Our Whole Lives

The beeping continued until Bethany could no longer ignore it. She groaned and slammed her fist against the alarm clock. She sat up and rubbed her eyes before blinking the sleep away. She slid out of her bed, feeling her duvet slide off her bare arms. Her arms were thinner and whiter than paper, and seemed liable to break without warning. She abandoned her pajamas and pulled on jeans and a green sweater. Her hair—only a fraction of a shade darker than her skin—hung limply at her shoulders until she pulled her brush through the tangles.
She dug through the mess of clothes until she found what she was looking for: the box of energy bars. Shoving her hand in the box, Bethany extracted a package and heard it crinkle as she opened it. Mindlessly, she ate the meal she had eaten every day of her life. Throwing the wrapper on the ground, Bethany did not notice that the cardboard box she dropped beside it was empty.
Bethany opened her bedroom door and took five steps until she was facing the front door. She unlocked the door and locked it behind her when she exited. As she walked the familiar route to work, she inspected her shoes. She looked up only to unlock and lock doors. As always, her cubicle was waiting for her.
It was another day like any other. She went through the same motions, took the same steps, and opened the same doors. She sorted through a pile of papers, the pile of papers that had been on her desk her whole life. She did not know why she sorted the papers, she only knew that she had to alphabetize until her shift was over, but she did not remember being told why. In fact, she didn’t remember ever being told to do so.
At the end of her shift, Bethany stood up, not realizing she had sorted the last paper in a stack that should last a lifetime. She walked back to her bedroom. She took off her clothes. She took a shower. She put on her pajamas. She fell asleep. This was her day, and it had been for longer than she could remember. But then, Bethany did not remember much.

That next morning, something changed. And for Bethany, change was the end of her world. Her tiny, routine, mind-numbing world. Bethany once again woke, dressed, and picked up her box of energy bars. But her fingers met only cardboard, and, upon peering into the box, her suspicions were confirmed. The box was empty. Panicking, Bethany searched her entire room, but found nothing. I’ll have to go to the store, she thought to herself. I don’t think I’ve ever been to the store she realized. Funny. She had always had food around.
With a jolt of horror, Bethany realized she was fifteen minutes late. Shoving her feet into shoes, she rushed out her door, she was one step away from the door, when she heard a click.
That noise. That small, common noise may have been the first sound Bethany ever heard that she had not made. Astonished, Bethany looked up and saw a boy.
At least, she thought it was a boy. Definitely human, that much was certain. She had never seen any humans but herself, but he was definitely human. He had the same skin, the same hair, the same watery blue eyes. And those watery blue eyes were just as wide in shock as Bethany’s.
“You shouldn’t be here,” She accused.
“You shouldn’t be here,” He countered. “This is my house.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Bethany protested. “This is my house, it’s always been my house. You can’t be in here, I locked up last night.”
“What are you talking about?” The boy demanded. “I locked up last night. How could you have been in here? Were you waiting for me?”
“Of course I wasn’t,” Bethany laughed. “I was in my room.”
“No you couldn’t have been,” the boy answered. “You must be crazy. It’s only my room. My room and the front door.”
“No,” Bethany sighed. “You are the crazy one. No, if you look…”
Bethany stopped short. Because, for the first time, Bethany looked. On the right of the door, was her familiar door. Yet, on the left of the door, was another door. They boy must have come from the door. Bethany met his eyes. He had seen it too.
“How could I not have noticed that,” Bethany gasped. There’s an entire room I never saw before.”
“But there’s more,” the boy insisted. “There are two more rooms.”
“And more,” Bethany continued. “There’s a hall also.”
The boy saw it too, and he mirrored Bethany’s look of panic. “I thought it was just me,” He explained.
“Me too,” Bethany admitted. But it wasn’t. Bethany took several deep breaths to steady herself. “I’m Bethany,” She managed to say.
“I’m Calvin,” the boy said.
“Well Calvin,” Bethany said. “Do you have any food? I had just realized I don’t have any.”
“Me neither,” Calvin admitted. “I was gong to go to the store.”
“Do you know where the store is?”
“No.”
“Then how do we know there is one?”
“There is. There just has to be. I don’t have any food left. If there’s three rooms and a hall I never noticed, there has to be a store.”
“Everything we thought was real is a lie,” Bethany cried. “And there’s so much we never knew about.”
“Who are you?”
Bethany and Calvin spun around to see a boy, still in his pajamas, standing in the doorway of one of the new rooms.
“What are you doing in my house?”
“Please,” Bethany pleaded. “Listen, this is not your house. I’m really sorry. Just look around you. You’ll see.”
The boy squinted at the strangers, but inspected his house. Bethany grimaced as she saw the look of pure horror spread across his face. “I’m really sorry,” She repeated.
“Who are you?” The boy asked.
“I’m Bethany,” Bethany said. “And this is Calvin. Until this morning we thought we were the only ones also. What’s your name?”
“I’m Blair,” he stammered. “We need to get out of here.”
Bethany nodded and took the last three steps to the door. She unlocked the door, fully expecting to exit into the world. But, when Bethany stepped outside, she was horrified by the sight before her.
Calvin and Blair stepped out behind her and gasped. “It’s another room,” Calvin realized. “We’ve never left the house. Our whole lives…”
“Look,” Blair interrupted, pointing across the room. The entire room was full of doors, and, on the other side of the room, another boy opened his door, locked it behind him and crossed the room, not looking up. He opened another door, the same door Bethany, Calvin, and Blair had opened every day of their lives. The boy was going to work. “We should follow him,” Blair decided.
Bethany, Calvin, and Blair followed the boy into the familiar room with the familiar cubicles, but for the first time, they noticed the people. It was as if, this morning, unlike every other morning, suddenly there were people to house the cubicles. Bethany had always assumed there would be other people in the cubicles next to her, but she never found it odd that she had never seen a single one.
“Oy,” Calvin shouted at a woman who was perched in her chair, sifting through a prodigious pile. “Hey?” Calving raised his voice.
“Stop it,” Bethany protested. “Stop it, she can’t hear you. Not yet.”
“Why are there people?” Calvin demanded. “Why don’t they know we are here?”
“I don’t know,” Bethany cried. “Nothing is right anymore. Things were better before. Don’t try to ruin it for that woman. She still has plenty of papers left.”
“Was it really?” Blair asked. “Better, I mean. Was it better to do the same things every day? Was it? Would you go back?”
Bethany shut her mouth, not sure how to answer. Not sure what she believed. “I don’t know. But whatever happened to us, it’s not right. We have to get out of here.”
“I know,” Calvin said. “But we won’t last long without food.”

Bethany, Calvin and Blair traveled for days. They found rooms just like the ones they came from, all with the people who couldn’t see them. They stumbled through one more door and collapsed onto a carpet. Bethany felt a great weight on her chest. Her body could not perform the most basic actions. So this is what dying feels like she thought.
The carpet in this room felt different, soft. Green. Bethany had always like green. She looked up at the ceiling. Light blue with large white shapes. Funny color for a ceiling. Glancing at the walls, Bethany assumed she must be a very big room, because the wall went on, and on, and on…