I was the last person on earth, until I heard a knock on the door… I didn’t know where I was or why I was there, but I knew I had to answer the door. As I walked closer I could hear the knocking getting louder and louder…knock knock KNOCK… Once I reached the door, whatever was knocking seemed to be able to sense that I had reached the door, because it had stopped. As I reached for the door handle I noticed everything was starting to blur, my vision, the walls of the house, even the landscape outside, all of it was blending together, like the end of a dream… Turning the handle, I realized that maybe leaving was a bad idea, but then again, what could be worse than this empty, house. Mustering all the courage I had, I turned the handle and walked through the door, but when I stepped through the door, I wasn’t on the landing of stairs outside that dreadful old house, I was standing in a crowd, a very large crowd in fact, a crowd that appeared to be doing nothing but standing and bowing there heads, what were they doing? Why was I standing among them? Where was I? Then I remembered, all those empty nights, in that dreadful house all the days of nothingness, all the pain and suffering of not knowing what had happened, or why. All the sudden I didn’t care about the whys or hows, all I cared about was the fact that I was no longer alone, wherever I was, I was among people at last… “Hey are you ok?” the girl to my right asked. Why was she talking to me? Did I know her? “I’m fine, just glad to be among people!” I say. “You have this strange expression on your face Charles, like you’re confused. Are you sure you’re ok?” she said. How did she know my name? I guess I had to know her, or else she wouldn’t have known who I was. How should I approach this with out sounding completely insane? “I’m fine I insisted, just a little overwhelmed with all of this…” I say shakily. I needed to get out of this crowd and figure everything out, everything was starting to come back to me, but that was causing other problems. “I need to get out of here and get some air, I’ll be back in a little while. ” I assure the girl. “You want me to go with you?” she asked. “No.” I replied. As I started for the glowing sign, I finally understood where I was, I was in a large church, well, large is an understatement, this place was massive!! There must have been close to a thousand teenagers packed in here, I’d never seen anything like it… But right now, then that wasn’t important, what was important was getting out, as I continued to the exit, I began to feel faint and sick, like I was either going to pass out, or throw up. In that situation, either would be bad, finally I reached the door, as I grabbed the handle, I began to experience something, that can only be described as pain as I walked onto a small street, but it was more than that. Thank god I had reached the exit, I was on the verge of passing out, it was all from the returning memories, memories, that I had no recollection of ever having, but I must have experienced these things, or else I wouldn’t have been remembering these things. Images, mostly, a lot of them involving that girl that was standing next to me in the church, but other people too, an old couple that looked like they were old enough to be my parents, maybe they were, I had no idea. If they were, where were they? Other things too, there was a lot of that church, most of these memories seemed to be happy, it made me wonder about all the time spent in that forsaken empty house, who’s memories were these? Could they have really been mine? I really hoped they were, because if they were that meant, that I had more than that house in my past, even though that was all I could remember! With a flash of pain, an extremely bright flash of color came back… just before I passed out.

As I woke up, I realized that I was no longer on the street outside the massive church, I was in a bed, in a room, that had blue walls, much like the blue walls in the room I had spent my nights in, in that dreadful house, as I realized that I had a flickering moment of panic.. had I been pushed back to that terrible place? All those thoughts were settled, as the girl walked in… she was beautiful, I hadn’t noticed inside the church, probably because of the obvious reasons, one of them being the fact that I had been dropped into a crowd of people, when I expected to walk out onto a landing of stairs. “Hey you’re finally awake!” she said. I just looked at her, not being able to think of anything to say. “Do you remember anything that happened, yesterday?” she asked. “Very little, and even less before that… Who am I? Where am I, and who are you?” I asked. She looked absolutely shocked, her mouth was slightly open, and her brow was furrowed, as if thinking deeply. I couldn’t help but to think that maybe, I knew her, and I just couldn’t remember. “Charles, stop joking, this is really serious!! You passed out in the middle of the road, and now your saying you don’t know who I am, or where you are.” She practically shrieked. I was shocked at her reaction, not really knowing what to say, I just looked at her. She was staring at me looking very concerned now, almost sad. “So I guess it is true.” she said, as she walked across the room, she started fumbling around with her purse, at least I assumed it was her purse. She came back over to my bed side, with a camera, she made a motion for me to scoot over so she could sit next to me. “Here take a look at these.” she said as she began to flip through photos on the view screen, the first one was of her and a guy, with blonde hair, built strongly, tall. She was tall also, but she had brown hair, and a slightly crooked smile, they were both dressed as if they were attending a wedding, maybe they were, I didn’t know. But as I stared into the screen of the camera, I could see a reflection of the same man in the photo, it was me in that photo, but how was that possible, I had been in that house for what seemed like years, if not longer. “How is that possible?” I gasped. “I’ve been trapped in an empty house for what seems like years, how is it that I’m in this photograph?” I asked her. “Your parents told me this would happen, when I first started being friends with you… you have multiple personalities, apparently this has happened once before, when you were nine.” she stated. “When the non dominant personality takes over you get lost in your mind, I guess in this house you mentioned, see, with the type of multiple personality syndrome you have, your personalities take over for very long periods of time, weeks, months last time it took over for more than a year.” she finished. “What are you saying? That I’ve been in my mind for the last years?” I asked. “Charles, it hasn’t been years, it’s only been a few months… since the beginning of last semester.” She said almost whimsically. How was that possible, I needed to find out more, remember more… but thinking about it, the last bout of memories I had, wasn’t so pleasant, after all, I had passed out. “But why, was I trapped in a house, in an empty world, there was no one, nothing, no radio, no music, nothing at all.” I said on the verge of tears. I couldn’t handle all of this, it was to much, I was feeling overwhelmed, and I could feel my grasp on the world slipping through my fingers, only this time, I didn’t know if it was me passing out, or me getting thrown back into the hell that was the empty world. “Why?” was all I had time to mutter before everything went black again… but this time, I wasn’t in deep sleep, my body was, but my mind was very much awake, thinking, trying to pull memories, out of the past… a past that I had not experienced, at least not that I could remember. Then there was a flash and everything was lit, as if a dozen televisions were all playing different shows at once, except these weren’t ordinary shows, they were the memories that I had lost during my imprisonment in that house. That’s what it was, imprisonment, I realized that now as I watched, with horror, all the things I’d done to torment people, all the pain and worry id caused my parents, everything id ever done to intentionally hurt someone. Now I remembered, that other personality, it wasn’t just a personality, it was almost a failsafe, if I began to go out of control, it would take over, and I would become trapped inside, of that world, in that house until, I forgot everything… I remembered now, everything, all that had happened in that house, all that had happened to my body while I was trapped… As I woke up again, in the same room, all I could feel was guilt. To me in that instant, nothing else existed. “I remember everything, all I ever did to hurt, all I did to torment, all of it. I’m sorry.” I said. Jenna looked completely shocked as I told her, I guess had just laid some heavy stuff on her. “What do you mean?” she asked. “All of this, my life before the switch, it was all bad, the switch, its like a prison sentence for me. The other personality takes over when I become out of control, it’s like a guilty conscience, only worse, I understand now that before, I was a horrible person, not just to strangers, but to my family, my friends and most of all you. How can you stand to be with me after all the times I’ve tormented you, made fun of you?” I asked. Remembering all the things I’d done to hurt Jenna in the past, all because deep inside of me, I was jealous, that she was happy and I wasn’t. In some way, I’d thought that if I made everyone else miserable, then I would be happier. I know now that the only way to truly be happy is to live for other people and not yourself. “I can be with you, because I’ve forgiven you, and at first, I didn’t believe that you’d changed, it took me a long time to finally give you a chance, but once I did, you proved me wrong. Though even after that, and still, after being with you for so long, I still question whether or not, you’ll go back to being that jerk that you were before.” She said. All I could do was think of my time in that house, and that I never, ever wanted to go back to that place again, and I would do anything to keep myself from going back to the awful person I was. “Thank you.” I said. The rest of that night was spent re uniting with my parents, friends, and just getting used to the felling of being part of something again.


A few weeks later, I was back in school, I was taking all advanced classes now. That other personality did for me what I couldn’t do for myself, what I needed to do but couldn’t. Thinking back on it, being trapped was terrible, but it made me a better person, and put me on a track for success, so in many ways, I am in debt to that other person. I just hoped that other person wasn’t trapped in that empty world like I was.