Black Box Fears | Teen Ink

Black Box Fears

June 25, 2024
By Three-Thirty SILVER, Memphis, Tennessee
Three-Thirty SILVER, Memphis, Tennessee
5 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshipped." -Andy Weir, The Martian


An empty black room,

The darkness so thick

That light could never penetrate


A deafening silence

Cuts through like a knife

And cleaves your mind in two


Your mind,

Sliced in half

Has now shattered,

Slivers of it

Carving into your skull


All thoughts of yours

Vanish,

All feelings instantly

Dissipate


The silence has taken hold

Of your head and heart,

Leaving only pain in its wake


You are controlled by the darkness,

The shadows make you their puppet


Their movements are copied by you,

Spiders tying their silk

To your hands and feet


Wisps of fog trail past your ankles

And the cold begins to set

In to your bones


Shivers slide down your spine

And your hair stands on end,

The cold has made you numb

To the pain inside your head


Slowly, you lose the feeling

You had in your limbs,

The sensation you previously felt

Left with only faint tingling

And twitching fingers


Then the room becomes bone dry,

Electricity crackling in the air

A jolt spikes through your nerves

And you regain what you had lost,

Flexing your limbs at will


But then the shadows take hold again,

The spider silk reasserting its control,

You fight to make the darkness surrender

But your efforts bring you no avail


Slowly,

Quietly,

You make up your mind

And surrender control,

Knowing that the shadows,

Though taking your body,

Have not taken your mind


Your breath fogs in front of you,

Your eyes close

To the empty darkness of the room,

Your mind stops racing


And you devise a plan.


You stay there,

Suspended only by the silk

And as the air cools down,

The electricity begins to leave,

And your breathing becomes heavy,

Steady,

And calm


Allow the tension in your body to

Let go

And watch as everything

Begins to

Glow


The silence remains, but a softness,

A sweet feeling,

Fills the room

And a smooth light

Enters the space around you


The strings drop

And you are set free,

Your eyes opening


The light begins to dull,

Twinkling pinpricks

Encompassing your vision


A sliver of light shining

From a heavy crescent moon

Hanging above you


The room

Is no longer a room


You find yourself in a meadow,

Flowing grasses and wildflowers

Ripple in a slight breeze


A warmth encompasses you

And a slight contentedness

Settles into your heart


No longer trapped,

You feel as if you’re soaring,

The hills rolling beneath you,

Trees no more than dandelion puffs

Standing up

Amongst the darkened color

Of the flowers and grass


Slowly,

Though,

You near the edge

Of this reality,

Approaching a deep ravine,

A depthless pit of black


As you peer in,

A sound escapes you

A soft gasp,

The first thing you’ve heard

Since you awoke,

Suspended in the black darkness

Of that room


It is only then

That you realize,

Though you have felt

And seen

This world,

There has been


No coppery taste of blood

As your mind shattered,


No sound as you screamed,

Terrified,

And alone

In that room


No scent of dust within the room

Nor the smell of the flowers

Or the grass and trees


You wonder to yourself:

Where am I?

What is this place?


And softly,

As your voice bounces

Around the hills,

A voice from the pit answers:


Your mind.


But what does that mean?


How can you be in your mind

With your mind fully shattered


How can you feel the terror,

The pain and the dread,

Of being alone in the darkness,

The only other thing there monsters

And shadows


How can you see

The darkness

With your eyes wide open,

A darkness

That could never exist

In reality


How can any bit of this fever dream

Be summed up

Into something as simple as

A nightmare


How can such true feelings

Exist in a dreamscape

A place

That's not even remotely

Real


How?


It’s—

Well,

It’s hard to explain


The voice says


It’s a soft voice,

One of reason

And of thought

And kindness, too


Think of it as…

As you said,

A dream


It is a dream,

A hyper-realistic dream


A dream

So real

That it bleeds

Into reality


A dream

So true

That it seems

To exist outside of time

And to play

Against every rule of

Waking world


A dream

So fantastical

That it seems

To never have an end

Nor beginning

And only exists

Within a realm

Of your own crazed

Imagination.


Does that make sense?


You feel yourself standing

Amongst the grass again

As if reality

Has come crashing back down

Upon you


I…

Think so?


Your voice responds,

Not sure how to answer

Otherwise


This dream,

The voice continues,

Has become a reality


A world in of its own


Your head tilts in thought

Like a simulation?


There is a feeling,

A sort of sound—

Like laughter

Almost—

As the voice responds


Similar,

Yes.


You could think of it that way


Your mind begins spinning,

But the landscape doesn’t change


But why?

You wonder


Why is it

That reality grounded me


Both literally and figuratively


But I still am trapped

Within my mind


How is this reality

But also not?


How is it that my mind

Though shattered and broken

Can explain the questions I have

When I don’t know the answers


I can’t be the only one in this

Broken

Reality dreamscape


How would one answer that question

When,

In your mind,

You are always alone


How are you in your mind

With others to share it


The air shifts

And the voice sighs,

The mood of the meadow

Changing


It’s complicated


And more convoluted

Than a simple

Yes or no


The pit begins to shrink,

Forming a blob

Of the darkest black imaginable,

Slowly morphing

Into a humanoid shape


A person

Now stands in front of you,

Its form that of whomever you trust most


The voice continues to speak,

The person gesturing

As it does so


The answer

Is that no mind is entirely alone

There’s always someone else

Within you,

Whether or not you allow it to be


It’s like your conscience

But from a person you trust


The person you would listen to

For the right answer

To anything


And a version of them,

The version you see them as

Lives here,

In your brain


As me.



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