Room

John remembered when he'd awoken that first night. His eyes had opened suddenly and sensing the change in temperature, he knew that consciousness had wrenched him from the warm ambience of sleep back into the grey glassy air of early morning. He had sighed and fidgeted, and by the light, the way it revealed only certain aspects of the room, he tried to judge what time it was.

His feet and shoulders felt cold and he knew at once that things weren't quite right, not the same as they should be. Odd, unfamiliar patterns emerged as he looked about him, and struggles to form nearby objects into recognisable shapes.

He turned to reach for his smartphone charging on the nightstand beside the bed but his hand struck something solid, wooden, nearer. He ran his hand against and around it and thought it some kind of chest. His hand fell to the bed covers and he saw they were not his and as he moved under them he realised that he was naked, not how he would usually be in bed.

John's stomach hollowed and he quickly recounted the night before, organised events into some order in an effort to remember with certainty why he wasn't at home; but nothing came. No memory of place, of arriving here in someone else's house.

He sat up in the bed trying to stifle a discomfort of rising panic but as his eyes adjusted to the light, more and more of the room became apparent. He recognised the general configuration; the window alcoves, where the door was, but the chimney breast now had a fireplace and the walls, once an inoffensive and unimaginative neutral colour, were now pink and splattered with what appeared to be bluish blobs of paint. Why was this room so similar to his? Was he in another property in Castle Road? He didn't know his neighbours.

As he became more alert he rubbed his eyes quite firmly trying to illicit some sensible reason, to jolt his memory into revealing an explaination. He hadn't drunk last night and he certainly was not someone who'd ever found himself unable to remember events from just the night before. Especially if it ended with him in a strange bed.

He saw the child just at the moment she spoke to him. John threw up his arms and hid his head behind them momentarily before, breathing heavily now, he looked again at the little girl who had been sitting quietly watching him. She giggled.

'Hello,' she said.

John's throat clenched in a dry painful swallow and he remained silent for a few moments before responding.

'Hello,' he replied. His voice croaky and trembling.

'What are you doing in my bed?' She asked.

John tried to calm his breathing. 'I...I don't really know,' he said quietly and drew his feet up against himself tucking the duvet under his legs to hide all of his nakedness. The duvet barely covered him and it was now that he saw he was in a small single bed, a child's bed; her bed. He desperately wanted to wake up but he knew, he just knew this wasn't a dream and the consequences of everything that was unfolding began to illustrate something quite terrifying in his mind.

John began to see the girl a little more clearly. She sat on a large bean bag in the darkest corner of the room wearing a yellow nightdress and hugging a pink bear with two hearts on its front. Rocking her feet from side to side she continued to study him, this stranger in her bed. Unbothered that John didn't know why he was there, she bit her lip and looked away thinking of another question. Long perfectly straight strawberry blonde hair fell around her face which was also still partially obscured by the mottling of shadows. Suddenly, she drew a large breath and excitedly asked 'What's your name?'

Did he know her? 'My name is John,' he said before asking her, 'what's yours?'

'Holly.' She smiled and squeezed the bear.

'Hello Holly,' John said and Holly giggled again.

He looked about the room which the blooming light had now clearly revealed. The pink walls were interspersed with a repeating blue stencilled pattern of jungle animals and here and there posters and children's paintings were fixed crookedly to the walls with sticky tape. He looked down at the skirting board, the radiators under both windows and an electric socket just to the left of it. These were things he saw from his own bed at home. Exactly the same, and in the same places. Apart from decoration and the missing bed, dresser and side table, this was undoubtedly his room albeit now filled with an assortment of children's furniture, toys and belongings.

Something else struck John suddenly as he took in his surroundings again.

Where were the girl's parents? Surely they must be sleeping in another room and would soon discover him here in their child's bed. Naked. A cold sickness swirled in his stomach and he closed his eyes until the feeling passed.

He wondered if he might get up right now, open the bedroom door, run down the stairs that he knew would be immediately on his right, step through the hall and open the front door and escape to.... to where? He didn't know.

This was an unusual fear that gripped him, and one he felt deeply as everything he understood and believed about things was unravelling before him. He simply couldn't make sense of his situation and began to consider if he was actually ill and perhaps hallucinating in some way. He remembered times in the past when the boundary had been blurred, moments of lucid dreaming but they were always washed with a muddiness that anchored him in unconsciousness. This was different and he felt the explicitness in the fibres of his body; excited nerve endings unfettered by sleep firing into the depths of his brain telling him that he was very much awake and this was the reality he needed to deal with now.

Holly was still quietly watching him, unperturbed but curious. Despite the light now, the shadows had not entirely lifted from her face but John realised they were mostly bruises in various shades of healing. He studied her more carefully and again he could see dark marks on the areas of her arms and legs not covered by her nightdress.

John winced when he saw the shapes of fingers in the bruises on Holly's arms. He took another look around the room and noticed a plastic horse and unicorn, each with brightly coloured manes and tails standing on the mantelpiece. There were also posters of cartoon characters and pop bands from long ago which John recognised from his own childhood. They were favourite things of his sister Kate. She adored those horses. He remembered hiding them once at the back of the airing cupboard and she screamed and screamed at him to tell her where they were. She had actually vomited with the turmoil and John had felt so guilty. It was, he knew, the moment in his life when he truly understood the consequences of his actions but more than that he felt a deep empathy for his sister whom he knew had other more frightening things to deal with; things that he couldn't stop.

After that day, they had become very close. She was three years younger than him and as they grew up together he protected her with a ferocity that made his mother feel quite uncomfortable at times. John would watch Kate's every move seemingly waiting for an opportunity to rescue her from danger, an unseen and yet to transpire threat. After everything, his mother realised that John must have known what was going on. This was why he took it so badly they said; when Kate died.

John turned to Holly.

'Holly. How old are you, I mean do you know what year you were born?'
John thought she looked about five or six.

She had noticed him looking at the posters and said, 'do you like the Smurfs?'

Holly looked down at her fingers. 'I'm five, six in November.'

John repeated his question, though he wasn't sure a five year would know what year they were born.

'Holly, do you know what year you were born? I know it was five years ago, so what year do you think that would be?'

'That's easy,' she said. 'Nineteen seventy nine.'

John's mettle took another blow and he struggled to contain his emotions. Nineteen seventy nine. The same year Kate was born.

'Are you OK?' Holly asked. 'You look a bit sad now. Before I thought you looked scared but now I think you do look a bit sad.'

John forced a smile. 'I'm fine Holly. I know, tell me about your bear,' he said in an effort to distract her.

'This is Love-a-lot,' she said enthusiastically holding up the pink bear towards him and shaking it from side to side.

John already knew the name of the bear as he probably knew the names of the other toys in the room.

Who was this girl? Was she supposed to be Kate in some way, as a child when it all would have started. John now faced the dilemma of his own escape and the rescue of Holly. Clearly she had her own abuser. Could he take her with him, down the stairs and out of the front door as he had mapped out in his head. Find a police station or hospital, explain that he had found her and suspected she was being hurt, in danger from someone. But who? Her parents? Her father, that's what they'd think anyway.

John couldn't offer a rational explanation to himself, so expecting to convince others was probably delusional. No he decided that he needed to get himself out of here first and then return with the authorities.

He thought maybe this was a test, and how he acted now would determine whether he passed or not. Someone must have set this up to make him think he was back in the eighties, reliving his childhood with Kate. But this wasn't their family home in Gloucester. This was twenty seven Castle Street, where he had lived on his own for the last nine years and now in had been turned into a shrine to nineteen eighty four.

Surely though with such an elaborate plan, going the extra mile to fully recreate his real childhood home wouldn't have been that difficult. Bit of plasterboard and paint, they do it all the time on those shows. Twenty four hours, they rebuild people's houses. This was poor really, very poor.

Was it the girl's parents? He was certain he didn't know Holly. Unless it was friends of friends, that sort of thing. People just sticking their fucking noses in.

'Holly,' he said. 'Where are your parents?'

Holly giggled again. 'Silly, you mean our parents.'

John swallowed. 'No I mean your parents. Are they somewhere else in the house?'

Holly screwed her face up. 'John you are teasing me again. You know where they are. You always know where they are and you still ask me every time.' Holly slapped her legs punctuating her reply.

John became agitated. His fear and confusion escalating once more as Holly actually appeared to confirm his suspicions about this whole situation. He scratched at his arm where the needle marks were.

He calmed himself quickly by acknowledging that Holly was just acting a role in this experiment and to be fair he thought, she was doing a very good job.

'Holly. This is really important. I need you to tell me. You may have told me before but I can't help you, I mean we can't escape unless you answer my question now. Please Holly, I only want to know where they are.'

Holly continued to giggle, eventually breaking into hysterical laughter; tears and saliva escaping from her eyes and mouth

John imagined the bones of dogs, half chewed, sinewy and ragged, bubbling with spit. He tried hard to control his anger and talk evenly without raising his voice. He spoke is a forced whisper.

'Holly, Daddy is very upset, now please answer my question.'

Before Holly could answer there was a sharp double knock at the door. It opened and a man appeared.

'John, you have a visitor,' the man, said stepping aside to let a woman into the room.

'Hello John,' she said smiling.

'Hello Kate,' he replied.

By Darren Seeley