Waking up naked in a bedroom she did not recognize was not ideal, but hey, it’s the risk you take when you decide to drink to oblivion.

There was nothing wrong with being a party girl; debauchery was basically the meaning of life for a twenty-two year old, she told herself as she felt her way around the room.

Her sister probably did not share her views on life, but who cares? Her sister was so boring. She reached seemed to be a long, white, shapeless dress that was definitely not something she’d own, but put it on just the same.

Like moths attracted to a light, memories of the night before slowly came to her.

She was attending a dinner party at her sister’s and brother-in law’s and the evening started out civilized enough until she hit that Jack Daniels bottle. Fast forward a couple of hours later, she had jumped naked into the pool.

It might not have been the brightest of her ideas, but this is how she hoped to catch the eye of her brother-in-law’s business partner. He was young, hot, rich and a known womanizer, but had not spared her a glance until she put the party-girl mode on. What was a girl to do?

Then an uneasy realization crawled up on her. There were no windows in the room she was in. There was a door, but there were no windows. Why would there be no windows unless she was underground? This prompted a sometimes dormant claustrophobia she had, to start fiddling with her nerves.

As she ran to open the door, she half expected it to be locked like in a generic horror movie. It wasn’t. It opened easily, albeit noisily, to a long corridor riddled with doors. From where she stood she could not tell where the neon-lit corridor ended.

Her sister had her institutionalized! It was the only explanation she could come up with that made sense. She had no greater fear than being put into the “mad house.” Yes, she had a few problems, but she hadn’t tried to kill herself in over a year. It was just alcohol now. Alcohol and partying.

“Damaged.”

It was what was written on the door across from the bedroom she was exiting. It scared her. It was what some people had called her including her brother-in-law. She walked past it as she wondered that if she was indeed at some kind on institution where did all the people go.

She walked a long time in what seemed to be a maze of interconnecting corridors with infinite number of doors. She figured someone had placed her in what only could be called “a labyrinth” as a form of punishment or a cruel joke. The “Saw” movies came to mind and a shiver run down her spine.

“I will not drink anymore!” she shouted to no one she could see, “I swear!”

She did not think her sister would prank her like that, but as more of the memories came back, she distinctly remembered leaving her sister’s house with the hot business partner for whom she had yearned for months. Did HE put her there?