The Spiral Of Thought

A diary, a window and an eternity to live inside a room. these are the only friends of a young man, kidnapped and trapped inside an immured room, with only one order from his kidnappers: write

Day one... five.

Five days have passed. Five days, since they have locked me in this room, with the company of a reinforced window, a diary, and a pen. For five days they have given me cold water and steaks, from a small door on the wall, lacking any other entrance. I feel like an animal in a cage. This isn't happening. It can't be happening. Not to me. Why, of all people, it has to happen to me? I've never hurt anyone. I'm only twenty-one for God's sake, who on earth should I have hurt? The worst thing I've ever done in my life was puking in Benny's car. I'm a normal person, Christ! Maybe they want money, from my parents or someone. But mine isn't a rich family. Not a poor one, of course, but surely not the target of someone looking for a ransom. Then why they kidnapped me? There must have been a mistake. Surely they mistook me for someone else, there's no other explanation. I can't even understand why they gave me this diary. Do they want a confession? My memoirs? A secret combination? Whoever is reading this diary, please: you took the wrong person. I shouldn't be here. You just need to tell me what you want. I'm sure that whatever you want, I'm the wrong person for your problem.

Day six

They gave it back. Those b******s gave the diary back. I asked what did they want, why they put me in here, throwing the diary from the food door. Then, They gave it back, adding one word at the end of my last transcription.

"Write."

Those b******s. They want to torture me? Is it some sort of fetishism? They want to see me write and write. But for how long? For how long they want to keep me in here? Months? Years? it's going to be like Old Boy for me, if I don't do something. I can trick them. All those b******s. I just need to think and think. I bet they didn't even notice their steps pass through the walls. Everywhere, from every single wall, like scratches of rats. This means that there are hallways, around the room. Maybe a single hallway. Maybe I've been walled inside a building. Yet there's a window in here. My only source of light. The only way I got to see the day changing. But the glass is too murky to be able to see what's on the other side. Maybe it's fake. It must be fake. During these days, I haven't heard any car noise or people. In my anger, I tried to punch my way through the glass or hit the latter with the diary. Something I had already tried the first day. Nothing. Just spilled blood and creaking bones from my knuckles. I can't take this anymore. The room is starting to smell of piss and feces, left to rot in the corners. There must be some sort of air system, since I haven't had any sort of hallucinations. God, I can't wait for Them to come: I will rip their arms off their bodies the moment they will give me another of those goddamn steaks.

Day ten, or eleven

I tried to attack them. I really tried, stabbing their arms with the pen, but nothing happened. The only thing they did was taking my diary. For days they have left me in the dark, among my own feces like a damn animal, until today. I don't know how I couldn't hear them, but they cleaned everything. The entire room smelled of sanitizer and lemon, like a retirement home. And at its center, I found my old friend, with its pages saved from Their fury. The first thing I did was returning to my last entry, with one particular addition at the end, written by their handwriting.

"This is your second mistake. We are doing all of this for your own good, to show you the truth behind your character. If you try to give us the diary back or attack us again, we will leave you here forever."

If only I had been more careful, more vigilant. If only I was able to wake up. I could have seen them cleaning the room, finding out from where they enter the place. Every single time. Every mistake I made in my life was for the lack of attention. Even before I woke up in this room. I should have known that someone was following me. I should have taken the bus, like every single day after every single class. It was even raining, but no! I couldn't wait for another couple of minutes, I had to pass through the old subway. I had to walk the most isolated part of the city during a storm, hearing nothing but the dripping sound of raindrops. If I had taken the bus, I would be at the mart, buying some noodles, chicken wings or god knows what other kinds of edible trash. I would have been watching TV. I miss my TV. I miss the internet. I would have spent the entire night looking pages and pages of wikies or watching tons of videos on youtube from my phone. Maybe Mum would have called me, like she uses to do, to see if everything was okay. She does that all the time since I left home. She would have done the same even that time.

I miss my mom.

Day... does it really matter at this point?

I miss them. I miss all of them. My parents, my brothers, my friends. Even the ones I used to hate. I haven't spoken with a human being for at least a month. I don't care about Them, my kidnappers, anymore. I don't care about not having been awake when they were cleaning the room. I don't care about not having found out from where they came from. I just want to see my family. I want to talk with someone, see the smiling visage of a girl. Feeling someone's breath. But I got nothing of that.

I just feel the burden anchored inside me, dragging me down. I wish I had called them. I wish they would know that I love them. That I really love them. And yet, their calls from home seemed so annoying, when I was still free. I remember I used to ignore them, everytime their names popped out on my phone. As though their love was expendable. I wonder if they are looking for me, if they are worried about me or if they have called the cops. I'm so sorry about giving this pain to them. I'm sorry they had found me drunk while trying to sneak in their house at the end of my senior years. I'm sorry police had to call them, when a group of thugs had reduced me to a bloody pulp and left me on the side of the street, with my money in their pockets. I'm sorry to have ignored their sadness when they saw me leaving home. I'm sorry for everything and more. To have treated them with such coldness. It's just when we are in front of the abyss, when the chance to lose everything is closer and closer, that we realize who we truly are and what does really matter for us. I lived my life with levity as if everything was given to me to waste and throw away, treating affection and friendship like burdens.

Maybe I deserve this imprisonment, but they don't deserve my disappearance.

A new day

This is it. I don't know precisely how many days have passed from my arrival. I think one month and a half. I tried to fight them, to plan, to find a way out of here. But it's impossible. All I can do is waiting. Waiting for them to do their move. If they wanted me dead they would have already killed me. They need me. I don't know for what kind of convoluted plan, but they need me. They added vegetables to my only-meat diet. They are worried about my cholesterol, probably. Nice joke. I have to add it to the others, gonna be a comedian, once out of here. I think there's some space in the diary, among my doodles. I'm almost at the last page. They have changed the pen at least six times, judging by the lack of bite marks around their caps, every time they sent a new one. However, the diary has remained the same, as if they wanted me to finish it. It's all I got, all that matters. They want me to write? Then I will write. If they thought they could break me, they were wrong. I don't care how many diaries they will give me, how many years I will be forced to stay inside, eating steaks and growing fat like a pig. I won't fall, nor I will give them the satisfaction to have destroyed me. I will survive.

Day 3456

There's no way out. I will rot in here.

25th November 2026

You have failed me, like the others. You drove blood out of your pen, instead of ink. I don't know why I'm even writing on this thing. Respect of the experiment? What experiment? They were all failures, all of them. I handpicked them, observed them. They were perfect subjects, good characters. They just needed a little development. They had been kidnapped, forced to write their thoughts, and what I got? Just scrabbles, with some bare to the bones thoughts of a scared home-sick cat. I should have known this operation was going to fail. And now, the police is checking all those walled room of the hotel. They have found the corpses, some of them were too rotten to be identified. One for each room. They won't find them all. They won't find the trapdoors underneath. They won't find the basement and the diaries. there's no reason for them to find this place. It has no meaning to their stories. They are looking for the disappearances during the last years, to shed some light on the screams, cries and shouts heard behind the walls of this hotel. They still don't know who they are. If they are connected to the story, to my story, will they find the diaries? Even if nothing more than scum, they still harbor precious knowledge on the Spiral of thought. No, I shall leave them to the cops. They need some proofs for the end of their story. I'm almost tempted to study them, to follow their case. Maybe I should put away the Janitor's outfit. It's time to terminate this project. But these last two diaries are coming with me. They got closer to my Spiral of Thought, to the key behind human emotions and soul. If I could just carve it on paper, to write it down the human soul and its mechanisms, like an organic collage, it would be a dream to die for.