Larinda started to really panic for the first time since opening her eyes; she needed to get out of the room, and fast. How was it possible that a room was breathing?
She wondered how long she had actually been asleep – she still felt exhausted, mentally and physically, and was quickly spiraling into an irreversible panic. Darting around the room frantically, she felt the walls for openings, searched for tools to use as weapons, and tried to keep her cool. Logical thinking was out of the nonexistent window, but she tried her luck.
“How do I get out of here?” She wondered aloud. She recapped what had happened and told the walls everything she knew, “I fell for a very long way, and ended up this room through the ceiling…” Her eyes traveled along the walls to the ceiling as she continued contemplating how everything had happened.
“I fell through the ceiling - the living, breathing ceiling - the ceiling which now has no hole.”
Larinda once again glanced around the room for something, anything to help her. She found a small stool in the corner of the room and brought it beneath the place she thought she fell through. Standing carefully on the stool and making herself as tall as she could she reached up; her fingertips brushed the ceiling and sprinkled dirt onto her face. The walls still breathed despite losing a handful of dirt, and she thought she might be able to tunnel her way out of this damp room. She scraped more dirt away with her fingertips and realized she would not be able to get out through the ceiling. She could barely reach an inch of her finger on the wall, so there would be no way of digging a hole or even pulling herself up through the hole.
She slumped on the stool feeling weighed down by defeat and wishing she had never left home in the first place. She thought back to earlier, where this whole nightmare started.
Larinda had just stormed out of her parents’ house, slamming the door behind her. She was furious at her parents for being so strict. She had just graduated high school and expected some freedom, but as long as she lived under their roof, she would be following their rules. She took the shortcut to her friend’s house, the path through the woods, but the familiar path that she walked almost every day began to warp before her eyes. The sky was darker than when she left, and the forest floor was soft and green unlike the dry, brown twigs it was usually covered with. She thought nothing of it and continued along hoping to find something familiar to follow again, and that’s when she heard the throaty growl from somewhere off the path. She quickened her pace until she was jogging, and footsteps started following her. The footsteps didn’t sound human; they weren’t a steady beat like hers were, but more of a gallop like an animal. She looked behind her to see a monster similar to a giant, ugly dog. Its fangs were dripping with saliva and its thick fur was matted with twigs, leaves, and what looked like small bones.
She recalled from earlier her fight with her parents, and she realized how stupid and immature it was of her to be that upset. Of course she should follow their rules, she is still a child in their eyes, and she definitely could not handle what was happening to her now. Her throat tightened and tears streamed down her face. “I want to go home!” She cried out to no one.
She felt defeated by this place again, and pulled her sore and exhausted body to the far corner of the room and curled into herself. She cried without tears, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had had anything to drink; she didn’t even know what day it was or how long she had been there. She started drifting again, this time without fighting it. “I’m never getting out of here.”