I've never felt this lifeless. I had no thoughts, no worries, no regrets, no feelings at this point. My back is starting to kill me, my hand is starting to ache and my eyes burn when I blink. It didn't matter, it will go away. I'd never imagined that I'd stay like this for a long time, its usually for short periods of times.
Tristan was streaming, and I was watching him play. He was discussing the new updates on the game he was playing. I was enjoying, watching him play, commentating on what he was doing, pissing him off when he did anything wrong. It was fun. but dear god I was extremely tired.
'Look who's enjoying her time.'
Leave me alone, I want to watch Tristan without being constantly disturbed about a new notification or something.
'Well, you should check. I'm not telling you to respond this time, just check.'
Fine, later. Watching this livestream is way more important than checking on notifications, at the moment.
Whilst watching Tristan fail miserably at finishing a boss level, I can feel my eyelids getting heavier, and the headache I've been having getting much more worse. I can see slowly see darkness flooding my vision, and I can feel that I'm slowly losing my consciousness.
'Stay awake.'
I can't.
'Force yourself to stay awake Ilsa.'
I can't.
'Ilsa.'
That was the last thing I heard before plummeting into darkness.
--
I see and feel myself falling into a deep and dark hole. The wind is flying past me, my heart rate has significantly increased, my breathing pattern has changed, and looking down, seems like an endless dark pit of nothingness. I turn myself to see where I fell from, there's a small light and it's getting dimmer and dimmer until I'm completely shrouded in darkness. I don't know when I'm going to reach the bottom, its too dark too see anything.
After sometime, I could feel myself falling faster, my heart rate and breathing have increased faster. I'm panicking. Am I going to reach the end? I can see a small ray of light, getting brighter. Is this it?
The light is getting brighter and brighter. The ray is growing. I see nothing but the light ahead of me.
It's so close. I try and reach out for it, as if it were my only hope to escape this never ending loop of falling.
I'm close, I can see daylight.
I'm reaching.
.
.
.
What happened?
I jolt up from my position, I find myself in an empty room, the walls are covered in white paint. It smells like it's been recently painted. I'm sitting on a metal chair and there's another one opposite to me, and I believe I was asleep on the table. There's a black door behind the opposite chair. My hands feel really sore and slightly heavy. I look down to see they're...cuffed?
The door swings open, revealing a person wearing all black; black jeans, black sneakers, black hoodie, black mask, this person even wore black gloves but they had white stains on it. This person is carrying a big paint brush, and a bucket of white paint.
"Hi there." She speaks
"...uh, hi?"
"You must be really confused as to what's happening right now. Don't worry though, I'll let you in on what's happening. I have to finish this job first, but you can ask me questions."
She goes behind me and asks me,
"Would you like to see what I'm doing?"
"...sure?"
She told me to get up while she helped and turned the chair around. I sat back down, and noticed a very colourful spot, which seemed like it had been there for ages.
"It's just this spot left, then we can have a full discussion."
"Why are you painting it white? Was this room always colourful like that spot?" I asked.
"Yes, it was filled with different colours, the artist had so many emotions when she was painting this room. I'm painting it white, because it seems like she lost all that emotions."
"Who are you? You seem very familiar."
"I'll get to that later, aren't you going to ask me about your handcuffs?" She said while pointing at them.
"Oh right, what happened to me? Why am I cuffed?"
"Well, long story short, you're someone's slave."
"WHAT?!"
"Calm down, not illegally. You wanted to be a slave."
"I don't recall when I ever wanted to be a slave."
"Well, you didn't state that you wanted to be one. But your actions say otherwise."
I am still very confused.
"Can you paint that later? I have so many things to ask you about. I'm sorry, but I'm getting really afraid and I'm very confused as to what is happening."
She sighed. She put down her paint brush next to the bucket of paint, helped me turn back and sat in the opposite of me.
"Alright, ask away."
"Where am I?"
"You are in what I call 'The Room', you've actually been here before."
"The Room?"
"Yeah, you usually come here when you need to think with yourself."
"Myself?"
"That's right."
If I come here to think with myself, why is she here then?
"Do you have a picture of the Room before it was painted white?"
"Why ask?"
"Curious, that's all."
"Sorry bud, I don't have a picture."
"Who was the artist?"
"Me. I was the one who painted this room. That patch of color is what's left of it."
What? I don't think it's a good idea to pry on why she did it.
"How did I end up here? I mean, I was falling in a dark hole and saw a ray of light. I tried to reach it, and when I almost did I woke up, here in this room." I asked
"Congratulations, that's how you reach the Room."
"Whose slave am I?"
"Lisa. You're Lisa's slave."
I looked at her, shocked.
"What..."
"Any more questions?"
"...Who are you?"
She leans in and whispers, "Promise to keep it a secret? I'm pretty sure Lisa will ask where you were and who you talked to."
"I promise."
The lights go out. A small source of light from a hanging light bulb was shone on the mysterious person. She took off her hoodie, and slowly pulled down her mask.
It was me.
"Y-You're..."
"Surprise! Weird huh? To see yourself like this? Yeah, that's what I thought."
I was left speechless. This person was me?
"I guess I should make an introduction. Hi, I'm Ilsa." She stuck her hand out, expecting a handshake. I remind her, or rather myself, that I have handcuffs on.
"Oh, sorry about that. I can't do anything about those. It's up to you if you want to take your handcuffs off or not."
I look at her, still astonished about the fact that we are literally the same person. And what does she mean that it's up to me, or us?
"Nah bud, it's more of your job to take those off. I was not really fond of Lisa anyway, and never really interacted with her that much. She always gave off a 'bad vibe'."
I never said that out loud.
"You can hear my thoughts?"
"Dude, we are the same person. And your thoughts echo through this room."
"Why are you—me—I—whatever, painting this room white?"
"I told you, the artist lost her emotions."
"But you said the artist was you."
"Which in turn means..." She looked at me expectantly to answer.
"Me... I painted this room."
"We have a winner ladies and gentlemen!" she cheered.
Have I really lost my emotions? How was this room before it was painted white?
"You have to remember the memories you've experienced. The Room is a place where all your happy thoughts are stored, there usually are some nightmares but that's usually forgotten or replaced by something memorable. The reason I've painted white is because, you've lost the connection you had to this room, so a lot of bad thoughts started to appear here. Many dark, black spots were taking over the beautiful abstract colours you made. This was probably when Lisa came over. One way to stop the bad thoughts to come was to paint it with another colour, or another memory, but since you were busy with Lisa, I had to take matters in my own hands. I had painted this entire room white."
My bad thoughts? Lisa? What? I'm still so confused.
"Until recently, you had went out with your friend Yash out for a day right? You were happy and thus the creation of that colourful spot was born."
"So why paint it white?"
"Lisa was telling you about how it was a bad idea right? Well, that spot could've been damaged with another black spot. So, before it happened I wanted to cover it up. Oddly enough, the colours are still bright, and I haven't seen any black spots. Were you thinking about that moment a lot recently?"
"Well...not all the time. I've been spending most of my time online."
"ONLINE?!"
"...yes?"
"SO THAT WAS THE SOURCE!"
What?
"Have you been spending most of your time online? Longer than you expected it to be? Have you tried to stop yourself but failed because Lisa was always pushing you to go online or check notifications or any of the sort?" she bombarded me with questions.
"Yes, yes, and yes."
"THAT'S IT! You need to stop Lisa! You need to stop yourself from going online for an extended period of time!"
"I've tried and I always fail. Even if I do get off, I don't make the people around me happy. So what's the point?"
"Ilsa, I will slap you if you dare say that again." She looked at me with a serious look on her face.
"You need to understand that Lisa cannot control your actions. You can. You can change yourself, and I believe that you can do it. If you feel like no one is ever going to talk to you, come here. I'm always here. I'll be there for you."
"But I've lost my emotions. How am I supposed to feel happy?"
"Stop using the Internet. Don't you remember the times where even if there was no Internet, you were still happy?"
I remember about the time when Yash took me to the beach.
"What about the other times? Think."
I remember going on a vacation with my family and we went to a theme park. There was a huge roller-coaster, and I really wanted to go but I was too young to go alone, so my dad had to go with me because my mother was too afraid. When we were on, I was excited but the look on my dad's face killed me. He looked ridiculously scared, and when we reached the top of the highest point and was about to fall, he screamed like a little girl. I was laughing throughout the ride.
"Go on, think more."
I remember cooking with my mother. We were going to make a cake for my father's birthday and we were fighting over whether it should be vanilla or chocolate flavoured. In the end we decided to do a bake off, and whosever cake was the best would be the one we give to dad. Loser cleans the dishes. I was extremely pumped and started with creating the batter. When I was done with the batter, I can see that mom had her batter ready to go in the oven. I was so jealous, that I took the salt shaker and dumped the entire bottle into her batter. After both our cakes were made, she tasted her cake and instantly went to the bathroom to wash her tongue. She looked so disappointed, until I told her what I did.
"Two great memories, and a wall is filled with so much of colour."
I look up to see other me looking at the wall behind me with so much of happiness in her eyes. I turn around to see that the wall has been illuminated with different colours.
"You see? There are so many different colours when you experience many things in life."
"I still don't understand though, why you need to paint this wall white."
"It's because you've been spending so much of your time online, that all colour is getting lost. Because of you. I'm just doing my job, reconstructing this room whenever anything happens to you. Remember, in the end, whatever you did, all the happiness, dreams, sadness, anger, and more emotions and memories you create will be a beautiful painting filled with different colours only if you want it to be that way. Which brings me to ask you this question:
Do you want your life to just be a blank canvas, or a priceless, unique, irreplaceable piece of art?
The answer is in your hands. It's your job to answer."
The lights went out, and the floor disappeared and I was back falling into the dark hole, there was a brighter light at the end of it, and it was coming closer and closer.
Until I woke up, back in my bedroom.