I quickly jutted forward, my eyes opened super wide. A bolt of energy surged through me. There was darkness. Nothing was visible. My eyes tried to adjust, only to nothing. I pulled some strands of my ginger hair in front of my face, to no result. Complete and utter darkness had swallowed me.

One out-of-tune violin sound later, lights started turning on. Click. Click. Click.

“Welcome Amelia,” the robotic woman’s voice gave me chills. I looked around and tried to find where it was coming from. My surroundings were now visible. I was in a never-ending ominous chamber with curtains drawn over multiple spots. They’re hiding something.

“What are you, who are you, where are you, how do you know my name and where am I?” The robot better reply.

“Ha, ha, ha. What a silly girl you are,” the monotonous voice made me uncomfortable.

“Amelia. Welcome to your trials. It is time you were tested against your fears. I am the Grand Control Machine or GCM for short,” Trials and fears? Great.

“Ready, darling?”

“Ready? I just got here. I’m still not exactly sure what’s going on…..”

“One.”

“But, I don’t have any way to protect myself.” I looked around furiously, hoping to find something.

“Two,” laughed the GCM.

“Oh god,” I sighed.

“Three! Go up to any of the curtains to start.”

What if I don’t want to. Nah, what else is there to do? I walked to the curtain nearest to me on the left. I drew it back,and hoped that nothing would pop out at me when suddenly….nothing! The room seemed completely normal, so I stepped in. I started to get a feeling of foreboding. I kept walking around to see if anything was wrong. It resembled my living room, but had a murky hue. It all seemed very suspicious. Suddenly, my muscles began to ache. I was being twisted into a pretzel. I looked down and saw a flickering straight jacket starting to appear. I tried to yell for help but no words were coming out. Who would help me, anyways? Sweat and tears were trickling down my face. I kept struggling and rocking back and forth to escape. It wouldn’t work. I heard little scratches coming from the wall, and the room grew darker. There was no light switch around the room, so it seemed pretty odd. Then, it hit me. Literally. Spiders. Any kind you can imagine. Black widows, tarantulas, you name it. Great, just dandy.  A chill went down my spine. That better not be a spider. I wriggled to get free, but the more I struggled, the harder it was.

“To accomplish something, you must picture yourself doing it.” These words rang in my head. I worked hard to focus within this madness. I saw myself pulling my arms apart and getting out of the strong grasp of the jacket. A bolt of energy surged through me, and I felt all warm. I tried pulling my arms apart again and it was surprisingly easy. As I got loose, I looked around the room to find where the highest point was, so I could get away from the spiders. As I was thinking, the room rearranged itself and there were no high points left. Why are my eyelids getting heavy? The spiders closed in. It was hard to concentrate when I could hear the crinkling of spider legs all around me. I tried to tune it out but it was quite challenging. I minimized the sound and pictured myself in an empty room with no spiders. My field of view went black. I opened my eyes and it wasn’t any better. I was enveloped by darkness, just like when I had first arrived. I took a deep breath of the thick air and hoped that there wasn’t anything else within the darkness. I closed my eyes but I couldn’t picture anything. How would I get out of this one? Ugh, I’m stuck. Great. Wait a minute…….

“You’re not real! I will not die. I CANNOT DIE.” I stiffened my jaw and stared into the darkness. It started to dissipate.

“Very good, Amelia. You have passed your trial. You deserve to live,” said GCM.

                               
I jutted forward, my eyes wide awake. I could see the familiar darkness of my room. I felt all shaky, sweaty and worried. Somebody was looming over me…..

“What’s going on? You’ve been turning like crazy and shouting in your sleep,” I confirmed the someone was my sister.

“Well I was in this dark room and I couldn’t see anything and and and…..,”

“And what?” she was growing impatient.

“I. I. I can’t remember.”