This is a sanitised version of Hell. You’d think – damn, I thought – that Hell should be fire and brimstone and all that crap. No. It’s eggshell blue walls, a white floor, and a white ceiling. Bleach white, mind. Not normal white. This is sting-your-eyes, make-you-want-to-piss-yourself white. Fiery to the touch. Toxic to the tongue.

Not that I’ve gotten desperate enough to lick anything yet. They still feed you in Hell. Bland stuff, reminiscent of hospital food. Once a day. I’m guessing it’s in the middle, or at least that’s how I’ve slotted it into my ‘routine’ of eat-shit-sleep-repeat, but I don’t know for sure. Hell doesn’t have windows. When the door swings open, I get a snapshot of the corridor outside: more God-awful white and eggshell blue, masked-up figures stomping about in battle gear with batons and tasers in their belts, and doctor-y looking people swishing about in lab coats.

This isn’t even fucking ‘Day One’. I don’t know why I wrote that. I’ve been here for… I don’t know how long, but I’ve slept a lot. Eaten a bit. Pissed all around the toilet they stuck in the corner of this cell to see if it would piss them off – don’t mind the pun – only for the bloke with the food to take one look at it, shrug, and piss right off – again, sorry about that. Had to clean it myself. The most response I’ve gotten out of them was from my most recent trial: bang on the door and scream about wanting paper and a pen until they give me paper and a pen. Not the most catchy of titles, but it was Goddamn successful.

I swear this is some sort of kids’ pen, though. Chunky enough to not be swallowed or accidentally pushed into any child-sized face holes. Nostrils and ears, that sort of thing. I guess they don’t want me deciding I’ve had enough of this place and offing myself, which is fair enough, given that they’ve created the perfect recipe for someone to want to do something like that. Shove them in a box with a bed and a bog and only feed them once a day, with the lights on all-the-fucking-time so sleeping gives them a headache and so does waking up.

I wouldn’t even mind if I was here for some good reason. That’s the fucking kicker. I don’t know if they knocked me about too much on the way in or if I’m just going insane, but I can’t remember anything before waking up here. I remember the moment: I opened my eyes to that stupid ceiling and thought I was in my room at my Mum’s, and then the memory was gone. I know I have a Mum, and I know I had a room at her house when I was a kid, but I couldn’t tell you her name or the street she lived on. It’s a big fucking blur that gives me the shits whenever I think about it for too long, so, for the sake of my nose, I’ve decided to just focus on raising as much hell as I can in Hell, for the duration of my stay. However long that is.

There’s noise, at least. I’m not in complete sensory deprivation. Lovely screams every so often – really adds to the atmosphere – and footsteps, up and down, constantly. Everyone’s moving outside, in that corridor. Sometimes I hear metal clinking and wonder if it’s handcuffs, and if I’m in some sort of new-wave jail, but I’ve never been cuffed in here. Not that I remember. Having a massive gap where my recent memories – and my distant memories, to be fair – should be is really fucking frustrating.

There is a mirror on the wall by the door, a long rectangle. I can see my entire body in it, and there’s something disquietingly unfamiliar about it. The scraggly beard doesn’t surprise me; after even a couple of days in this state, without a razor or anything, there’s not much I can do in terms of personal grooming. I assume they’ve left me in my own clothes, just dark jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt. No extras, though, and I’m starting to notice the greyed sweat patches under my armpits and across my back, if I twist enough to see that. My socks are feeling disgusting too, and I don’t even have shoes to hide them in.[OL1] 

The rest of the room is boring enough. Bare-bones bed with a mattress and a blanket, no pillow. Toilet, as I’ve mentioned. No shower – though I really wish they’d put one in. I don’t even care if that little rectangle box up on the ceiling is a camera. They can livestream my boring daily washes to the world, if they want, as long as I actually get the fucking daily washes.

It’d be nice to know who ‘they’ are, too. I’ve been thinking maybe I’m some sort of experiment. Either I did something stupid when I was drunk and got thrown in here as a test of a new type of minimum-security prison sort of thing, or I accidentally signed up to some weird medical trial… probably also while I was intoxicated. Still, I wouldn’t describe this as ‘minimum security’ and there’s been no sort of medical things going on. I haven’t had bloods drawn or anything.

Regardless, I’m going to be the most annoying guinea pig they’ve ever had. If it is a voluntary thing and I’ve just been the stupidest twat on the planet, then I’m sure they’ll let me out after enough banging on the door. Well, not exactly sure. My palms are still bright red from the trial for the paper and pen, and it feels like heat is constantly rushing out of them. Maybe I should’ve punched the door. Nah. Something tells me that my knuckles are more delicate than my palms, at least when it comes to slamming on metal.

Hold on – speaking of. I swear someone’s knocking on that door. Not me, I mean; someone from the other side.