The Room Full of Strangers

Chapter 1

Ellie sat in the middle of the classroom, her eyes locked on her knees as she began to be swallowed by the screams surrounding her.

The last couple of weeks she had started going to the Room of Strangers; it was an uncomfortable experience, but one that had its benefits.

The classroom was washed in darkness. The rules of the Room meant the strangers inside were forbidden from any access to light, but Ellie was thankful for it. It didn't matter how many years had passed since she had left school, the memories that had taken place between those four walls were trapped in her mind. At least the night sky hid anything that might trigger those memories, preventing her from wandering down that narrow, winding ally of her past too often .

The silhouettes of her fellow strangers began dancing around Ellie, seeming to morph together and break apart again, undistinguishable from the individuals she had come to recognise. They were screaming; high-pitched, glass shattering screaming, the type that is woven from years of suffering and pain.

Ellie was muttering under her breath; long, muddled sentences that tumbled off her tongue almost involuntarily. Her voice was indifferent as she attempted to distance herself from the worries and trauma that she was releasing into the Room. This was the way that the Room of Strangers worked. It was a place to vent - a void to absorb the pain.

The bell on the timer rang - barely audible amongst the blanket of screams - and with one shaky, sweaty hand, Ellie reached across the desk in front of her, and reset the five minutes. She stood up, the screams coming to an instant stop. They had been too loud to hear the timer, or to notice that she had finished speaking, so her standing was the signal for the next stranger to take her place.

Ellie never felt like a "weight had been lifted" after her turn in the Room of Strangers, like the government had advertised - that lightness came later. Instead, her legs felt like lead, her knees wobbling with the inability to withstand the weight of her body. She clambered across to the other side of the room, relying on each desk to support her until she reached the windows, where the moonlight was beaming down on her face and dancing on her skin. It was only then that she allowed herself to feel proud - another session almost over.

As the next stranger began to mutter aloud their troubles, Ellie scrunched up her face, opening her mouth so wide that it began to ache, and screamed. All of the tension that had built up during her turn in the centre flew out of the window and floated up towards the moon. This was her favourite part; an activity that not even her persistent insecurity could touch.

She had just begun to relax when the cushion of the surrounding screams fizzled out, silence taking its place, although it was equally as deafening. Disappointment settled in her stomach, but Ellie shut her mouth all the same, opening her eyes to see what had happened - the Room had never been interrupted before.

Outside the door to the classroom there was a light illuminating the corridor and it was casting a shadow around a man's head, who was peering into the Room. He was gone in a moment, his swift motion seeming to blur his silhouette and leaving a hazy trail behind him.

The strangers in the Room were unsure how to proceed. The thought of carrying on as if nothing had happened made Ellie feel uncomfortable. The insular bubble of the Room had just been popped, dragging each of the strangers back into reality, and reminding them of the unnatural concept of the Room. Each stranger looked at one another in desperation; they were forbidden from speaking to one another, so how were they supposed to make a collective decision?

That was the contradiction of the Room of Strangers: the same 12 people attended every session in an attempt to make it a little more comfortable during their five minutes of vulnerability, but they were forbidden from speaking to one another inside or outside the Room. It was this strict level of confidentiality that meant Ellie knew nothing about the people surrounding her, not even their names.