Trapped in Cognition

Running. Running. Running.

For what has felt like years this is what I have been doing. I've done nothing but keep running into room after room. Opening door after door. Fleeing from something I wasn't sure was even there. I couldn't comprehend anything that was happening. I couldn't form any new thoughts. I had no other feelings than fear. The only thing that has been in my head for these last few years was something of primal instinct.

I must escape

The rooms I ran through had a common theme. Gaudy paintings on the walls that looked aged straight from the Victorian era. Each painting complimented by a rusted golden frame to exaggerate the authenticity of the piece. Large, marble pillars lined the perimeter of the room, keeping the old, withered ceiling from crumbling down. Hanging from the ceiling, a gorgeous crimson chandelier, brimming with gems and crystals. Despite this, the room was a gloomy, dim lit area.

As I ran out of the room I entered another. This room looked like a master bedroom. Feeling weary from running, I decided to take a breather and lay down on the queen bed. As I plopped my body onto the creaky mattress, a cloud of dust shot into the air and hovered above me. I lay my head upon the worn satin pillow and rest my eyes.

As if a switch was flipped when I closed my eyes, I felt the bed give out from underneath me. I widened my eyes in fear. I looked down to my side and saw that the whole floor beneath me was gone, and was replaced by a pitch black abyss. I sat up and looked around. Like grains of sand in an hourglass, the walls of the room started to vanish into the air. The gothic paintings disintegrated before my very eyes. When the last scraps of the wall faded away, I was left alone in a room void of any light.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, they were countered with a white glow that appeared before me. As I walked closer to the light, the glow grew larger. A shower of euphoria washed over my body, as if I had been splashed with a bucket of water. I felt my head get dizzy with excitement as I realized what this meant.

I finally found my way out.

I started sprinting. This time not fueled by fear, but by jubilation. As I ran, the light got bigger and bigger, until everything around me was a luminescent white. My eyes shot awake. As my eyes adapted to the light and my vision cleared, I was in a room that I actually recognized.

Laying in a hospital bed, with my family surrounding me.