My head is pounding. My arm aches as I reach up to touch the back of my head, where I feel a warm, sticky substance that could only be blood. My vision is blurry, and I can barely see my surroundings. Where am I? As I try to sit up, I am suddenly aware of every ache and pain in my entire body. I peer down to notice the bruises decorating my arms. As my vision begins to clear, I’m finally able to take in my surroundings. I am surrounded by…nothing. I am surrounded by windowless, bare gray walls. There is a cold stone floor and ceiling. I think as I look around. Where the hell am I? I need to get out of here. Wait! I push through the pain– like electricity all throughout my body— and stand up to get a good look at the ceiling. The faintest of lines indicates a trap door. All I need to do is find a way to get up there and break it open. I look for anything that I could use to reach the trap door. There it is! A small folding chair to my right. 

“It won’t work,” a woman’s voice says from my left. I jerk my head to the other side to see a sickly-looking woman hunched in the corner of the room, barely visible if it wasn’t for her red hair. “I already tried it,” she says. “It won’t open.”

“Who are you?” I ask, filled with confusion. 

“Winona. I’ve been here for weeks and you just showed up a couple of days ago. So really, I should be asking you that question.”

“Jim.” I decide to leave it at that. I have no idea who this snarky woman is. For all I know, she could be the reason I’m stuck in here. Despite her advice, I grab the folding chair with certainty. I drag it underneath the trapdoor and stand on top of it. I begin to bang on the door with all my might. It seems to be made with some sort of wood, as opposed to the stone that makes up the rest of the ceiling, floor, and walls. However, it will not budge. I push harder, and harder, but it will not crack. The only sign of an outside world is the small bits of dirt that fall through the thin outline of the door. We are underground. I need to get out of here. I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW! We’re going to lose oxygen! How will we get food?! OR WATER?! As I begin to look around the room for any other possible way out, I notice something. On the left side of the room, in the opposite corner from Winona, there’s a hole. I determinedly walk towards it. 

“That won’t work either. Don’t you think I’ve already tried these things?”

“SHUT UP!!” I shout. Winona simply chuckles. I peer down into the hole, and I’m immediately hit with the stench that fills this room, which I hadn't noticed until now. The stench that, is a dead giveaway as to what this hole is being used for. Our feces, well mainly Winona’s feces. No way am I sticking my hands in that. It might be the way out though. If I could dig the hole deeper and dig my way out, I could get home. Home to my apartment in Philadelphia. I begin to dig and look away as I attempt to not vomit.

“So Jim, where are you from? What’s so important to get back to that you’re willing to dig through weeks worth of crap?”

The stench is filling my nostrils and lungs. “Philadelphia,” I manage to choke out. 

“City guy, makes sense. I’m from Chadds Ford. Also here in Pennsylvania.” I immediately stop digging.

“Here in Pennsylvania? What do you mean HERE in Pennsylvania? Are we still in Pennsylvania? How would you know that?” I can feel the veins in my forehead pressing against my skin as my face heats and my panic and anger boils inside of me. She must be the reason I’m in here. There’s no other explanation.

“Just assuming,” she says calmly. Completely unbothered. I continue to look at her, perplexed. She knows more than she is letting on. I continue digging. I’ve now dug all of the feces out of the hole, but how will I break through the stone until I reach the soil? I sit back against the wall for a moment, attempting to think as my head pounds from the open wound. I hadn’t thought this far into my plan. I could rip a leg off of the folding chair, but it wouldn't be strong enough to chip away at the stone. I’m never getting out of here. 

“Winona,” I say, “You said you’ve been down here for weeks. How?”

“Well, what do you think? The psychotic guy who built this place trapped me here.”

“Do you remember it? Him forcing you down here I mean.”

“Yes,” Why can’t I remember him trapping me down here? 

“How have you survived down here for weeks?”

“He brings down food and water every few days. Enough with the questions. My turn. What’s life like in Philadelphia?”

“It’s–” I stop. What is my life like? Why can’t I remember anything? All I can seem to remember, outside of the fact that my home is in Philadelphia, is this room. I can’t remember anything outside of these stone walls. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You said you live there?”

“I JUST DON’T KNOW OKAY!!” 

Winona falls silent for a moment, as my head continues to pound. “Fine Jim,” she says “We don’t have to talk.” 

I need to think. Can I really trust this woman? How do I know that anything she says is the truth? Why does she want to know so much about my life? I can feel the wound on my head worsening, as my vision becomes fuzzy. 

“It’s okay that you’re having trouble remembering things Jim,” she says in a soft voice “It's probably because of your head. It looks pretty bad. I’m sure it’ll all start coming back to you eventually.”

I can feel my anger beginning to dissipate. It seems as if Winona really does care. “Why are you being so friendly?” I ask. 

“Because I know what it’s like when you first realize you’re stuck down here. I know how it feels when you’re scared and clueless, and all you want is to go home. I’m also probably pretty eager to talk considering I’ve been down here by myself for weeks,” she smiles as she says this. “You’ve been down here for a couple of days but you’ve been out cold the whole time.”

“I guess I didn’t think about that. You’ve probably been going crazy down here by yourself.”

A moment of silence passes between us. “You said you’re from Chadds Ford?”

“Yep. Born and raised. I live alone in a little house with my three dogs. Just down the street from my sister and her husband, and a couple blocks away from my parents.” Her voice gets quiet. “All I want is to go home.”

“We’re gonna get out of here,”  I say. I strain as I try to think of a new way to escape this insane room.

The world is foggy as I attempt to pull myself off the floor. I immediately fall back to the ground as the room spins. My head hits the wall, worsening the pain. I can hardly keep my eyes open, the exhaustion and excruciating pain threatening to take over. I feel an overwhelming sense of relief as I finally allow my heavy eyelids to fall.

What is that horrible sound? The sound of a metal door slamming wakes me. My head is still pounding, but when I reach to touch the wound on my head, it is gone. I sit up against the wall. What the hell is going on? The room is smaller than it used to be, and there’s a thin bed and a metal toilet. How did the room change while I was asleep? Where is Winona? 

“Hello there Jim,” a man’s voice echoes. I jerk my head towards the sound of the voice. A short man with gray hair, thin glasses, and a long white coat is standing just outside a metal door at the front of the room, talking to me through a small slot. “You’ve been putting on quite a show for the guards.” I look at him in confusion as he smirks. 

“Where am I?” I demand to know. 

“Do you not know?” he asks in a calm, yet inquisitive tone.

“How could I possibly know? I was just trapped underground in a stone room, and now I’m in another one! What kind of sick game are you playing?!”

“You’re in prison, Jim. Solitary confinement to be exact. It seems the medication I’ve prescribed you isn’t working too well.”

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!! Why would I be in prison? All I want is to go back to my home in Philadelphia. You have to let me out of this room!”

“Oh Jim, we really will have to up your dosage. The officers are sick of your delusions. They do not have the same patience I do Jim. You are in prison. We’ve locked you here on your own because you were displaying violent behavior again. You’ve been running around solitary screaming at walls and attempting to dig at the solid ground. I had to inject you with a sedative to get you to relax, in hopes that when you woke up you would be free from your delusions and willing to listen and answer a few questions for me.”

He’s lying. Nothing he’s saying is making sense. He’s the one who trapped me, he’s the one who trapped Winona. Where is she? 

I sink against the wall in confusion. “What are you talking about? Who are you?”

“I’m your psychiatrist Jim.”

“I don’t have a psychiatrist.”

“You do now. I work here dealing with individuals like yourself. I need you to come back to reality and answer a few questions for me Jim. The police want me to ask you about some things.”

“I won’t answer any questions! You’re trying to trick me! Where’s Winona? What did you do to her?”

“Jim,”

“Where is she!?!”

“Jim, I want you to think really hard for a minute. See if you can remember what happened to Winona, and then tell me about it.”

“Why would I remember what happened to Winona? You’re the one who trapped us in that stone room! Where did you put her now?”

“Jim”

“WHAT”

“Jim, you killed her. That is why you’re here. You trapped her in the room you keep having delusions about. You are the one who murdered Winona.”

“No. No, I couldn’t have. I wouldn’t have.”

“Yes. Yes, you did Jim.”

“NO! No.” My voice becomes strained and quiet. “She just wanted to go home to her dogs.” How could I have done something like that? 

“I killed Winona?”

“Yes, you did. You trapped her and committed a terrible act. How does that make you feel Jim?”

I pause for a moment. How does this make me feel? For what feels like the first time in a long time, I’m not angry. I’m not angry or panicked. I’m disappointed. How could I do something like this? Hurt someone like that?

I simply respond “Bad.” 

“Good Jim. That’s good. You’re finally accepting what you did and feeling remorse. I think you should get some rest. I’ll be back later. We still have a lot that we need to talk about.”

He waits until I lay down on the uncomfortable bed, and then walks calmly down the hall outside of this room. I am now alone again. Alone with my thoughts. Alone with what I’ve done, for an unknown amount of time.

The pounding in my head is back.