Chapter 5:
After
Room Zero
Room Four was different from the others.
It wasn't white like Room One, wasn't a recreation like Room Two, wasn't claustrophobic like Room Three. It was designed to look like a comfortable living room—couch, coffee table, soft lighting, even fake plants in the corners. It could have been anyone's apartment.
But the warmth felt obscene after what they'd just experienced.
"What is this?" Aaron asked, his voice suspicious.
In the center of the coffee table sat a laptop, its screen glowing. Above it, mounted on the wall, was a large monitor. Both displayed the same message:
**ROOM FOUR: AFTER**
**You've seen what you did to Anna during those six months. Now you'll see what came after. What happened when you all moved on with your lives, went to college, built careers, found happiness. While Anna...**
The text trailed off, ominous in its incompleteness.
**Sit. Watch. Understand the full cost of your actions.**
Five chairs were arranged in a semicircle facing the monitor. They had no choice but to comply.
Riley sank into one of the chairs, her body heavy with exhaustion and dread. The others followed suit, spreading out, leaving empty chairs between them as if proximity might make this worse.
The monitor flickered to life.
The first image was a newspaper article from the Lakewood Times, dated June 2015:
**LOCAL TEEN HOSPITALIZED AFTER APPARENT SUICIDE ATTEMPT**
**Anna Morrison, 17, a student at Lakewood Academy, was found unresponsive in her home on Tuesday evening. She was transported to Mercy General Hospital where she remains in critical condition. School officials declined to comment on the incident, citing student privacy. Morrison's family has requested privacy during this difficult time.**
The article was brief, clinical, revealing nothing of the six months of torture that had led to that moment.
The screen changed to show medical records. Riley didn't want to read them, but her eyes were drawn inexorably to the words:
**Patient sustained severe brain damage due to prolonged oxygen deprivation. Cognitive function significantly impaired. Motor skills partially compromised. Long-term prognosis: patient will require ongoing care and rehabilitation. Full recovery unlikely.**
"Oh god," Paige whispered. As a medical resident, she understood exactly what those words meant.
The screen showed a photo—Anna in a wheelchair, six months after her suicide attempt. Her face was slack on one side, her left arm curled against her chest. She was staring at nothing, her eyes empty.
"The pills didn't just fail to kill her," Kyle said, his voice barely audible. "They destroyed her."
More images appeared in sequence, documenting Anna's next two years:
Anna in physical therapy, struggling to relearn how to walk.
Anna in speech therapy, fighting to form words.
Anna at home with her parents, being fed, bathed, cared for like a child.
Anna sitting alone in a room, staring out a window.
Each image was dated. Each one showed the passage of time, but not recovery. Not healing. Just... existence.
The distorted voice returned: "Anna survived. But the Anna Morrison who woke up in that hospital bed wasn't the same person who swallowed those pills. The girl who loved books and wanted to be a writer? Gone. The girl who played piano? Her left hand doesn't work properly anymore. The girl who dreamed of going to Columbia University? She never graduated high school."
Nicole was crying again, silent tears streaming down her face.
The monitor showed a video now—Anna at age nineteen, two years after her suicide attempt. She was sitting in a chair, being interviewed by someone off-camera. Her speech was slow, labored, her words slightly slurred.
"What... what do you want to do today, Anna?" the interviewer asked gently.
Anna's face scrunched up in concentration. "I... want... to read. But... words... get mixed up. Hard... to remember."
"That's okay. We can practice together."
"Used to... used to be good... at reading." Anna's face crumpled. "Used to be... smart. Now... now I'm..."
She couldn't finish the sentence. She started crying, deep, wrenching sobs.
The video cut off.
Riley felt like her heart was being crushed. This was worse than the suicide attempt itself. At least death would have been an end. This was a living death, a half-life, a prison of damaged neurons and broken connections.
And they had done this.
The screen changed again, showing a series of documents:
Anna's medical bills—hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Her parents' bankruptcy filing—dated 2017.
The sale of their house—to pay for Anna's care.
A fundraising page with a photo of Anna and her parents: "Help the Morrison Family" with a goal of $50,000 for ongoing medical expenses.
"While you were all at college," the voice said, "living in dorms, going to parties, making new friends, Anna was relearning how to feed herself. While you were interning at law firms and hospitals and newspapers, Anna was struggling through speech therapy appointments. While you were falling in love, getting engaged, building careers—Anna was trying to remember her own phone number."
The indictment hung in the air.
Aaron's face had gone gray. "We didn't know. How could we have known it would—"
"You knew she was suffering," the voice interrupted. "You knew she was in pain. You knew she asked for help and you not only refused—you made it worse. The fact that her suicide attempt resulted in brain damage rather than death doesn't absolve you. It makes it worse. She's been living with the consequences of your actions for ten years. You've been living consequence-free."
"That's not fair," Aaron protested, but his voice lacked conviction. "We were kids. We made mistakes—"
"At what point do mistakes become choices?" the voice asked. "At what point does cruelty become unforgivable?"
The monitor showed a new video. Anna at twenty-five, just two years ago. She looked better than in the previous videos—her speech was clearer, her movements more controlled. But there was still something broken in her eyes, something that would never heal.
"I think about Lakewood every day," video-Anna said. She was sitting in what looked like a therapist's office. "I think about the people who hurt me. I've tried to forgive them. Tried to move on. But how do you forgive someone who never apologized? Who never even acknowledged what they did?"
"Have you tried to contact any of them?" the therapist asked.
Anna shook her head. "I looked them up online. Riley's an influencer with half a million followers. Aaron's a partner at a law firm in Manhattan. Kyle won journalism awards. Paige is a doctor. Nicole works with kids as a school counselor." Her voice broke. "A school counselor. She counsels kids. After what she did to me."
"How does that make you feel?"
"Like my suffering meant nothing. Like they got to move on and I'm still... I'm still stuck in that hallway. Still stuck in that hospital bed. My body healed as much as it's going to, but my life? My life stopped the day I took those pills. They got everything they wanted and I got... this."
The video ended.
The room was silent except for the sound of Nicole's quiet crying.
Riley felt numb. She'd built her entire adult life on the foundation of forgetting. Forgetting Anna. Forgetting Lakewood. Forgetting what she'd done. She'd curated a perfect Instagram life—travel, fashion, happiness—while Anna had been struggling to remember how to tie her shoes.
The laptop on the coffee table chimed. Text appeared on its screen:
**ROOM FOUR PUZZLE: THE TRUTH**
**On this laptop are five emails. Draft emails that Anna wrote to each of you over the past ten years. She never sent them. Read yours. Then decide: do you deserve her forgiveness?**
**This room has no wrong answer. There is no door that opens or closes based on your response. This is simply a moment for truth. For you to decide, honestly, whether what you did can be forgiven.**
**You have fifteen minutes. Then we move to Room Five.**
The countdown began: 15:00.
Kyle reached for the laptop first. He opened the email program, found the folder labeled "Unsent." Five emails, each with a name.
He clicked on "Kyle."
His face went white as he read. After a minute, he closed the laptop and pushed it away, unable to look at it anymore.
Paige went next. Then Aaron. Then Nicole, who had to be coaxed by Riley to even open her email.
Finally, it was Riley's turn.
Her hands shook as she opened the email addressed to her:
---
**To: Riley****From: Anna****Subject: I wanted you to know****Date: Never sent**
Riley,
I've written this email forty-seven times over the past ten years. I've never sent it. I don't know why I keep writing it. Maybe because I need to say these things even if you never hear them.
You were supposed to be my friend. We weren't best friends like Nicole and I were, but we were close. We studied together. We laughed together. I trusted you.
When Mr. Harrison started touching me—his hand on my lower back, his comments about my clothes, the way he'd find excuses to be alone with me—you were the first person I told. Do you remember that? We were in the library. I was so scared. I didn't know what to do.
You told me to ignore it. You said I was probably misreading the situation. You said Mr. Harrison was a good teacher and I shouldn't make trouble.
I tried to take your advice. I tried to ignore it. But it got worse. So I went to the administration. I thought if I told the truth, they'd help me.
Instead, you started the rumor that I had a crush on him. That I was making up lies because he rejected me.
Why, Riley? Why did you do that?
I've spent ten years trying to understand. Were you protecting yourself? Were you afraid if you admitted you'd known, you'd be complicit? Was it easier to make me the villain than to face what was really happening?
Or did you just not care? Was I so insignificant that destroying my life didn't even register as important?
The rumor you started became the foundation for everything else. Kyle's article, Aaron's betrayal, Paige's lies, Nicole's abandonment—all of it stemmed from the story you told. You were the first domino. When you fell, you took me down with you.
I want to hate you. Sometimes I do. But mostly I just feel... empty. Like there's a Riley-shaped hole in my understanding of human nature. I thought I knew you. I thought you were kind. I was wrong.
The brain damage makes it hard to hold onto anger. My therapist says that might be a blessing. But I remember enough to know what I lost. I lost my future. I lost my self. I lost the chance to become whoever I might have been.
You didn't lose anything. You got to become exactly who you wanted to be.
I hope you're happy, Riley. I really do. Because one of us should be.
I'll never send this. But I needed to write it. Needed to believe that somewhere, somehow, you know what you did. And that it matters.
Anna
---
Riley couldn't breathe. The words blurred as tears filled her eyes. She wanted to close the laptop, to run, to escape. But there was nowhere to go.
"I don't deserve forgiveness," she said out loud, her voice cracking. "None of us do."
"No," Paige agreed quietly. "We don't."
"So what's the point of this?" Aaron demanded, but his anger sounded hollow. "To make us feel guilty? Mission accomplished. We get it. We ruined her life. We're terrible people. Now what?"
"Now we face Room Five," Kyle said. He was staring at the floor, his hands clasped between his knees. "And find out what Anna wants from us."
The timer hit 00:00.
A door opened in the wall behind the monitor. Beyond it, Riley could see stairs leading up. Leading somewhere.
The voice returned one last time: "You've remembered what you did. You've faced your secrets. You've witnessed Anna's suffering and its aftermath. You've read her words, her truth, her pain. Now, in Room Five, you'll meet her. And you'll discover that one of you has been helping her all along. One of you isn't who they claim to be."
Everyone froze.
"What?" Nicole whispered.
"One of you is working with Anna," the voice repeated. "One of you has been lying since you woke up in Room One. One of you knows exactly why you're here and has been ensuring you can't escape. In Room Five, the truth will be revealed. And then Anna will give you a choice."
The five of them looked at each other, suspicion suddenly blooming in the wake of shared guilt.
Who was the insider?
Riley studied their faces. Kyle, who'd been so quick to cooperate. Aaron, who'd been so concerned about time. Paige, who'd been so calm and analytical. Nicole, who'd seemed genuinely terrified.
Or was it Riley herself? Had she somehow blocked out her own complicity in this elaborate revenge?
"We need to go," Paige said, standing up. But her voice was different now. Careful. Guarded.
They climbed the stairs in silence, no longer bound by shared guilt but divided by suspicion.
Room Five awaited at the top.
And in Room Five, they would finally face Anna Morrison.
---
**End of Chapter 5**
It wasn't white like Room One, wasn't a recreation like Room Two, wasn't claustrophobic like Room Three. It was designed to look like a comfortable living room—couch, coffee table, soft lighting, even fake plants in the corners. It could have been anyone's apartment.
But the warmth felt obscene after what they'd just experienced.
"What is this?" Aaron asked, his voice suspicious.
In the center of the coffee table sat a laptop, its screen glowing. Above it, mounted on the wall, was a large monitor. Both displayed the same message:
**ROOM FOUR: AFTER**
**You've seen what you did to Anna during those six months. Now you'll see what came after. What happened when you all moved on with your lives, went to college, built careers, found happiness. While Anna...**
The text trailed off, ominous in its incompleteness.
**Sit. Watch. Understand the full cost of your actions.**
Five chairs were arranged in a semicircle facing the monitor. They had no choice but to comply.
Riley sank into one of the chairs, her body heavy with exhaustion and dread. The others followed suit, spreading out, leaving empty chairs between them as if proximity might make this worse.
The monitor flickered to life.
The first image was a newspaper article from the Lakewood Times, dated June 2015:
**LOCAL TEEN HOSPITALIZED AFTER APPARENT SUICIDE ATTEMPT**
**Anna Morrison, 17, a student at Lakewood Academy, was found unresponsive in her home on Tuesday evening. She was transported to Mercy General Hospital where she remains in critical condition. School officials declined to comment on the incident, citing student privacy. Morrison's family has requested privacy during this difficult time.**
The article was brief, clinical, revealing nothing of the six months of torture that had led to that moment.
The screen changed to show medical records. Riley didn't want to read them, but her eyes were drawn inexorably to the words:
**Patient sustained severe brain damage due to prolonged oxygen deprivation. Cognitive function significantly impaired. Motor skills partially compromised. Long-term prognosis: patient will require ongoing care and rehabilitation. Full recovery unlikely.**
"Oh god," Paige whispered. As a medical resident, she understood exactly what those words meant.
The screen showed a photo—Anna in a wheelchair, six months after her suicide attempt. Her face was slack on one side, her left arm curled against her chest. She was staring at nothing, her eyes empty.
"The pills didn't just fail to kill her," Kyle said, his voice barely audible. "They destroyed her."
More images appeared in sequence, documenting Anna's next two years:
Anna in physical therapy, struggling to relearn how to walk.
Anna in speech therapy, fighting to form words.
Anna at home with her parents, being fed, bathed, cared for like a child.
Anna sitting alone in a room, staring out a window.
Each image was dated. Each one showed the passage of time, but not recovery. Not healing. Just... existence.
The distorted voice returned: "Anna survived. But the Anna Morrison who woke up in that hospital bed wasn't the same person who swallowed those pills. The girl who loved books and wanted to be a writer? Gone. The girl who played piano? Her left hand doesn't work properly anymore. The girl who dreamed of going to Columbia University? She never graduated high school."
Nicole was crying again, silent tears streaming down her face.
The monitor showed a video now—Anna at age nineteen, two years after her suicide attempt. She was sitting in a chair, being interviewed by someone off-camera. Her speech was slow, labored, her words slightly slurred.
"What... what do you want to do today, Anna?" the interviewer asked gently.
Anna's face scrunched up in concentration. "I... want... to read. But... words... get mixed up. Hard... to remember."
"That's okay. We can practice together."
"Used to... used to be good... at reading." Anna's face crumpled. "Used to be... smart. Now... now I'm..."
She couldn't finish the sentence. She started crying, deep, wrenching sobs.
The video cut off.
Riley felt like her heart was being crushed. This was worse than the suicide attempt itself. At least death would have been an end. This was a living death, a half-life, a prison of damaged neurons and broken connections.
And they had done this.
The screen changed again, showing a series of documents:
Anna's medical bills—hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Her parents' bankruptcy filing—dated 2017.
The sale of their house—to pay for Anna's care.
A fundraising page with a photo of Anna and her parents: "Help the Morrison Family" with a goal of $50,000 for ongoing medical expenses.
"While you were all at college," the voice said, "living in dorms, going to parties, making new friends, Anna was relearning how to feed herself. While you were interning at law firms and hospitals and newspapers, Anna was struggling through speech therapy appointments. While you were falling in love, getting engaged, building careers—Anna was trying to remember her own phone number."
The indictment hung in the air.
Aaron's face had gone gray. "We didn't know. How could we have known it would—"
"You knew she was suffering," the voice interrupted. "You knew she was in pain. You knew she asked for help and you not only refused—you made it worse. The fact that her suicide attempt resulted in brain damage rather than death doesn't absolve you. It makes it worse. She's been living with the consequences of your actions for ten years. You've been living consequence-free."
"That's not fair," Aaron protested, but his voice lacked conviction. "We were kids. We made mistakes—"
"At what point do mistakes become choices?" the voice asked. "At what point does cruelty become unforgivable?"
The monitor showed a new video. Anna at twenty-five, just two years ago. She looked better than in the previous videos—her speech was clearer, her movements more controlled. But there was still something broken in her eyes, something that would never heal.
"I think about Lakewood every day," video-Anna said. She was sitting in what looked like a therapist's office. "I think about the people who hurt me. I've tried to forgive them. Tried to move on. But how do you forgive someone who never apologized? Who never even acknowledged what they did?"
"Have you tried to contact any of them?" the therapist asked.
Anna shook her head. "I looked them up online. Riley's an influencer with half a million followers. Aaron's a partner at a law firm in Manhattan. Kyle won journalism awards. Paige is a doctor. Nicole works with kids as a school counselor." Her voice broke. "A school counselor. She counsels kids. After what she did to me."
"How does that make you feel?"
"Like my suffering meant nothing. Like they got to move on and I'm still... I'm still stuck in that hallway. Still stuck in that hospital bed. My body healed as much as it's going to, but my life? My life stopped the day I took those pills. They got everything they wanted and I got... this."
The video ended.
The room was silent except for the sound of Nicole's quiet crying.
Riley felt numb. She'd built her entire adult life on the foundation of forgetting. Forgetting Anna. Forgetting Lakewood. Forgetting what she'd done. She'd curated a perfect Instagram life—travel, fashion, happiness—while Anna had been struggling to remember how to tie her shoes.
The laptop on the coffee table chimed. Text appeared on its screen:
**ROOM FOUR PUZZLE: THE TRUTH**
**On this laptop are five emails. Draft emails that Anna wrote to each of you over the past ten years. She never sent them. Read yours. Then decide: do you deserve her forgiveness?**
**This room has no wrong answer. There is no door that opens or closes based on your response. This is simply a moment for truth. For you to decide, honestly, whether what you did can be forgiven.**
**You have fifteen minutes. Then we move to Room Five.**
The countdown began: 15:00.
Kyle reached for the laptop first. He opened the email program, found the folder labeled "Unsent." Five emails, each with a name.
He clicked on "Kyle."
His face went white as he read. After a minute, he closed the laptop and pushed it away, unable to look at it anymore.
Paige went next. Then Aaron. Then Nicole, who had to be coaxed by Riley to even open her email.
Finally, it was Riley's turn.
Her hands shook as she opened the email addressed to her:
---
**To: Riley****From: Anna****Subject: I wanted you to know****Date: Never sent**
Riley,
I've written this email forty-seven times over the past ten years. I've never sent it. I don't know why I keep writing it. Maybe because I need to say these things even if you never hear them.
You were supposed to be my friend. We weren't best friends like Nicole and I were, but we were close. We studied together. We laughed together. I trusted you.
When Mr. Harrison started touching me—his hand on my lower back, his comments about my clothes, the way he'd find excuses to be alone with me—you were the first person I told. Do you remember that? We were in the library. I was so scared. I didn't know what to do.
You told me to ignore it. You said I was probably misreading the situation. You said Mr. Harrison was a good teacher and I shouldn't make trouble.
I tried to take your advice. I tried to ignore it. But it got worse. So I went to the administration. I thought if I told the truth, they'd help me.
Instead, you started the rumor that I had a crush on him. That I was making up lies because he rejected me.
Why, Riley? Why did you do that?
I've spent ten years trying to understand. Were you protecting yourself? Were you afraid if you admitted you'd known, you'd be complicit? Was it easier to make me the villain than to face what was really happening?
Or did you just not care? Was I so insignificant that destroying my life didn't even register as important?
The rumor you started became the foundation for everything else. Kyle's article, Aaron's betrayal, Paige's lies, Nicole's abandonment—all of it stemmed from the story you told. You were the first domino. When you fell, you took me down with you.
I want to hate you. Sometimes I do. But mostly I just feel... empty. Like there's a Riley-shaped hole in my understanding of human nature. I thought I knew you. I thought you were kind. I was wrong.
The brain damage makes it hard to hold onto anger. My therapist says that might be a blessing. But I remember enough to know what I lost. I lost my future. I lost my self. I lost the chance to become whoever I might have been.
You didn't lose anything. You got to become exactly who you wanted to be.
I hope you're happy, Riley. I really do. Because one of us should be.
I'll never send this. But I needed to write it. Needed to believe that somewhere, somehow, you know what you did. And that it matters.
Anna
---
Riley couldn't breathe. The words blurred as tears filled her eyes. She wanted to close the laptop, to run, to escape. But there was nowhere to go.
"I don't deserve forgiveness," she said out loud, her voice cracking. "None of us do."
"No," Paige agreed quietly. "We don't."
"So what's the point of this?" Aaron demanded, but his anger sounded hollow. "To make us feel guilty? Mission accomplished. We get it. We ruined her life. We're terrible people. Now what?"
"Now we face Room Five," Kyle said. He was staring at the floor, his hands clasped between his knees. "And find out what Anna wants from us."
The timer hit 00:00.
A door opened in the wall behind the monitor. Beyond it, Riley could see stairs leading up. Leading somewhere.
The voice returned one last time: "You've remembered what you did. You've faced your secrets. You've witnessed Anna's suffering and its aftermath. You've read her words, her truth, her pain. Now, in Room Five, you'll meet her. And you'll discover that one of you has been helping her all along. One of you isn't who they claim to be."
Everyone froze.
"What?" Nicole whispered.
"One of you is working with Anna," the voice repeated. "One of you has been lying since you woke up in Room One. One of you knows exactly why you're here and has been ensuring you can't escape. In Room Five, the truth will be revealed. And then Anna will give you a choice."
The five of them looked at each other, suspicion suddenly blooming in the wake of shared guilt.
Who was the insider?
Riley studied their faces. Kyle, who'd been so quick to cooperate. Aaron, who'd been so concerned about time. Paige, who'd been so calm and analytical. Nicole, who'd seemed genuinely terrified.
Or was it Riley herself? Had she somehow blocked out her own complicity in this elaborate revenge?
"We need to go," Paige said, standing up. But her voice was different now. Careful. Guarded.
They climbed the stairs in silence, no longer bound by shared guilt but divided by suspicion.
Room Five awaited at the top.
And in Room Five, they would finally face Anna Morrison.
---
**End of Chapter 5**
Please sign in to leave a comment.