The Never Ending Curse



He blinked a couple times. Darkness, light, darkness, light, darkness. It took a while to adjust to the bright light that made his eyes water. Tears streamed down his face like burning lava. It tasted salty. The sun pierced his eyes and made him look away except it wasn’t the sun. He stood up and found himself surrounded by white. He was in a cramped corridor that stretched out on either side. The corridor was brightly lit by the rectangular artificial lights that hung from the ceiling like a suspended coffin. On either side of the walls, there were bone white doors that had been put into neat rows. One could clearly see that the end of the corridor was marked by a door just as bright as the others. Thoughts clouded his mind as he tried to clear his eyes of the burning sensation caused by the lights. A faint high pitched sound filled his ears like smooth butter; the kind of sound you hear when nothing is to be heard. With eyes as round as a barrel of cheese, he walked to a door next to him and grasped its handle. It was then did he realize that he was wearing clothes of white. A long sleeved that clung onto his skin, a pair of bleached jeans and white shoes. All this white made him nauseous, he turned around and tried to vomit but nothing came out. He felt empty inside. He closed his eyes to try to remember what had happened to him but to no avail. There was nothing in his mind. He didn’t know his name, his age, what he was doing here or what had happened before. “It’s just a dream” he told himself while he shook ever so slightly, no one would’ve taken notice unless they paid attention. “Or is it?”

Shaking his head to calm himself down, he drew his attention onto the door on the very end of the corridor. “That has to lead somewhere out of here, I’m sure of it” he was lying to himself. He started to walk towards it casually, looking at the identical doors on each side. “Clop, clop clop” the sound of his shoes banging against the floor was the only sound he heard. The shirt stuck onto his skin as if super glue was applied onto his back, but it was only his sweat. Once more he turned his attention onto the door on the end of the corridor; it was just as far away as it was before. Glancing behind him, the door on the opposite end also seemed unchanged.

His eyes grew bigger and his hair stood on an end. Sweat dripped of the brow of his forehead and went “Plop, plop, plop” as it hit the hard floor. He violently grasped the handlebar of the door next to him so hard that his veins jutted out like wrinkled clothing with their seams sticking out. The door swung inward and with staggering steps, he stumbled past the doorway into the place beyond. Looking up, he saw light, artificial light. Slowly straightening himself, he found himself into the same corridor as before. “No, no way, th-th-th-this isn’t possible. D-d-d-do-don’t wo-worry, it’s just a dream, right?” Chuckling to himself to calm himself down, he opened the door in front of him……which led to another identical corridor. “God save me.” His hair flailed wildly like trees in a storm as his head darted from one place to another looking for any possible exits. There were multiple exits; they just led to the same place. Not wanting to give up, he tried another door but the outcome was always the same. He slammed his back into a wall and dropped onto the floor like a ragdoll with a “thump”.

“THUMP” Alex felt a sharp pang of pain in his right shoulder as if a rhino had just charged into his side. He opened his water filled eyes and saw darkness. With a flash, the sun seemed to appear out of nowhere, except, it wasn’t the sun. “Oh my gosh, Alex are you ok?” Alex stood up and found himself in his room. The thousands of posters that stuck onto the wall made his room feel like a giant collage. He clung onto his wooden bed frame and stood up. To his right was his desk that had paper piled upon one another that created tall skyscrapers that scraped the ceiling instead of the sky; probably unfinished homework that was never handed in. His closet to the left was filled with clothes that were dumped together like a landfill. A foul stench arose from the pile smelling much like fertilizer. His mom raced to him and held him tight, much like a python squishing his prey to death but in this case, a loving embrace. A fuzzy wool carpet laid flat on the floor. The doorway directly in front of the bed was flung open. “Alex are you ok?” Tears streamed down his face and fell onto the carpet below. It was then where he finally found out he was crying. “It’s ok Alex, tell me what happened.”

“I-I-I t-t-th-thought “sniff” I was t-t-trapped in a “sniff” endless corridor” his crying intensified and now his tears were dripping like rain onto the carpet.

“Shhhh, don’t worry. It was only a dream, now calm down and go back to sleep ok?” Only a dream, or was it?