On the seventh day, he said, “I’m hungry,” and began to cry.

The room was octagonal, tall, and bathed entirely in white light. Hidden fixtures above the ceiling, behind the walls, and below the floor ensured that there were no shadows to hide in. The room was plain, free of beds or any sign of comfort. Night came when every light snapped off simultaneously, leaving the room utterly black. Morning came when the lights turned back on uncountable hours later.

He woke up disoriented on the first day. He felt groggy, like he’d been asleep for a long time. He walked the circumference of the room and feebly pounded the walls, shouting at first for help, and then later for attention. When that failed, he ran his palms up and down the walls, looking for a window, a door, some type of crack he could pry loose. The walls were smooth, seamless, and cool to the touch.

He remembered his name early in the morning on day two while sitting in the darkness, and his immediate past soon followed. He started screaming once the lights came up. He clawed his face and rent his clothes with his fingers, struggling to tear the plain white shirt and loose white pants off his body. His nails held steady, leaving strips of white hanging from his chest and thighs. His vocal cords eventually buckled under the strain of his screams, and he fell prey to a vicious coughing fit. When he finally caught his breath again, his eyes watery and distant from lightheadedness, it was a ragged and painful wheeze.

He was silent for nearly an hour then. He sat with his back to a wall, he couldn’t tell which, and looked at the ground. His mouth kept working as he sat there, forming shapes that could have been words or wails if he had a voice. Toward the end of the hour, his mouth snapped shut. He raised his head and stood up. He faced the wall behind him, placed both of his hands on it at shoulder level, closed his eyes, and headbutted the wall. He hit it again, and again, and again. He lost count after six, and again after twelve, before his body gave out and he crumpled to the floor.

He awoke on the third day to find his clothes repaired and his wounds gone. He sat quietly right where he woke up with his legs crossed and arms hanging limp at his sides. He kept his neck limp, his head hanging just over his chest. His eyes remained closed, and he sat motionless throughout the day.

He prayed from light to dark on the fourth day, a combination of praise-giving and forgiveness-begging. He spent hours speaking in a low, rough voice, with breaks only coming during the times he bowed until his forehead touched the floor or when he raised hands to the sky. Tears streamed from his eyes as he prayed, leaving his face swollen and distorted. They traced traced dirty streaks down his face, despite the sterile, clinical environment.

Just before lights-out on the fifth day, he coughed and spat blood. It seemed redder than anything he’d ever seen on the white floor. He looked at the blood, unblinking, until the lights went out.

On the sixth day, he railed against his sins, his unseen and unknown captors, and his cell as he paced from wall to wall to wall. He cursed his life, his mother, and every family member whose name he could still remember. The coughing fits that interrupted the cursing like clockwork left blood spattered around the room, little red dots that became increasingly difficult to ignore over the course of the day. The bottoms of his feet spread the blood across the room in a streak of filthy footprints and smears. He’d stopped covering his mouth when he coughed, or even turning his head. He spoke, he coughed, and he continued speaking.

He crumpled on the seventh day. He woke up laying flat in the room, staring at the ceiling. He held the position, initially trying to divine the location of the lights that had tormented him over the past week, but his eyes soon glazed over and his mind drifted. He thought about being found in his apartment, confused and covered in blood, instead. He thought about his family, his friends, his life, and the men in black suits who kicked in his doors and windows what felt like moments before he woke up in a white cell. He thought about the smears of red that covered his walls and he collapsed under the pressure.

He coughed again, directly into the air this time. There was no blood. Just pain. He stood in the center of the room and said, “I’m hungry and I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to be hungry.” The room remained silent and white while his heartbeat thudded in his ears. He waited in the same spot for hours, doing his best to stifle the coughs.

Shortly before lights-out, he knelt, pressing his forehead to the floor once last time. He kissed the ground and said, “Please kill me.”