Entry: I'm new in an old world

**This story is an entry for the 500-word contest. I hope you enjoy!**

Ba dum

Ba dum

Ba dum

That’s the sound of my heartbeat, thudding away.

Ba dum

Ba dum

Ba dum

All is quiet, I can only hear my breathing and the steady beating of my heart. And the machines, whirring and humming, like usual…

Wait, are they?

Ba dum

Ba dum

Ba dum

I can’t hear them….

Ba dum

Ba dum

Ba dum, ba dum, ba dum...

I can’t hear them. They’re… that’s impossible. The machines have always been plugged into me, for as long as I remember.

Ba dum, ba dum, ba dum ba dum ba dum...

I cautiously try to move my arm, something I haven’t been able to do since the tranquilisers were introduced last year, something that by all means I shouldn’t be able to do….

Ba dum, ba dum, ba dum, ba dum ba dum ba dum ba dum ba dum...

And it works.

It works, my arm’s aching but I tenderly lift it. And I slide my now miraculously working limb down my other arm, where somehow I can’t feel the wires and needles that are usually deeply embedded into my skin. They’re not there, gone as if they never existed in the first place. They’re not there.

*They’re not there.*

***They’re not there!***

A sudden thought arises within the confusion.

*I’m free!*

I’m free, *I’m free,* **I’m free**…

I push myself up, my blankets tumbling off my bed and landing haphazardly on the floor as I do so. And I look up, I look at the room that I haven’t been able to properly see in a year. And I *look*.

And I *see*.

And what’s in front of me makes my stomach backflip itself into oblivion and my perception of the world spin off kilter uncontrollably.

The door is unlocked.

I know that might not seem strange or unusual to you, but it’s something that I can’t even recall. I haven’t been outside of this room, my room, in around 3 years? 4? And the door has been firmly locked and bolted this whole time. The only thing that has helped me to not completely forget that a door, a way out, exists there is the occasional appearance of one of the scientists. I can’t really remember their faces, or what they do or what they’re here for. Honestly, I can’t even remember what I’m here for. But I remember some things about the scientists, like their smell. Oh, their smell…

It smells like soap, but unpleasant soap; a bitter stench that overwhelms your senses and threatens to devour your receptors whole. I remember that it lingered afterwards, the pungent odour hanging in the air for sometimes even weeks at a time. I remember that always when a scientist leaned over me, checking the machinery that was everlastingly connected to me and showed all my vitals was working properly my nostrils were invaded. I could smell the stench, taste the stench… even see it. I always yearned to get away from it, or to even simply cough or sneeze, but I couldn’t. that’s another  things the machinery did, it filled me with drugs that made me loose contact with the earth, stop me being able to move, make me more helpless than a new-born. But I can move now, and when I breathe in only a slight linger of the previously furiously overwhelming stench reaches my nose.

That’s strange.

But there have been many stranger occurrences today, so this one doesn’t shock me as much as the others did.

But it’s still weird, and it makes me feel uneasy.

But being uneasy shouldn't stop me from doing what I want, after all, all the great heroes in books triumphed, even though they were uneasy at first

So I step forward.

And I walk out of my room for the first time in years.

And I see him.