It is cold here. There are noises, but I can't hear them. There are smells, but I can't smell them. There is no light. I'm trapped. There is no way out. I've spent considerable time clambering in the dark searching for salvation, a way out of what I'm in. I can't get out, I can no longer move, my legs won't work, I'm not even sure I have legs, my arms won't move to find out. There is a noise I can't hear again, what is it? There is a strange feeling approaching me, from what direction I cannot tell, I wish to end this now but have no means of doing so, I'm trapped here against my will, I wish to leave but can't. Why am I here? Who put me here? Where is here? I have been left with only thought and a sixth sense, a way of sensing my surroundings without the use of my previous sense array. Why is this? How can I know there are noises around me if I can't hear them? Or smells that I can't smell? What is wrong with me? Did somebody do this to me? How can I find out? I can't move, I'm trapped. The presence is getting closer, it is dragging itself towards me, it is long – very long. It's making noises of which I'm certain if I could hear, I would say these sounds were the likes of which I have never heard. Its purpose is me, the reason it is here is me, I don't know if I should be scared or happy, maybe this being is here to release me, grant me my normal functions and send me back to where I came from. I hope they know where I came from, because I fear I have forgotten, it has been so long since I was where I came from. Maybe I'm already there, maybe I was created in this shroud, installed within me a past that was not mine, feelings that I truly never felt. Legs I never had. Arms I never had. This can't be, why am I thinking this? Am I slowly going insane, or am I past that marker now, breaching into raving loony territory? How long have I been like this? It's dark, It's coming and I'm scared.

It's here. I'm moving, but I can't truly feel it. I sense the ground scratching and scraping me, what part of me? I do not know, all I know is I'm moving, but I can't be certain of that any more, I have no idea what is happening to me or why this is happening to me, did I bring this on myself? Did I sign up for this? I don't know and would it make any difference if I did? I need to get away from here, I need to be normal again, back with my own kind, the thing that is dragging me is not of my species, it moves in weird ways and makes weird noises I cannot hear – for which I am glad. Maybe my future lies at higher levels of consciousness than I was previously at, maybe I have been chosen for the next stage in evolution. Maybe I no longer need my eyes and ears, humanity has slowly ceased using them properly, maybe this is what lies ahead for all mankind, one sense to rule them all. I don't know if this is what lies ahead of me, I know nothing of what is in store for me, I'm still being dragged by the noisy, yet silent, slithering beast – where it is taking me, I can't possible know. Maybe it is telling me, but I can't understand. Or maybe I do understand and do not know it yet, I wish I knew what was happening to me, I wish I had my arms, legs, sight and hearing back, I wish it weren't so scary here, I wish I wasn't alone.

The dragging beast has brought me toward an opening, no longer a sense of claustrophobic smothering, a large room from which I can sense more beings, no true way of determining what kind of beings from this distance, the space I have been brought to is awesomely large. I wish I could see it. I wish I wasn't so scared. It's cold here. I'm sure that I am now no longer alone, there are things everywhere. I feel different, still feeling incomplete, still unable to bring about my other senses, unable to move of my own free will, but now I'm with others, I feel them, they are like me. They are desperately trying to communicate with anyone, as am I, but to no avail, we are all unable to talk, or move. The thing that brought me here is moving to the centre of the vast cavernous room, it has left me by the opening in which we originally came from. It is still making its weird noises, ever growing fainter by the distance it puts between us. I miss its company like a newly mended arm misses a cast, I feel as if I need to be dragged by it, despite its horrible aura. It's quiet again, all around me the beings are being lulled, I too feel the need to rest, I don't want to, I want to leave, but I don't think I have a choice in this, I'm being dragged into unconsciousness, I can't do anything, I'm leaving. It's cold here.

I awake suddenly to the sound of screaming, I find that it is I that is screaming. I'm in a bright white room, I know this because I can see. I have arms, I now have legs – I can feel them. I'm still screaming, for reasons currently unknown to me, gladness is spreading through my body, I'm back, I'm alive – I'm real! It's still cold here, but, I can move and see. I can't hear anything, but that doesn't mean I can't hear. I stop at the sound of a clicking and whirring behind me, secretly glad openly startled I spin around with a whirl – not used to my regained legs, I fall. I look up, there is a small spherical thing floating above me, it is white as the walls, with a camera lens eye spiralling in and out towards me. I'm frightened, this is not of human creation. What is it doing I ask myself. I'm still on the ground, the floor is soft, I'm in a padded room. Am I insane? Surely not, I have never felt as clear minded as I do now, I must escape this imprisonment, I do not deserve to be here. The whirring ball of lens is still hovering above me as I attempt to rectify my current horizontal position, I steady myself in a vertical position, in which sends the ball high above me out of reach. I had not intended on reaching it, but as the thought now crosses my mind, I feel the need to break it. I study the 4 walls that enclose me, I am indeed in a padded room, the walls are squared off in a achromic chess board of softness. I'm standing in a not-quite square room, blindingly white at first sight but now my eyes have adjusted to my current situation and I see again.

I'm very happy to have my senses back with me, I have no idea where I was and again have no idea where I am. What was the large beast that brought me to the huge room, where is that huge room? Am I near it? Was I ever there? Where are the others like me that had also been brought to that room? Are they in similar cells as I? Are they being monitored by a flying ball? At this point I turn to look at the ball again, it is still hovering above me, my mind is at full clarity once more and I find myself filling with the urge to anger the ball, I raise my hand in a clenched fist, palm facing me, I raise my middle finger in a one-finger salute to my captors. Probably not the sanest of actions in my present situation, but alone I am, it amuses me greatly, so much so that I find myself entering a bout of hysterics, laughing as loud as anyone has ever laughed – tears well out of my eye sockets, blurring vision. I stop the laughter, I don't wish to appear insane to my captors. I look back to where the ball was hovering, it has moved, it is doing so towards a small hole far above and to the right of my position, it is leaving me here alone, I have scared it. A brief thought enters my mind, I must get to the hole, I must flee my prison. I run towards the corner of the room, I jump against one side and push off into the opposite direction, towards the hole I could never fit into, I realise I could never fit through that hole roughly halfway through my flight, I land badly, ankle twisted I admit defeat for now. After three attempts at standing again I decide I'm better suited to the soft ground for now, I can no longer walk without searing pain, hopefully this will subside soon.

Time has passed, no idea how much time, I'm still in my square of whiteness. I'm not hungry, nor am I thirsty. I have not eaten or drank since as far as I can remember. Do I need to? It's cold here – I'm in pain, my ankle is not itself – I wish my captors would give me medical assistance, I scream something to that effect – the sound that exits my mouth is not what I intended, I continue attempting to talk, again, the noises exiting me are not what I was saying, I'm speaking in some foreign language, I have no idea what it is, it sounds like nothing I have heard before, why am I talking like this? Am I possessed? Speaking in tongues? I feel fine, surely its just my mind playing tricks on me. Yes, that's it, my mind is tricking me. A faint whirring noise is being emitted from one of the walls, its getting louder, suddenly my friend the ball appears once more. It hovers to the middle of the room and remains there. I'm watching it now, it isn't doing anything but noises are coming from it, something is about to happen. Suddenly 4 wires shoot out to separate my sky into 4 equal quarters, a sheet of thin metal, or something like it, starts to fill the 4 quarters. I stand up, I'm no longer in pain. The new sky is but one meter above me, from my new higher vantage point, I can see that there are small holes in equal spaces on the sky. As I notice this, a sudden blast of liquid is expelled from the sky, covering me in a thick, black liquid. As I attempt to removed the liquid, it condenses upon the top of my head, I flail madly as I attempt to remove the black blob formulating on top of my head, as I swing my arms, the blob quickly dives down my open mouth and down my throat, I feel nothing.

I stumble back against the nearest wall, clawing at my insides, though no pain or anything of the sort has been triggered, I still feel the need to remove the black thing from my body, I claw frantically at my insides, reaching down my own throat, I brush things I should not be touching, I dig further – there are things within me that should not be there. Small moving things inhabit within me, I slap them – they slap and stab back, I retreat back out my mouth, I slump down to the ground once more, no pain this time – just incredible fear. What lies inside me has just been fed by the blackness, I fear things are going to be much worse from now on, I start feeling sleepy, things are slowly disappearing, the whiteness of the room is turning grey, greyness to black. The room disappears. It's cold here.

Again, I awake. My mind is fuzzy but I feel fine. The room has changed, there are people everywhere around me, in infinite, they all look like me. I realise the room is mirrored, this new world of mine is of the same size as my previous world, but, this is far more disconcerting. Every which way I look and every way I turn, I'm looking back at millions of me. I'm scared. No signs of my captors, no signs of anything other than me. I look like I have always looked, my body has no apparent markings. No signs of black liquid remain on my body, I use the mirror to look down my throat, no scratches, normal mouth. Did I dream all that has happened before? Surely not, it was far too vivid, far too real to be any dream. But no signs of past struggles remain, I can walk, see and talk still, for that I am again thankful. But, the sounds emitting from my own mouth are none I recognise, my futile attempts at language still end in confusion, I do not understand what I am saying. This new room is far worse than the last, I look to my right and I'm staring back at me, along with millions of others. My every move is mirrored by my doppelgängers, I'm scared. It's cold here.

Fear has been replaced with boredom now, time has passed, much time, I'm still within the walls of mirrors. My friend the ball has not returned. I find myself reeling in the insanity I'm brewing, the people around me are of no help to me, they merely copy me, they aren't helping, I wish to destroy them. It's school again, someone is constantly copying me and that person is me, there are millions of me copying my every movement, its driving me around the bend. Suddenly I realise, this is a test, I passed the last test, surely? Otherwise I would not be here. What are my captors thinking, I need to know what they want from me, how else can I get out of this room? I take this opportunity to get a good look at the walls around me, my brothers follow me from 4 directions, I walk towards a wall, I'm staring back at me, unflinching – unmoving, this wall is a complete sheet of mirror, as are the other walls – there is no obvious way in or out other than up, I look straight up. There is a hole, far above me – it seems to be miles away and probably is. There is nothing I can do, I am stuck here, there is no obvious action I can take.

Suddenly I remember, there are things dwelling within me, maybe they know the answers to my questions. I send my right arm again down my throat as far as it will go, there is nothing there, no small things moving around inside me, no signs of the blackness from before, nothing other than what I feel should already be there, I start to gag, I begin to throw up, retracting my arm from my throat I hurl nothing. There is no food or liquid within me to throw up, I gag and gag, I stop. Indifference shrouds me. I'm here and I'm normal but I cannot leave or see any obvious means of gaining an exit. I steady myself, my ankle is definitely fully functional as is everything else about me. I look around once more, nothing has changed, I see something.

To the left of me, there is a something moving towards me from the reflection, how is this so? I look behind me, there is nothing! I look back, the thing is closer now, it's big – tall. Black, very black. As it walks past each of my reflections it kills me as it passes, the reflections on this wall are gradually being slaughtered. I scream. Is this what will happen to me? The Black figure is close now, 5 mes left, I shout at them, RUN, damn it RUN – arms flailing, but, alas all they do is dance with me, arms flailing, then fall to the ground in some new way of death. I do not mirror their deaths, there is one reflection left. The black figure is standing next to it, me, it is whispering in my ear but not my ear, my reflections ear. I'm listening attentively, and all of a sudden my reflection falls to the ground. The black figure steps through the mirror and stands in front of me. It's at least 8 feet tall, I back pedal, I must get away from this thing, I must not mirror my reflections. I run into the mirror behind me, I don't darer turn my gaze away from the black figure, it hasn't moved since entering the room. It is standing there, unmoving. Minutes pass – it does not move. An hour, still, not moved and nor have I, I don't dare trigger any reaction from it. I suddenly feel tired, so tired – seeing myself die repeatedly has worn me out, I'm falling, sliding down the mirrored wall, the black figure is still not moving, I feel my eyelids falling, getting heavier, I fall asleep. It's crowded and cold in here.

I slowly awake, but eyes remaining closed, I fear what I will see when I open them. Time passes, I decide to look. The black figure is still standing but 3 feet away from me, from my new slumped lower position, it looks infinitely larger than before. I stand up and look behind me, mirrored walls with no reflection – all my reflections have been killed. I walk slowly towards the black figure, to take a closer look – no longer fearing its wrath, what happens will happen, this is all obviously out of my control.

The figure is as black as space and upon gazing at it from close up I can see small specks of undermined colours, it is hard to tell, but they are there. At this point, I don't dare touch the black figure, some sort of contact may awaken the beast. I circle it, there is just enough room between it and the mirror walls for me to squeeze through, not touching either side. It is the same all over, deep blackness with its never ending expanse of spots. Suddenly it occurs to me, it walked through the wall, I have not attempted to do so myself before or since its arrival, if it can walk through that wall, maybe I can do the same. I look at the other walls, nothing remains of its previous reflections, the wall in which the black figure entered from is as it was when I fell asleep. Bodies laying on the floor at gradually diminishing spaces between them. I walk towards the wall from the side of the figure, I hit the wall, it repels me. Damn it, I try again, same reaction – the normal reaction. Maybe I need to walk the path the figure took. I carefully position myself in-between the black figure and the wall and begin the walk, at first I'm repelled again, but the wall gives some, it yields to my touch but not completely. I put more force and I start to break on through to the other side. I enter the next room, to my dismay the black figure is again immediately in front of me, but, there is a me lying, seemingly unharmed on the floor. I don't check for life, for I know this me is dead. I begin to start losing it again, it being my sanity. I reel around the room hitting the walls, careful not to tread on the dead me or to hit the black figure that is within this room. The hitting of the walls is not helping, after minutes of doing so, I stop, out of breath – not used to this much physical activity, I slump against a wall, as far from my dead twin and the black figure. I feel sleep rearing its unwelcome head. I wish to leave here, I do not wish to sleep, nothing is being accomplished when I am sleeping, I must stay awake. I fight back against my own body, slapping myself and all the other tricks to keep me awake, it works for a while, but soon I am gone, fallen, into a deep sleep once more. Again, it's cold here.

Slowly I begin to regain consciousness once more, my vision is blurred and my surroundings look different, I rub my eyes to clear them, so I can gain a better look at where I have awoken now. The room I am in is of the same size as the previous rooms, but this time there are furnishings, to my left I see wooden panelling and fake books within a bookshelf, I can tell they are fake from this angle, but the illusion may be better from straight on. I continue looking around. I scream. I stop screaming. To my right there is a sofa, empty and to the right of that there is a chair and in that chair is the black figure, unmoving once more. Why has the room changed again? Am I really being tested? Or is there something else happening here? I wish to understand more, I ask the black figure whilst I still have my sanity, it does not respond. I walk over to the book shelf, in the hopes of finding something I can remove, to throw at the black figure. There is nothing there, I didn't expect there would be. I look around some more, the room is quite nice, I notice beneath me that there is carpeting, I like carpets. The room is nicely decorated, it reminds me of a room I was once in, but where that room was and when I was last in it, I couldn't possibly tell you. It seems like an eternity since I was who I used to be. I decide that the only possible thing I can do right now is go sit on the sofa, this what I'm supposed to do, this is what they want me to do. I wish I knew more about them, so I could end this and leave. I walk slowly over towards the couch, looking about me for anything I may have missed before. Everything is as it was or as I concluded – nothing really abnormal about the room other than the unmoving black figure. I reach the sofa and sit down, its nice and comfy. The kind of sofa I'd like in my house, if I had one and knew where it was. I sit for a while.

Suddenly a voice booms from nowhere and everywhere! “Please lie down, make yourself comfortable” it says, I'm startled – the only voice I have heard since my incarceration has been my own and that was not speaking in any language I knew. But, this voice, it was in English! Finally my captors have spoke, I quickly lie down, in hopes of getting out of here faster by quick obedience. I'm comfortable, lying down now on the sofa. The voice booms again “How are you feeling?”, the voice is coming from the direction of the black figure, but its lips do now move and neither does the rest of its body. I think about the question it just asked me, how do I feel? Does it mean mentally or physically? Mentally could take a while to explain, so I choose physically, “I'm fine” I say in the most calm voice I could muster. It seems to ponder this, or at least, that is how I perceive the silence that flows over me once more. I begin to think that the interview is over, I begin to fall into disappointment, I have longed for company and now that I have it, it does not wish to speak with me, tears begin to roll down my cheeks. Suddenly the voice booms again, “How long have you been here?” the voice asks me, how long have I been here? What kind of question is that, they are the ones that brought me here, they are the ones that have kept me here and they are the ones that should know how long it has been. I get angry, redness swelling my face, I breathe, I calm down, I answer - “I don't know” I say, honesty is the best policy. Silence surrounds me once more, I look around, nothing has changed in the room, the books look more real, but that could just be because of the distance I have put between them and myself and the angle at which I'm looking at them from. I begin to whistle, then I remember that I hate it when people whistle idly, I stop – startled by this memory, why do I hate it? I have no idea, I laugh, its funny to me, something so obviously insignificant brought about thoughts of anger so quickly, I squash the feeling and continue to look around, nothing has changed, it's slightly cold here.

Time passes, not too much though – no sound has come from the figure and I have not dared move. Again, the voice booms, “What do you want?”. What do I want? Again, a seemingly stupid question, I take no time in thinking about the answer to this, there is only one answer. “I wish to leave this place and return home” I say, loud, slightly angry, but only really noticeable to me. The figure copies me and takes no time in responding, “Very well, you may leave” it says. A deep sleep is coming on, I can tell, why is this happening now? I'm so happy I'm getting to leave, why do I fall asleep now!! Blackness envelops me, the figure has got up and starts walking to a door that wasn't there before, I fall asleep.

“Mr Andrews, here are your belongings and here is a cheque for £1000, you are free to leave.”

Free to leave, where am I, the voice came when I was still asleep, but I heard it with perfect clarity through my dreams, did I dream it? I wake up. I'm standing in the middle of a parking lot, I look to the left of me, there are no cars but there is a city in the distance, I look to the right same thing, in front there is a road leading either way, a bus is waiting. I look behind me, there is a building. I turn around to look at the building. There is a sign outside the building, I cannot read it from here, I run to read it. I reach it, it says “Applicants for drug testing please see receptionist”, drugs testing? I look in my hand, there is a check and a key-chain with no keys on it. It dawns on me what has occurred, I begin to cry, this was all my fault – this will never happen again, I tear up the check, throw the key-chain and run and just keep on running.