Window

I stand there, looking, but I can't see! I strain my ears, but I can't hear! I'm looking for help, but there's no one! I scream, but there's no answer. I feel like I'm moving on a conveyor belt. I try to jump off, but a glass wall stops me. I want to run back, but I can't! The faster I run, the faster the conveyor belt moves.

I sit down and wait for something, but nothing happens. The longer I wait, the harder it becomes to move. Finally, I feel myself slowly beginning to disappear. Finally, I'm gone.

I'm floating in nothingness. I look, I see, but only darkness. I listen, I hear, but only silence. I don't need help, but I want to give it. I scream, but my voice is caught in my throat. What's happening?

Suddenly, light. I don't look, I don't listen, I've come into being. I open my eyes, look around, and see a vast meadow, forests in the distance, beautiful wild animals that neither I fear, nor they fear me. I stop covering my ears. I hear the wind, birds, bees on flowers, and singing.

I go where it's coming from and suddenly find myself in a dark, gloomy room with a single chair in the center and a single window the size of a child's hand. There's no door or anything like that. After a moment, some force sits me in the chair and prevents me from moving even my little finger. I keep staring at that window. Somewhere nearby, I hear singing, but I can't follow it. My consciousness evaporates until I finally land on the conveyor belt again, and it all starts over again.

I experience a dozen such cycles, until finally, in a sudden surge of anger, I grab the chair, smash it to the floor, and use its remains to smash the window. Images flash through my mind: a crumbling conveyor belt, shattered glass around it, darkness disappearing, light disappearing, meadow and singing disappearing, and a door appears in the room.

I walk over to it, open it, and my eyes are drawn to another room, with a bed made up and several glass, yet somehow opaque, doors, reaching all the way to the ceiling. I sit down on the duvet, but I jump up when I hear a melodic voice asking me who I am. I reply that I don't know. A small, freckled face with incredibly large eyes and a mane of brown hair peeked out from under the duvet. I reached out my hand to her, and after a moment's hesitation, she did the same. Her hand was stronger than her size might have suggested. When I touched it, the glass in the door cleared, and I saw a beautiful, ancient forest beyond. She, however, lost her fear and began to sing again.