Room 17D | Teen Ink

Room 17D

June 22, 2014
By CourtneyLudwick GOLD, Yorktown, Texas
CourtneyLudwick GOLD, Yorktown, Texas
13 articles 0 photos 3 comments

A small square of light rebounded off the blackness of the room I occupied. Coming from the higher right side of the room's wall, I couldn't really tell where I was at the moment. Jail? A crazy man's basement? No, I was never the victim nor did I have a tendency to kill, murder, or necessarily chop people up, which would have landed me in jail in a solo room. These thoughts pulled on the drawstrings of my mind and begged me to answer the question: Where was I?
Soon, the silence was suffocating; the vacancy of noise blew my eardrums away. I dropped to my knees, and tried to cover my drowning ears. I couldn't. Eyes adjusting to the dimly-lit room, I could at least tell that my arms were unable to move: attached to my body.
Screaming. Yelling. Moaning. These words didn't even begin to describe what I did in my first hours at that place. My body trembled with each and every shriek at the floor. My throat cursed the silence that was found after every declaration. My mouth rebuked the hands that were tied up, and my hands yearned to break away: free and untroubled. But I was very troubled.
Exhaustedly, my whole body, which was restrained in a huge, unknown, white suit, fell onto the first object I found in the dark room. Soft wasn't exactly the word for it either. Unpleasantly less hard than the floor, the bed is what my tired yet still reckless body had found. Suddenly, a shaft of light appeared. Two fleshy hands pushed a silver, metal tray through, and then the rectangle of ugly, yellow light was gone.
My body quickly crawled to the door to find the obvious. Food, terrible, stomach-wrenching, inedible food, sat oblivious on the tray. I glared at the food, and then ravenously ate the contents, not even stopping to see: to understand what I was eating. I ate with my face. Barking. Gnawing. Tearing. Soon, drowsiness overtook me. Rather than go back to the hard bed, I stayed on the floor. I fell asleep stroking its soft mane.
Outside the dark, ugly room, a sign reclining in fake, cheap grass held the name "Berkley's Mental Institution." Deep in the halls a fifteen year old girl, troubled and crazy, yet intuitive in only her mind, lived her sad, pale imitation of life. Cameras in every corner trapped her movements, but somehow new technology still couldn't trap her thoughts. These cameras fed images, blurry, unclear, and hazy images, to a tiny room. A room down two floors contained a single woman. Elderly and crippled, this lady cackled at every movement, noise, and action that this young girl made. Soon, a young waiter appeared with a silver, clanking tray. The old lady opened a jar with an unknown substance and sprinkled black powder into the food. The young waiter then took the vaporizing tray to a Room 17D. The elderly lady turned to the screen and smiled a knowing smile. Grandmothers can be so cruel.



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This article has 2 comments.


on Jun. 25 2014 at 4:41 pm
CourtneyLudwick GOLD, Yorktown, Texas
13 articles 0 photos 3 comments
Thanks so much!

SammyM said...
on Jun. 24 2014 at 12:16 pm
This short story is sooooo good! It's chilling yet still interesting! Write more!!!