I open my large green eyes slowly, not wanting to wake up or get out of the warmness that is my bed. There are orbs floating around the room. They glow a pure white, and look like the most beautiful pearls I had ever seen. They emanated warmth and happiness. They bounce around the room like bubbles, and look just as delicate, but I reach out to touch one anyway. I raise my arm and poke one of the orbs. It pops and I smile slightly. The other orbs stop bouncing around and the brilliant white they were colored turned to black. The black seemed to suck in all warmth and light from the room. The finger that popped the orb froze, actually turning to ice and spreading across the rest of my arm quickly, then the entirety of my body.

Regretfully, I lift the covers off myself and expose my body to the cold; even though I was wearing a thick cotton nightgown, the temperature of the room was still uncomfortable. I swing my legs over the edge of my bed and my feet connect to the slabs of ice that are my tile flooring. Everything seemed to wobble and shake, as if it were made of gelatin. The second I thought that, everything turned out to be actually made of gelatin. The dresser turned to orange translucent jello and wiggled immensely. My bed turned cherry red. It vibrated slightly and jiggled when it hit against the walls that were now bright purple and didn’t look solid enough to have another side. The floor and the ceiling seemed to have the similar structure to the walls, both seeming to go on forever, never to stop to become the ceiling or walls of another room. A wide smile spread across my face. I took a step forward, expecting to bounce. I was thoroughly disappointed when I didn’t. Instead, I sunk into the vastness of the green jello beneath me. The sterile smell of medicine and alcohol swabs attacked my sense, leaving my eyes tearing and reaching upwards to escape.

I lean forward to lift myself off the bed. I stand in the middle of my room and rid my form of my pajamas. When I toss them into the laundry chute, I think of all the sad discarded clothes gathering in an area unknown to myself. I scream catches in my throat. I’m sliding down a steep metal slide. The slide straightens out into a vertical line and I lose contact with it. Now I’m falling in free air, only blackness surrounding me as I claw at the empty space, expecting to find some sort of hold. The fall is continuous. I scream, feeling helpless.

I reach for my dresser, opening each drawer, carefully examining the contents, then moving on to the next drawer, doing the same with every in the dresser. There was a variation of colors, every basic color of the rainbow, all neatly folded and only high-collar t-shirts, long sleeve and short. The pants were all loose fitting and gray in color; the fabric that lined the inside was soft and kept the warmth in. I owned one pair of jeans, the normal blue kind. They fit snuggly along my legs until they flared at my calves. I was only allowed to wear them on special occasions. I look down to examine the gown I was wearing. It sprouted out from my waist and flowed elegantly outward. It was pink and lacy, with a white cloth that I could see through the lace. There was a corset around my waist, constricting me to make the dress more beautiful. My sleeves were longer than my arms, and they were thicker as well. They were made of the same white cloth as the undercoat of my skirt. I looked up from examining myself to find a full-length mirror in front of me. My blonde hair was up, placed on top of my head with a couple of loose curls falling out of the bun. My skin looked perfect like porcelain. My cheeks would have been perfectly blushed and pink, expect there were tears of red running downwards. My eyes had no white in them, only red with a black pupil. Every time I blinked, more drops of blood trickled down.

I picked a blue shirt with long sleeves from one of the drawers. I was tempted to wear my jeans today, just to be rebellious. But I knew I would only get in trouble. Instead, I pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants. I grabbed a pair of white socks; they gave me nothing but white socks. I pulled each on and stood in the middle of my room. The room started to spin, or maybe it was me that was spinning. When I got sucked up into the air, I decided I was the one that was spinning rather than the room. I ended up tumbling through the ceiling. There were multiple loud cracking noises, I assumed one of them was the ceiling and the others were my bones. One through the ceiling, I stopped spinning. I laid crippled next to the hole which I had made in the floor, arm and legs bent in ways they weren’t meant to be bent. I stayed still, knowing any move I would make would just cause me more pain. There was a deep laughter that echoed through my chest and shattered my heart.

I started my walk out of my room and down the hall. I ran my hand along the white walls, jumping over spaces where the walls sunk inwards to the doors of the other rooms on this floor. I cried out as a sharp stab of pain sent a shock through my body from my hand. I pulled it away from the wall quickly; there was a massive gash along my palm, exposing the bones beneath. I looked back to the wall, it was covered in metal spikes. There was blood dripping from the few I had just ran my hand across. I looked back and forth between the two walls of the hallway; most of the spikes were covered in dry blood. The sight was something of a horror film. The walls started moving suddenly, closing in on me. My natural first response was to hold the walls apart with my hands, but that would puncture massive holes in them and eventually snap my arms anyway. Instead, I chose to run. The hallway suddenly seemed endless and forever closing in around me. I made no noise as I was crushed.

I reached to open the shiny chrome door that led to my destination. I pushed it open forcefully, it felt especially heavy today. It always amused me that the door was the complete opposite of the place it led to. The door was cold and unwelcoming; it said that once you enter, you aren’t allowed to leave. The room within had walls painted a golden orange-yellow, probably to make it seem cheerful. There were fluffy couches and chairs everywhere, all with floral prints on the covering fabric. There were two dining-sized tables at each end of the massive room and little coffee tables scattered with the couches and chairs. There were people spread out along with the furniture. Some were sitting, some were standing, some were lying down. Some of them were even wearing the same blue shirt that I was. All of them wearing white socks. I scanned the crowd. There were two men and three women talking, but at opposite sides of the room and to themselves. There were a couple people reading intensely. And one man very carefully examining the wall, I pondered what he could see there that I couldn’t. As I scanned, my eyes were drawn back to the ever present reminder; the large sign that hung above the only two windows in the room. It read “New York State Psychiatric Institute”.