Author: Adam Oster, Adventure Novelist

Jane stares at the video in front of her in confusion. To her, it appears to be a real-time video feed from the point of view of a baby.  Unfortunately for her, this means that a majority of the film is either darkness, due to the child’s sleeping, or random blurry visuals combined with ear-piercing screams.

Jane finds that she doesn’t mind the screaming much.  It’s almost as though the child were joining her in her cries for help, even if the sound from the film is much more likely to be drowning out the sound of Jane’s screams.

Time has lost all meaning to Jane now. The baby seems to sleep nearly as often as Jane finds herself passed out from a long period of screaming. And as soon as Jane begins screaming again, the child itself starts up. Jane questions whether the child can somehow hear her.

Some days, when Jane has found herself incapable of screaming any longer, she takes to looking for a way out of the room. She walks along the walls, pounding and kicking at them and the floor, hoping for some sign of weakness which could allow her escape.

She finds nothing.

As time goes on, the pictures on the screen gain additional focus. Jane finds herself staring at the smiling face of the baby’s mother as she looks down at the camera. Something about the soft smile on her face comforts Jane.  When that mother coos at her and says everything is going to be okay, Jane finds herself believing it.

The parents of this child seem to be very concerned with how often it has been screaming. Each time Jane and the child start up again, the mother and the father check in on it with growing frustration. Jane watches on as they take the child in to a doctor to ensure there isn’t something physically wrong with it.

Jane begins to wonder how much control she may have over the child. And more importantly, whether or not this is actually happening. Perhaps, she thinks, she can use this odd connection to help her out of her current situation.

Something about this whole situation doesn’t quite add up. Even beyond the fact that the baby seems to respond to her emotions and actions. Even past how this room seemingly has no exit, or that Jane doesn’t remember anything prior to the moment she ended up in it.

For one thing, Jane hasn’t eaten or drank anything since she arrived here.

A woman is thrown roughly to the floor in a dark room.  The room is warm and filled with sounds, not only of the screams from the woman as she slowly becomes aware that she is alone.  The other sounds are muffled, as though coming from a separate room, but loud.

Once her eyes adjust to the darkness, she becomes aware of a faint red glow illuminating everything.  The light is just bright enough to allow her to inspect her surroundings. 

She is in a theater.  In the center of the room is one single red chair.  The rest of the room is empty, outside of the red curtain covering the wall in front of the chair.

There are no doors, no windows, nothing outside of walls, chair, and curtain.

Even the light appears to have no source, almost as though it is seeping through the walls somehow.

Within the muffled sounds, she can make out the sound of a woman screaming as if in intense pain.  She breathes heavily between the screams, exhaustion apparent in her labored breaths.  The woman sounds as though she has been suffering this same torture for hours already.

Our woman, we’ll call her Jane, fears this same torture is in store for her next. Yet, she can’t think of any reason why she should be tortured.  She can’t even remember anything prior to entering this room.  Her name is gone, her life is gone, and most disturbingly, how she wound up inside this room is gone.

The room around her appears to grow smaller.  Each scream from the woman causes Jane to feel more and more crowded by the dark red walls of the room around her.

She runs from corner to corner, inspecting every inch of the theater, praying she somehow missed the exit.  She becomes frantic as the woman’s screams increase in frequency.

She looks toward the curtains as they open.

The light emanating from the screen behind them is blinding, forcing Jane to squint.  A blurred image appears.  The screams of the woman have now stopped and loud sounds of joy fill the room.  Joy, and relief. 

A baby cries.

Jane walks up to the screen, noting how the blurred image slowly takes shape into colored blobs.  She watches in question, wondering whether she is viewing a birth from the baby’s perspective, or if this is some sort of Rorshach test showing her some innate want for a child of her own.

Jane pokes at the corners of the screen, hoping to find some way around it into some back corridor which might allow her escape, only to find that the screen is simply an image projected upon a white wall.

She falls to the floor.  Terror fills her mind as she becomes aware of her predicament.

And confusion regarding how she ever wound up here in the first place.