[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

Holy. Crap. That is all.

(Okay, RD is right; things are a little too talky...more accurately, there's too much infodumping on new modes and so on for it to flow quite as cleanly as would be ideal, but still damn awesome.)

That's another vote! I'll see if I can clean it up some. I did need to explain some things, but perhaps I used too much verbage to do so.

Originally Posted by AtomicoX

Got some inspiration and tried a new style. Didn't turn out as I hoped, so back to the drawing board.

Spoiler for The Room:

This room has no exits. It has no entrances. There are no windows in this room. It is a cube that simply exist. What is outside, is unknown. Only what is inside, is known.

In one corner there is a monitor. It only shows static and emits white noise. In another corner there is a lone rocking chair. In the third corner, there is a picture of a young girl and her mother. In the fourth corner, is a sleeping girl.

The room is lit by a single fluorescent lamp dangling from two thin wires attached to the roof. Now and then the light flicks on and off, but it comes back before it blacks out completely. The only other light source is the monitor.

The girl begins to wake up. Her hair is tussled and a big part of her clothes are in shreds. She puts a hand to her forehead and moans. Headache clouds her mind and she blinks in confusion.

“... What happened...?”

She looks at the monitor, then the chair and then the picture. She moves her eyes back to the monitor and gets up to her feet. Her legs are shaky, but she doesn’t fall. She’s strong. Both in body and mind.

She approach the monitor. Its white noise gets louder the closer she gets. There are no buttons on it. There are no remote. It doesn’t even have a cable at the back of it. It is simply a monitor that exists in time and space without dependence.

She stares at it for a long time. The static on the screen makes her headache worse. She can’t look at it much longer. She puts a hand on the monitor and her sense of touch is greeted by the familiar screen all monitors have. Except it’s cold as ice. There is no warmth.

She pulls her hand back, almost as if she was scared. But she isn’t. Just careful. Calculating.

She lets the monitor be and walks up to the picture. The girl and the mother stares back at her with sad eyes. The girl is wearing a cute, white dress. Her golden hair is tied up with a small ponytail. Her mother wears a maid uniform and her black hair is cut short.

The girl that has just awakened can’t help but feel a strange connection to the two. She has seen them before. She has spoken to them before. But where and when she doesn’t know. Or rather, she can’t remember.

Her memories are a heavy fog. She can’t remember how she has ended up in this room. She can’t remember what she did yesterday. She can’t recall who she last spoke to. She can’t-

A sudden noise behind her makes her freeze. There is no one else in this room. Not since the last time she checked, ten seconds ago. There are no entrances. There are no exits.

She slowly turns around. The only thing that is moving is the rocking chair. It rocks, back and forth, its wooden structure squeaking. Slowly it comes to a stand-still and goes quiet.

The girl walks over to it. She touches the armrest. Cold as ice. Just as the monitor.

The light abruptly turns off. Total darkness. It makes her freeze again. One second it lasts before the light returns. The room is back to normal.

“Is anyone there?”, the girl calls out. She’s frustrated and angry. She’s hungry. She's thirsty. The headache won’t go away. But she’s still not scared.

She looks at the picture again with her back to the rocking chair. Ice flows down her spine. The girl in the picture is gone. The mother remains, but now has dark tears flowing down her cheeks. It doesn’t look like it’s part of the picture. The tears are moving.

She goes up to it and smothers it with a finger. Moist. She puts it on her tongue. Blood.

The light turns off again. Then on. Then off. Then on. It remains on, but flickers, throwing strange shadows on the walls. They almost seem to move. Now the girl feel the first hint of fear. She isn’t alone in this enclosed room.

“Who are you?”

The rocking chair makes a noise behind her and she turns around. It rocks back and forth, but nothing is sitting on it. That’s when she notice the monitor isn’t showing any static. It now shows the room she is in.

She approaches it and stares at it. It shows her in real-time, in black and white. She can also see the picture and the rocking chair. The camera is in the corner where she woke up. She tosses a glance behind her shoulder.

There isn’t a camera in that corner. She returns her stare to the monitor.

The light turns off again. The monitor turns off. Total darkness, again. It lasts for five seconds. Then it comes on again. The monitor turns on. She sees herself again. She also sees a little girl standing behind her on the monitor.

She shrieks and twists her body around. There is nothing there. She breathes heavily and feels sweat flooding down her back. She turns to the monitor. Nothing except her in the room.

She rubs her eyes and blinks. It must be drugs. Hallucinogens. That must be it, she decides.

The light turns off again. Then it comes on, flickering. The little girl is behind her again. She stands up straight, refusing to turn around. It’s an hallucination. She sees the girl approach her, reaching out a hand.

The little girl’s hand is getting closer. She can’t hear any noise of footsteps. An hallucination.

She observes as the girl moves in to touch her arm. At the moment the girl’s hand touches her arm on the monitor, she feels something cold on her arm.

She screams and kicks out behind her. She looks around to frantically find the little girl.

“Come on out! Don’t hide from me!”

The light flickers and dies. The monitor dies. She hears soft breathing to her left. It brushes against her cheeks. She turns to it and reaches out with her hand. She feels something cold just as the light comes back. The coldness disappears.

She shakes her head and mumbles something. Insanity beckons in the back of her mind. Hallucinations. Must be. But it isn’t.

Her reality becomes warped. Now she sees a door that wasn’t there before. She laughs at herself. How silly, it was there all the time. She walks up to it and rattles the handle. The door opens, but stops. She notices a chain that holds it in place.

She grabs a hold of it and pulls. It refuses. It won’t even budge. No matter how hard she pulls, it won’t come loose.

She gives up and shouts out into the darkness on the other side; “Help! I’m locked in! Someone!”

Something rasps against the door. She draws a quick breath and holds it in. It goes quiet again.

“... Hello?” she whispers, uncertain.

A person appears in the gap. It’s a little girl. Her golden hair covers her face as she looks down in the floor.

“Hey, you! Help me out of here, yeah? Please!”

The little girl stand silent. Then she looks up, revealing her empty, bloody eye sockets and a beastly, huge grin her face. The girl in the room recoils and the light flickers off again. When it comes back on, the little girl is gone.

The girl has had enough. She crawls to the empty corner from where she had awakened. She rests her back against the wall and pulls her knees close to her chest and wraps her arms around them. She wags back and forth, mumbling.

While she sits there, the cold closes in again. It’s laughing. The girl knows now. Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. There could be something right behind you, at any time.

***

“Subaru! Subaru!”

“Agh!” Subaru pants as she flies out of her bed and stares at Tea. Her back is covered in sweat.

“You had a nightmare. You were screaming and trashing about. You woke me up, idiot.”

“Oh... Sorry, Tea.”

Tea sighs and shrugs. “Well, maybe it’s for the best. It’s early morning anyway. I’ll go down and get some breakfast. Are you coming or are you gonna sleep in?”

“I’ll be right there,” Subaru says and gets up from the bed.

“All right. See you downstairs,” Tea says and leaves the room. She closes the door behind her.

Subaru starts to get dressed. She puts on the training uniform as she plans to do a run after breakfast. As she pulls a sweater over her head, she hears the door opening again.

“Tea, did you forget something...” she starts to say and trails off when she sees who it is.

The little girl with golden hair and no eyes stand there. Grinning.

Is it bad that I thought of Tommy Wisseau when I saw the title? Heh, other than that, it's fairly interesting premise and use of literary tools.