The first thing that I notice when I wake is that this room is achingly cold. Perhaps that’s due to the fact that my cheek is pressed against the hard concrete floor, neck craned in a position that’s so awkward, I can practically feel the giant knot pulsing on the side. I look around the room, searching around in the dim light, trying to see what’s in here. It’s smaller than a bedroom, but bigger than a broom closet. Unlike both of those things, though, there isn’t a door on the wall. I look to the floor, and to the ceiling, and nope–there isn’t any sort of trap door, either. If there’s no door, then how did I even end up here? Well, okay. I suppose a better question to ask would be, who am I? My brain feels completely empty. When I try to think back to something, anything that would lead to me remembering even just my name, the memory teeters off into the abyss that is currently inhabiting my mind. The only thing that my mind can seem to pick up on is the heaviness of my eyelids. Despite just waking up to a situation that should be making my adrenaline run like a madman’s right now, I’m just tired. I suppose that makes some sense. The room, again, has no door. And no other way of escaping, for that matter–there’s no windows, no vents, no nothing. There’s no way I could possibly think of something when my mind’s in the state that it’s in right now, is there?

So, what’s the rush in figuring something out? I have a better chance of something coming to me in a dream than anything else at the moment. The only issue is…I don’t really feel like sleeping on that floor again. I think I’d have a better chance at being comfortable lying against the wall. I begin to walk backwards, pushing my back against the wall and delicately bumping my head against the hard surface. But instead of being greeted with something hard, my head thunks against something softer. I spin around, and well. I was wrong before. There is something in this room: a calendar. In the corner, it reads October 2024, which answers the question of, ‘when?’ in my mind. There’s a day circled as well–the 24th. But right underneath, the day exactly a week from now is marked with a big, deep red X–the 31st. Halloween, the little writing seeping through the dark ink of the X helpfully providing. Now, I’m a bit confused. By the calendar, yes, but also by myself. I can remember basic things–like the days of the month, what a calendar is, what a door is–but I cannot for the life of me remember what Halloween is. I can recall it being some sort of special day. A holiday, maybe? I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t really matter, because I’m flicking through this thing, and there are a lot of other words on certain days as well. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years. But none of them are marked with an X. Let me think back to what the word holiday actually means: some kind of celebration, I guess? That you spend with people? And it seems like there’s at least one of them per month, sometimes even more. So maybe all holidays just mean you’re celebrating life, or something. Maybe they all mean the same thing. And so, my conclusion is that the fact that the 31st is ‘Halloween’ doesn’t really mean anything to me. The fact that it’s a week away probably is. As much as I would like for the case to be closed with this newfound discovery, I’m still practically nowhere. So, a nap it is. I fall back down to the floor, my issue now being solved by using the stack of papers as a makeshift pillow. I don’t know how long it’s been when I wake up again. You know when I said that there was a chance that the answer would “come to me in a dream?” Well, I’m pleased to announce that I was correct. Sort of. My dream was pretty bizarre–I was a surgeon, doing surgery on a patient. Brain surgery, to be exact. Not that it matters, but her eyes were a deep brown, my eyes matching. Her eyelashes were long, eyebrows thick. Anyways, everything was going normal–I was using the different tools and moving things around doing whatever happens during brain surgery–when all of a sudden, I dropped what I was holding. I looked around at all the other surgeons around me, ripped the mask off my face, and took out a chunk of the patient’s brain. She began screaming, shouting, “HELP! HELP!”

And then I woke up. The dream doesn’t really help me figure out anything about me, except for the fact that I’d be a horrible surgeon, but it did give me an idea. I never even thought about screaming for help! I sort of just assumed at first that someone, or a group of people had been the ones to lock me in here. But there could have been some sort of accident. Or, better yet, there are other people next to me, in identical rooms to mine, and we can team-work our way out of this situation. I clear my throat, and wow, it’s uncomfortable. I’m in desperate need of some sort of liquid other than my own saliva to moisturize it. I take a deep breath, preparing to shout.

“Heaaaghhp…..” is all that comes out. It’s obviously not the word ‘help’, but it doesn’t even sound like I’m trying to speak. If I had to describe it, I’d probably say that it was more on the growl side of things. I take another breath, attempting to form the words again, when suddenly I hear a loud buzzing above me. I quickly glance up, and I guess I wasn’t really looking hard enough before, because there’s a large circle with holes poked out of it above me.

“The spmshmshsnms has begun speakmghsng.” A voice says above me. All that comes out next is a series of muffles. Well, someone heard me, so mission kind of accomplished? I try to speak a couple of more times, but to no avail. My body certainly thinks this was enough for today, because once again, I’m slumping to the floor, the floor feeling not as cold as it should.

I dreamed again. It was the same one. This time, I took a bite out of it.

I have a killer headache–I mean, it’s sort of been here this whole time, but now it’s seriously getting bad, and it’s really not doing this memory loss thing any favors. It’s also making me feel even more sluggish, and now the room is sort of spinning, and man, I want to leave this room already. I look all around–from the ceiling to the floor, but nope. There aren’t any trap doors. There’s no windows either, or vents, or anything. Maybe we should talk about the dream.

I think I’ve learnt something new about myself–I’m pretty hungry. I mean, I’ve been hungry this whole time, but it hasn’t felt like I was going to die because of it. It would be great if my stomach wasn’t empty, but it’s not the end of the world that it is. But I’m not normal-hungry. I wouldn’t eat just anything right now–I don’t even think I would want to, either. There’s something else that I’m craving, something that I can’t quite put my finger on. When I think of what I feel like eating, my mind only provides me with images of body parts, and weird bits of flesh, but mostly I just think back to what I was eating in that dream–someone’s brain.

Am I crazy? I mean, not only is that cannibalism, and illegal, but it’s gross. But it doesn’t really feel gross. It feels normal. This is my normal-hungry, and maybe it’s always been. Well, now I’m wondering if I’d want to eat my own limbs, too, so I’m leading my gaze down to my arm, which should be covered in goosebumps from the cold, but it isn’t, and–is freakishly more green than normal? I mean, I don’t know how green my skin was before I was locked in here, but something’s telling me this is too-green for a typical human’s skin. Is the cold what’s turning me green? No, because if anything, it would be turning me blue, right? I hold my arm out in front of my nose, sniffing it in curiosity and–bleugh! It smells putrid. And not even just from the collected sweat and grime and other typical side effects from laying around and not showering for a long period of time. It smells rotten, like my arm is spoiled meat. Curiously killed the cat, though, because I’m licking it anyways, immediately regretting my decision when the current smell filling my senses doubles its effectiveness. Again, your breath naturally begins to stink when you haven’t brushed your teeth, but this is in no way typical.

But I feel that’s rather here nor there right now–and I’m not just saying that because my current stench is making me feel self-conscious. My main goal at the moment should be figuring out a way to escape from here. Out of a lack of options, I find myself hopelessly gravitating towards the wall, flicking through the pages of the calendar again, trying to search for some, any kind of clue as to what’s going on here. Alas, October is the only month with any kind of markings on it. Except–wait. Rather than there being just one X and a circle, there’s an array of X’s trailing there way up to the 30th. Were they always there before? They couldn’t have been, I’m sure of it. Have I been sleepwalking? But there’s no pen in here.

Why is the 31st even circled, anyways? Did I think that through already? The day is labeled with words, so it must mean something. Maybe Halloween is, like, a cursed day or something. Like the purge. Oh my god, are they locking me in here because they’re preparing me for the purge? What am I even talking about, I can’t even remember what the purge is to begin with. Why does my mind keep leading me into these weird loopholes? God, all of this is so confusing. I palm my fists together, crushing the stack of papers in my hand in frustration.

Hang on. If the calendar is on the wall, then how is it in my hand? Right. It can’t be. Because these are two separate calendars. How did I not realize that? My brain feels like it’s rotting in my skull, every thought more fleeting than the next. All my memories are melding together into one big blob of mush. I can barely even remember what a calendar is, let alone the significance of what’s written on it. Okay, let me try and retrace my steps. I checked if there are any doors in here–there’s not. I looked in the calendar–it didn’t help. After I did those two things, then I tried to…scream for help?

I try to shout as loud as I can, my throat feeling like it’s being poked with millions of little shards every time I fill my lungs with air. But, yet again, I can’t find the word. Every, “Please get me out of here!” is turning into a series of deep, groggy, unsensible groans. I stomp on the ground, pound on the walls, trying my hardest to make any sort of noise in my sluggish state. Just then, I hear that same voice coming from the ceiling-thing. Yet again, I can’t understand what it’s saying, all melding together into one annoyingly loud noise. When the voice stops, my ears are ringing so severely that it almost sounds like it’s echoing off the walls, still torturing me even when absent. I put my hands up to my temples, feeling the pound on my fingertips. When the ringing stops, I start to hear a different sound, a faint sssssss filling up the air, and a new aroma flowing in the room. I can’t figure out what it is, but that doesn’t seem to matter, either, because I’m falling, falling, falling down to the floor, thunking against the ground as if I’m dead.

I still saw the same thing when I was sleeping–hospital room, patient, I ate the brain–but there was something else in the end: a mirror. But it ended right before I peered inside. The first thing that I notice when I wake is that this room is achingly cold. Then I notice the bigger thing–there is an exit. There is no calendar. This is not the same room.

I did not wake up with my neck craned on that stack of papers, my arm hunching behind and increasingly gaining more pins and needles as my slumber went on. But rather with my neck craned forward, and my arms slung out, one finding its way on my knee, and the other hanging by my side. When I look in front of me, I am met with a table, a few feet away. There are chairs behind the table, and there are people on the chairs. I am also sitting on a chair, I notice, but I am not at the table with them. I don’t quite know how to describe this–there’s me, then a wall with a big window in it, and then the other people. But they’re all staring up ahead, right at me, so I must be the subject of this gathering regardless. It would only be right to introduce myself.

“Arrggghhhh.” I’m not sure how I keep forgetting about that.

Despite me not even saying any real words, one of the people, a man wearing a long, white coat, and had skin that was very much not green, leaned forward. As he opened his mouth, his voice rang through the room, the same familiar tone that I heard before collapsing onto the floor. Yet again, I can’t make out what he’s saying. But after he’s finished speaking, everyone is looking at me eagerly, seemingly awaiting my response. I try opening my mouth to say, “I don’t know?” or, “Leave me alone.”, but I halt, sparing myself from any further embarrassment.

Not knowing what else to do, I shrug helplessly, and watch as they all scramble to pick up their pens and jot something down on…whatever they’re writing on. They all discuss amongst themselves for a moment, and not only can I not understand them, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. When they’ve reached a conclusion–all nodding their heads and holding their pens back up–they all turn to me. Someone on the other end of the table, a woman in an identical coat to the rest of them, points a finger at herself. When I turn my neck towards her direction, giving her my full attention, she lifts up her arm, waving at me. Confused, I mimic her actions, waving back to the best of my ability. I’m not sure what happened between the time that I collapsed and now, but my arms are feeling extremely weak, buzzing around as the blood distributes itself from my hand down to the rest of it. Once again, they’re all jotting down at lightning speed, some of them now sporting grins on their faces. I direct my attention back to the woman, who now has a finger under her chin, looking like she’s thinking hard about something. I’m not sure if she wants me to mimic that as well, so I just do it anyway, watching as the rest of the table starts laughing, one of the people in the middle nudging the arm of another.

The woman’s face lights up, and she holds her arms out, flailing them around, and yet again, I do the same. More laughing, more jotting. At this point, it feels like I’m being made fun of. I don’t quite understand what about me is so intriguing to them. More of them are doing different movements now, each of them somehow dumber than the rest. Hold up a peace sign. Pretend like you’re drinking a cup of water. Pretend like you’re a chicken. I stare at them all blankly, watching them make a fool of themselves in an attempt to make me the butt of the joke. They all slow to a stop, on the edge of their seats, waiting for me to start copying one of them. But I don’t do anything. I just keep staring ahead. The smiles fall from their faces, some replaced with confusion, others with disdain. The main guy, the man at the end of the table, clears his throat, leaning forward once again and speaking.

“SCREEEEECH.” I hold out my hand, putting the other one up to my ear, urging him to stop. Thankfully, he gets the memo, leaning back. His expression is thoughtful, his eyebrows furrowed, and I can feel him thinking of what to do next. He leans forward again, the words becoming slower and slower.

“Blahblahblah we blahblahblah consent blahblahblah turned blahblahblah zombie blahblahblah safe blahblahblah…” Then he gets carried away, because he starts speaking faster, and faster, until I can’t process anything he’s saying anymore. I try processing the little words that I was able to pick up on–we, consent, turned, zombie, safe. I know what most of those words mean, but I’m stuck on zombie. I know that I’ve heard it before, it feels like I should know it, but I can’t put my finger on it. I look back up at the man, shrugging again. He pauses, then repeats the word again.

“Zombie?” he asks. I nod. He stares at me for a long moment, then goes back to writing. I’m pretty sure nodding my head is just as ‘advanced’ and mentally strenuous as shrugging, so I’m not sure why he feels the need to jot it down. A long, long, moment passes, the rest of the table glancing down at his paper, all tuned in on whatever it is he’s furiously scribbling down. He’s very focused, as well, his tongue pointing out and his head tilted down towards the page. After a while, his head pops back up. After admiring what he’s written for a moment, he flips the paper around, holding it out in front of him. The word zombie has been written on the page in big, bold letters. But that’s not the main thing on the paper–right below it, he made a drawing. I can’t tell what it is, but I can see that it’s a person. A pretty interesting looking person, to say the least–its arms are held out in front of them, both pointing straight ahead. Its mouth is hanging open, and their eyes are lacking any pupils, just a big glob of white. There are bags under them, too, and their clothes are all disheveled, but the most interesting part of the person is the top of their head. It’s been split in half, their brain fully exposed. Big, spilling out, and rotting. He even added little flies around it, alluding to it smelling putrid.

After fully taking in the photo, I look back at the man. Slowly, I bring my hand up to point to my chest, silently asking if he meant that I was one of them. Everyone around the table nodded. I furiously shook my head. How could I be a zombie? I have thoughts inside my head. I have pupils. The only reason why I smell bad is because I’ve been locked in a room for so long, that has nothing to do with me being a creature. I don’t remember who I am, but I know that I’m human. But everyone else seems to disagree. One of the people leaves the room, the other’s eyes trailing after them. I keep on shaking my head, but nobody is looking at me. Nobody is telling me that it’s a lie. Some cruel joke that they’re pulling on me. Some weird social experiment that they’re doing.

The person walks back into the room–now I can recognize that it was the wavy-hands woman. She walks directly up to the window, standing right in the middle. She points to herself again, as if my eyes somehow weren’t automatically going to gravitate towards the person practically right in front of me. She’s holding up something, as well. I recognize it from my dreams–not a surgeon’s tool, not a brain, but a mirror. All at once, she’s turning the mirror towards me, shifting her finger from her chest to it, urging me to look at my reflection.

The first thing I notice when I look into the mirror is that a human is not looking back at me. The green skin problem has gotten even worse on my face, my old skin color indistinguishable. My eyes are completely sullen, the bags turning almost black, and my hair is utterly disheveled, although that part could just be from a lack of brushing. The second thing I notice, however, is that I recognize my reflection. Underneath all of the wear and tear that naturally comes from being undead, I can see that my eyes are a deep brown, my eyes matching. Long eyelashes. Thick eyebrows. Seems like my dream did turn out to be a clue as to how I got in that room. I don’t think my brain looks that appetizing anymore, though.