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Snyder 1 The Closed Room I wake up on the floor, look around the room; I do not know where I am or how I got here. I know who I am. I am 23 years old and I attend online college at the University of Phoenix. I paint and draw. I am great at it. I live on my own in a small one-bedroom cabin that sits on a small hill in a surrounded area of green grass and a river that sits just below the bank. I have two cats who mean the world to me. I am an only child. My mother died when I was three and my dad died in the Vietnam War. I have no one but my cats. I do have anxiety and depression from an abusive relationship that took years to get away. I sometimes get overwhelmed and cannot think straight. I am a quiet person and I do not have many friends. I like to be alone most of the time because of trust issues but I am fun to be around. I love animals; especially my two cats who I wish were here right now. I feel so confused right now and scared. I sit up as I continue to look around the room trying to understand where I am. I cry as I stand up and begin to panic, feeling nervous as my body slightly trembles, realizing that I am in a square room. There are no windows overlooking the outside world. I glance above me, I see only one light that hangs from the ceiling, which keeps flickering, and all of the walls and floors are padded. I am wearing clothes that do not belong to me, a white shirt, pants, and socks. A small twin size bed is bolt to the wall from the right corner of the room and a small square glass window on the padded door. I can smell the air in the room. It feels thick and heavy. The scent from the room gives off an order of cleanness as if it has been disinfected with chemicals. I do not see a door handle from the inside of the room. Through the other side of the glass, there is a hallway with other small glass windows. I see people in white suits walk around with clipboards taking notes.

Snyder 2 “I don’t understand,” I say, as I freak out as each second goes by. I walk around the room thinking and still panicking; I begin slamming the palm of my hands against the glass window hard but it does not seem to have any effect. I shout as loud as I can possibly shout. “LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT, LET ME OOOOUT,” as I keep repeating the same words over and over again while shouting, the louder my voice got. The yelling is hurting my throat as I keep screaming. I can hear the echo coming from around the room. I begin kicking the wall in front of me where the glass window is as hard as I could. I wanted out of this place. I did not know where I was and why I was in here. “What do they want from me,” I think to myself while I am still kicking the wall. “Did I do something wrong? Will anyone miss me? What about my cats? Are they even ok?” I hear running coming from the other side, it sounds like a stampede of elephants coming toward me. I back away as I hear the door unlock. The door swings open and standing there, are four men in white suits and an older woman. The four men look like they are in their 30s and the older women look to be in her late 60s. Her hair looks like it was dipped in white frosting. She stands there behind the men holding a syringe full of liquid. The men gather up in front of her. One of the men closest to me holds his hands up in front of me. I can see sweat sliding off his forehead. He looks pale and sickly. I begin to cry, tears ran down my face. “What am I doing here,” I ask as my voice startles. The old woman walks in as she holds the syringe in her left hand. “You need to calm down or you’re going to leave me with no choice.” I feel this anger in me as it builds up inside. I cannot believe she said that to me. It is like drugging a dog for barking at someone they do not trust. “I AM NOT GOING TO CALM DOWN; I NEED TO KNOW WHY I AM IN HERE. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS PLACE,” I

Snyder 3 shout back at her with this scrunch up face. I was so angry and nobody was answering my questions. I have the right to know why I am here against my will. The old woman’s head turns toward the men and then nods. Seconds later, the first two men dart toward me, grab me; hold me down as I begin screaming and kicking trying to fight them off as much as possible. They are too strong for me. I bite one of the men’s arms as he was holding my right arm down. When my jaw let go of his arm it left teeth marks, yet it did not affect him much as he is still holding my arm down. The old woman lifts up my white shirt while two of the men are holding me down. I am still kicking and screaming. “LET GO OF ME, GET OFF,” I scream, kicking the old women out of the way. “YOU NEED TO RELAX NOW, ITS SLEEP TIME,” she shouts back at me as the other two men begin holding my legs down. She then took the syringe full of liquid and jabs it into my lower stomach off to the right side. I let out a screeching scream. The old woman takes out the syringe from the side of my stomach. I begin to feel sleepy. My eyes are getting droopy as I can see the old women and the four men leaving the room, but barely. My vision begins to go black and then I pass out. I open my eyes, look around the room. I sense that hours passed by. Not sure how long I was out but it feels like I have slept for days. I am not on the padded floor but lying on the bed next to the wall. Across from me is a metal folding chair like the ones you see at an elementary school. “What is the chair for,” I ask myself. I sit up; the light above me is flickering in my eyes making my head pounds in pain. I rub my head a little trying to ease the pain. It feels like I got hit hard on the head with something heavy.

Snyder 4 I sit for a few moments, “what am I going to do, how do I get out of here, and what I need to do to get out of here?” As I begin to stand up, I feel my legs shaking, as they never have been used for a long time, I then sit back down and hear the door opening. There stands a much older man wearing a doctor’s uniform. Scrubs, a white overcoat, a stethoscope, and round nerdy glasses around his eyes. He is carrying a clipboard and a pen. He closes the door behind him, grabs the chair and sits in front of me. I can smell the scent coming off him as if he has been sitting in an air filtered room of fragrance. It smells like lavender with a hint of vanilla. He sits there staring at me for a few moments but I did not say anything to him. I glare at him. I was already angry; I did not feel like interacting with this freak of a doctor. He continues staring at me for a few more minutes then writes something down, I did not see what he wrote but I am curious. “Are you going to stick a needle in me too?” I ask rudely and obnoxiously as I continue to glare at him. “No, ma’am that is not what kind of doctor I am. I am here to talk about you and what you feel right now,” he replies with a smile on his face. There is something about that smile that I do not like, I was not sure of what, but the smile made me feel very uncomfortable. My eyes glance to the left side as I take a deep breath and exhale. “You want to know what I am feeling right now,” I say as I glance back at him. “Pissed off that’s what.” “And why do you feel that way,” he asks in a calm voice. “Well first of, nobody is answering my questions, then they force me to the floor, jab a needle in me then pumped me full of drugs. IT IS FUCKING BULL SHIT,” I state as I give out a sigh and then cross my arms as I lay back against the wall. “What would you like to know?” he asks.

Snyder 5 “Who the hell are you, where the hell am I, why the fuck am I here, who the fuck put me in here and why can’t I leave?” I sit there staring at him waiting for his reply. “I apologize for the inconvenience, my name is Doctor Carpel. I understand your confusion but I can’t answer all of your questions,” he replies with concern in his voice. “Why the fuck not?” I replied. “It is not within the protocol,” he states writing something down upon the clipboard. “Wait…protocol? Is this a government facility?” I ask as I get more and more confused. I think to myself for a moment on the word protocol but all I can think about is what they were going to do to me here. My heart begins to race as my mind went deeper into thought. The doctor becomes silent after that. He just stares at me in silence, looks down at his clipboard and then turns his head toward the door. I stare at the doctor as he begins to stand up from the chair. The thought on what this place is runs through my head over and over again like a broken record skipping a section of a song on a record player. I did not want to stay here to find out if something bad was going to happen to me. Staying inside this closed padded room with nothing but a bed and the flickering light above me is going to make me go insane. As the doctor began opening the door, the only thought that came to mind was leaving this place no matter what the outcome. I was not thinking about anything else or anyone else, just finding a way to escape. At that moment, I did not think about it. I rush off the bed, grab the chair and struck it on the back of the doctor’s head. The chair struck his head, knocking him to the ground. As he falls, the chair lands on top of him, the vibration from the chair ran into my hands and up my arms. It feels like getting shocked by an outlet after putting a metal butter knife in the socket hole because of curiosity. It hurt like hell but at this moment, I do not care, I do not care even if the doctor is all right. I am only thinking of getting the hell out of here.

Snyder 6 I run down the hall as fast as I can and up ahead, the hallway turns right. I follow and take a right turn and continue down the hall. It feels like running down a hall inside a hotel. I continue running and up ahead I see a metal door, above the door in green letters read EXIT. I take the chance, open the door as fast as I can, heart pumping with excitement and relief, thinking that I have done it, I have escaped and now free. The door closes behind me and my face of happiness and excitement fades. I get upset as tears run down my face. More doctors in white suits stare at me in shock. Men in army suits come bursting through the other doors on the left and right side of the room. They draw their guns at me as if they are afraid of me. A few to the left of me step back a little way to avoid being hurt. I turn my head quickly facing the other doctors and see the room. Walls and floors are cemented; the room is a wide-open space as big as a Super Walmart Center. The ceiling is tall as a small market store with overhead lights hanging from short thick chains. There is what looks like metal-operating tables lined up in a row on each side of the room, and in the middle of the room, a metal table. On top of the table, sharp experimental tools that look to be for opening up a body. I also see glass jars of different sizes but cannot see what is in them, and on each table lays a body. The room smells different than the room that I was held in. The air feels mucky and smells as if an old abandon house that has been sitting empty for years. The stench of the dead bodies gives off a dead animal smell that has been rotting for hours. One of the metal tables closest to me lays a body that is not human. The body is green like the muckiness of a swamp; the eyes are big black oval shapes, and the hands and feet only have three toes and fingers. I fall to my knees in panic, my heart is pumping, and out of breath. I cry in confusion. More men that look military come flying through the door in front of me with guns drawn at me.

Snyder 7 “HOLD YOUR FIRE,” a voice shouts in the back of the room. “DO NOT SHOOT; WE NEED TO KEEP IT IN CONTAIN.” “WHAAA…..WHAAA….WHAT'S GOING ON,” I scream out in panic. “IT….CONTAIN…?” A loud alarm gets set off hurting my ears. I hold both hands to my ears blocking the loud sounds but it is not helping. I stand up; tears are running down my face, feeling scared, confused and nervous. I look around the room for another door that men are not surrounding. I see one; I see a door on the left behind the green body lying on the metal table and take my chance. I dart toward the door but before I get close to putting my hands on the doorknob, I hear a gun go off behind me. I turn around and see Doctor Carpel. The same doctor I slammed the metal chair on is holding a small pistol at me. It fires off two more times. I feel this pain hitting my chest as the two bullets penetrate my skin. I can feel the bullets inside me. I look down and see not blood running out my body but this green gooey slime. I stand there in front of the door. I do not fall to the ground. I touch the slime that is coming out of my chest and look for a moment. Thoughts run through my mind. What is going on? What am I? Am I one of those things that lie in front of me on the table? My breathing begins getting heavy. I look up at the doctor; I see red blood rolling off the side of his forehead. The doctor is still holding the gun at me. The gun goes off again and my body falls to the floor. My eyes open. I lay on the bed next to the wall again. I am back in the padded closed room. I begin crying. I rush out of bed as I panic, feeling scared, touching my chest. “Was that real,” I ask myself in tears. “Did that just happen?” My heart races, I can feel it popping out of my chest like a pop tart popping out of a toaster. There is no gooey green slime coming out of

Snyder 8 my chest. I hold my hands to my chest. The door unlocks and a female nurse walks in with a tray of food and a small plastic container with pills in it. “Hello and good morning. It is time to eat and take your medication,” she calmly says to me as she closes the door behind her. I wipe the tears off my face and look at her in fear. “Where am I,” I ask in a startled voice. “Why am I here, what do you want from me?” She leaves the tray of food and medication on the floor at my feet. As she begins leaving the room, she turns and gives me this creepy smile. “I am so sorry my dear, I cannot answer your questions, it is against protocol,” She replies as she shuts the door and locks it.