I am stuck, in the oddest sense of the word. I know exactly where I am, and know I will never get out. I am on the inside. It’s the only way to describe where I am. The alternate inside. The unofficial prison of hell. Twenty thousand miniature mechanics stimulating complete and total isolation. It’s basically a never ending prison cell. Separated only by doorframes (no doors) are the three rooms: the bedroom, the bathroom and the waiting room. You eat, think, confess, write, whatever you want to do in the waiting room. It’s just a white couch and a white coffee table in a white space with a white ceiling and white floors – everything is white here.
SLAM.
The food slot closes, jolting me out of my daydream. The food is a bowl of oatmeal, just the palest of grey-browns. There is never anything else. It is actually very comfortable in here, but in a redundant way. There is nothing to do, only a notepad of pure white paper and a white ballpoint pen that flows with grey ink, barely a color at all. In fact, it has been proven that people released are almost color-blind because of the whiteness. The only color is my uncovered hands, but even those look white under the fluorescent lighting. Everything is made to be monotone, boring, so precise that you will forget any wrong you did, or think it was a dream. As I said, the perfect prison. And the brilliant thing is that you can keep up to ten people in the same room and none of them will acknowledge or see the others in their simulation. Thirty if you strap them down. You can keep people in here for centuries after they die, and they will still live inside the simulation. The genius behind this must be evil. Ha, thinking like I’ve been here years already. I am best friends with the person who made this. Her kindness was unmatched in all the years I’ve lived. And I can’t even blame it all on her, either. I was the engineer.