bookshelf are mine, and my jewelry hangs from hooks around the mirror. 

i am trying my hardest to find something familiar in the layout of the room, but the only things i know are the knick knacks oh so carefully positioned around the bedroom. 

my head feels like it’s full of needles as i’m trying to piece together where the hell i am and why all of my stuff is here. maybe i got too drunk last night and had a major blackout. but that doesn’t sound like me. and i doubt alcohol would make me forget my own bedroom. 

i hear the squeak of the door, somehow the sound is familiar, just like the face of the man who is standing in the doorway, but the memory is trapped behind a fog in my brain. 

i know that face. i don’t know why i do, but i know it. and i know i should be afraid of the person who owns it. 

“oh sweetie why did you try to get out of bed again? i thought we were over this little escape business.”

escape. the word clangs through me. pulsing along with the pain in my head. that’s what i need to do. i need to escape. 

at least my answer came to me. this isn’t my room. or at least it’s not my real room. i can see the similarities to the childhood memories i have of my bedroom before i went off to school flash in my brain. finally something is clicking. 

but it all melts away when he speaks again. his voice makes my stomach drop and a chill run down my spine. 

“come here, sweetie. don’t make this any harder than it has to be. you know how much i hate to hurt you.” 

he steps towards me while i’m trying to scoot away from him. i am being swallowed by a black hole of panic that is creeping out of my chest and through my limbs. i just wish my legs would work. i have no way to get away from him. i could hide under the bed, but what good would that do if he would just yank me out from under it anyway. 

i look up at the face that is hidden somewhere in my memory. he is smiling. it fills my gut with an oily chill that seeps into my whole body. he is holding a syringe full of some kind of clear liquid. my legs burn with the memory of the prick of that too big needle and the feeling of it’s contents pouring into my veins. 

i need to escape. i need to fight. i need to do something, anything. but i feel the hand of my panic wrap around my throat. i need to get out. i can’t let this happen again, but what the hell is happening?