Panic Station

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 

I don't know why I expected my roommate to be there already, unpacking or something. I mean, I don't know why I honestly thought that. I think I'd even convinced myself that he'd be there already, as I stood trembling with the key in my hand staring up at the door, opening it suddenly feeling like an extremely daunting prospect. 

After about ten minutes of staring, shaking and just generally freaking out, I pulled myself together, took a deep breath and walked to the door, inserted the key, opened it and walked inside. 

It was empty.

Okay, no. Of course there were two beds, one on each side of the relatively small room. One desk stood looking lonely at the end of the room beside a door, which I guessed was the bathroom.  So what I meant, was that the room was empty of human presence.

There were no bags on either of the beds, so I guessed that I could just pick whichever I wanted. Deciding that both were exactly the same (each underneath a window and equally far from the door and bathroom.) I just slung my shoulder bag onto one of them, dropped my suitcase at the end of it and then carefully perched myself on the edge. 

If my roommate wasn't there yet, then I'd just wait for him to arrive. But then what? I would just tell him I couldn't talk? No. Looking around, I found on the desk a pile of papers and a pot of pens. Taking a sheet and black marker, I scrawled in my almost illegible handwriting,

"Unfortunately, I don't sound as intelligent 

to the rest of the world as I do to myself.

This is because I'm kind of unable to talk. 

And I don't particularly like people.

But that's neither here nor there, right?

Sorry for the inconvenience.

I'm Phil by the way."  

Maybe that was too much though? I mean, he wasn't going to want my whole back story! After a few re-reads, I decided to just be blunt. Grabbing a new, clean sheet, I began again,

"Sorry, you got lumbered with the freak.

I'm not going to like you, or talk to you

because I have Social Anxiety Disorder.

Again, sorry that you ended up with me

as a roommate."

Deciding this was better than the first (it proved more true and straightforward anyway), I got up and walked back to the bed I'd deemed as my own for the summer and sat back down with the note in my hand, eyes trailed on the door. 

There I sat for five hours straight, until I grew bored and restless, wanting nothing more than to just be home. But I couldn't go home, so the next best thing was being able to call home. (Which I was told I had privileges to do whenever I wanted and for however long I wanted.)

So I stood, after the sixth hour of waiting, and went to find a phone, merely praying that nobody would try to talk to me ...

~*~

It had been a week since then, and my roommate still remained illusive, although I couldn't exactly complain about not having one as I liked the solitude. I'd literally just gotten off of the phone with my mum (as I had everyday since day one. I totally lacked the independence I'd noticed everyone else here seemed to possess.) 

But as I stumbled through the dark at half one in the morning back to my cabin, I noticed faint music emanating softly from somewhere deep in the labyrinth of cabins. However, the closer I drew to my own, the louder the music became, until I concluded that it was coming from inside.