A Trip Through the Passageway

The past few weeks of my life have been dreadful; the days have dragged on with what seems like the Groundhog Day Effect, every day passing feeling like the previous. My sanity has suffered, and while daydreams have filled my head up with delusions of parties, hang-outs, and group festivities, every time I get snapped back to reality I'm deeply disappointed. In the midst of one of these daydream-sessions, I was sitting on my bed thinking about my friends and what we were going to do when this was all over. 

Suddenly, I heard a loud thud. My first reaction, which was merely instinct at this point, was to shrug it off and continue pondering what life would be like if I wasn't currently self- quarantined. Sounds like this aren't uncommon in an old townhouse like mine. However, as my boredom was peaking and I had nothing better to do, I decided getting up and investigating wouldn’t be a bad idea. 

I gradually made my way around my room, touching the walls and putting my ear against them in an attempt to solve the case of the mysterious noise. While doing so, I heard it once again, and to my surprise it sounded louder than before. I concluded that it was in fact coming from the walls, so I walked out of my bedroom and into the closet next door. 

It smelled of mildew and dust; the only time anyone in our family ever stepped foot in here was to grab an old board game or a strange piece of antique clothing that we had salvaged from our grandparents house to fashion into their own. I spent only a few seconds looking about until the creaky door slammed shut and I was left in the darkness. 

Startled, I reached into my pocket and took out my phone. Turning the flashlight on, I reached for a chain in hopes of it turning on a light, but instead of  illuminating the room, it pulled down a hatch in the ceiling. I had never noticed this before, and in our time living here, I'm not sure anyone had. 

Thoroughly intrigued by this mysterious door, I climbed onto one of the shelves holding board games and peaked my head inside the opening. 

I am instantly shocked at what I see - the room in before me looks like a normal attic all except one condition: every surface is covered in mirrors. 

I pull myself up into the room kicking my legs and slithering onto the cold glassy surface. Taking in my surroundings, I conclude that I must have found a secret passageway. The room is long, like a hallway of sorts. Natural light is filling in from windows that separate the continuous expanse of mirrors, and at the end of the hall there is a shiny white door with a glittery handle. 

I make my way down the hall, feeling the cool glass underneath my feet. For the first time since I entered the room, I made an effort to actually look at my reflection in one of the walls. My long hair is pulled back with a hair tie, and my baggy pajamas make my figure look like a clown. 

As I continued to walk down the passage, I kept glancing at myself, only to find yet another mysterious perversion of this trip to the attic; my clothing was changing from pajamas into a brightly colored dress. What a curious thing to happen, I thought. This was surely better than sitting around twiddling my thumbs all day! 

When I finally reached the door, I touched the handle and found that the glitter melted into my hand, leaving nothing but a small glass knob to open the door with. At this point I was really starting to question where I was; it all had a sort of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland vibe to it. 

I opened the door and found yet another room. This one wasn’t a hallway though, it was a small room covered head to toe with fuzzy pom-poms. In a similar fashion to the previous room, every wall, the ceiling, and the floor was covered in multicolored balls of cotton. It was very soft, and I happened to become so fond of the feeling that I just laid right down on the floor. I had only been in a state of comfort for what I think was about two minutes when I threw my head up. I had heard the same thud sound as earlier- the sound that took me to this attic in the first place. 

A rat, whose fur was pink, was driving its head into one of the walls repeatedly. I got up, walking towards the strange animal and tried picking it up, only to find that I couldn't. The damn thing kept moving to different sections of the wall, scurrying in between my fingers like a timid kitten who just wanted to be left alone. I finally decided to give up after ten minutes of attempting to capture it. 

With great disappointment, I slumped back down on the floor and leaned against the wall, letting the soft cotton comfort my head. It was then that I realized how absurd this whole situation had been. How could the rat have thudded against the wall? Greatly confused by this, I stood up once again and decided it was best to get out of this place. I turned towards the direction of where I had entered, but instead of finding the door, I instantly felt a terribly overwhelming amount of disorientation. Hadn't I just entered the room through a door? How long had I been in the room? 

I started to tremble, and tears fell down from my eyes. This was terrible! I felt trapped. I took a deep breath, and decided getting upset wouldn't solve my problems. I held my chin up and optimism rushed through my veins. I began to search for a new way out. I crawled around on the floor for a little while, and smiled when I found that there was another hatch, similar to the one I entered the attic through, located on the floor of the pom-pom room. I pried it open, and looked down. 

What I saw was my room; except instead of having its beige paint, dully colored furniture, and miniscule amount of decorations it was painted bright green, with different variations of the hue scattered throughout the entirety of the space. I was excited to see such a pretty rendition of my boring room, but was still a little disheartened that I wasn't back from the mysterious attic. Could I have found a portal to an alternative universe? I laughed at this- no such thing could be true! 

As carefully as I could, I hopped down from the hatch and into the room. With landing on the floor, a loud sound shook the house, and I immediately heard someone coming from the next room. I got scared, thinking about what type of psychotic person would live in a colorful, green house such as this. When the door flew open, I was surprised to see that it was only my brother. How had he gotten here too? 

“Adalynn? Are you okay?” He said, walking towards me. 

My voice sounded jittery when I replied. 

“ Aiden there is a room up there, a colorful room! And a rat that's pink and I saw myself in a mirror!” I started to feel very faint. 

“ Shit, Adalynn! How many times have I told you not to go through my stuff!” He said with an angry but also concerned voice. Then, just before I fainted, I saw him grab the remaining tabs of acid off my bed, shove them in his pocket, and rush to save me from hitting my head on the ground.