Echo Chamber

Lee Linden was confused when he woke up in an empty room without recollection of how he got there. So he started going through the things that he did know: his name and… perhaps he didn’t have any recollection for that matter. Confused, Lee looked around his surroundings - an empty box made of some kind of stone, granite maybe? The “box” was completely barren other than a slight divot in the wall which had formed a door standing about 2 metres tall, which made him wonder why someone would bother locking him up like this. As far as Lee knew he wasn’t particularly dangerous but then again, without memories to work from, there was no telling. When he found that his pockets were as vacant as the cell that he’d been put in, he was seriously considering whether he was some sort of prisoner in a clandestine government organisation. This theory would have more merit if he could remember a single detail about himself other than his name.

His name, to the best of his knowledge, was “Lee Linden”. That was real, or he hoped so at least. It would have been infinitely more depressing if he didn’t even know the one thing that he thinks he remembers. Disappointingly, Linden’s name did not bring up any memories about his past, childhood, friends, or even his family. Did I even have a family? He thought Is anyone looking for me?

Bored, Lee decided to sit down on the cold, hard floor, trying to keep his mind off the oppressive force that seemed to be emanating from the walls. He wondered why they couldn’t even give him a chair or a bed, maybe something to do? Anything so he didn’t have to think too hard about the situation that he was in. Looking up, he saw something that he hadn’t noticed before - a small engraving at the foot of the door L9X3. Studying the words, no spark of recognition came. But that didn’t discourage him.

As he stood back up, he felt a shift in the air. It wasn’t drastic, but subtle enough to catch his attention. The room felt the same, but something about it seemed… different. Perhaps it was the stillness - so complete that Even his steady breathing seemed to disturb it. He stayed silent, wondering if he could discern what was different about the room, a noise, or some kind of tangible change about his world of granite.

If he’d been locked up, someone would come eventually, he reasoned. Either to let him out or to check on him. He could wait. But his mind was already turning over possibilities, working quietly in the background, searching for connections between the symbols, the room, and himself.

He didn't panic. He was curious. And that curiosity would lead him to answers.

Linden couldn’t tell whether he’d been waiting for minutes or hours, not that it had mattered anyway. However long he had been waiting, he had started to pace around the room, mindlessly running his fingers on the walls. Maybe his potential captors had accidentally left a secret tunnel under some very convincing wallpaper that he hadn’t seen prior. Alas, there had been no tunnel that led to freedom after five hundred yards of pungent foulness. While this epiphany hadn’t surprised Lee, it still somewhat disappointed him. Laying down, he felt that familiar shift in the air again. What on earth was he feeling and why was it slightly stronger this time, as if whatever caused this feeling was approaching ever closer? While processing this new feeling, the feeling had grown stronger in that time as well. It had become almost painful to notice. It was suffocatingly still.

Lee didn’t know what to do, with this stifling atmosphere and horrible headache that was emerging. His head was about to explode. The air made him extremely uncomfortable, and he almost banged his head Against the walls—all four of them. Lee steadied himself, pressing his palms against the cold, rough granite walls. The pounding in his head grew worse, each pulse in sync with the increasing stillness of the room. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe slowly, deliberately, in an attempt to ease the growing pressure in his skull. But the air felt thick now, suffocating, as if it had taken on weight, pressing down on him with invisible force.

He stood there for a moment, trying to push through the discomfort, to clear his mind. There had to be something he was missing - something beyond the physical sensations. Why was the air changing? What could it mean? His fingers, tracing the grooves in the stone, lingered over the strange engraving, L9X3. It had to be important. Or maybe it was just another meaningless detail in this bizarre room.

Suddenly, a faint sound echoed through the chamber - what appeared to be a low hum, almost imperceptible, vibrating just beneath the surface of the silence. Lee tensed, instinctively stepping back from the door. The headache seemed to spike, and with it, the air shifted once more. The oppressive stillness was giving way to something… alive.

This miasmic living mass is in his head. As if his being had decided to kick him while he was down. He was angry more than anything. Frustrated that he was stuck in this predicament. And annoyed that he didn’t know anything about this. As his anguish continued, He noticed this apparent “mass” stirring. Lee clenched his fists, trying to fight the strange sensation. It felt like a presence, like something had crawled inside his head and was making itself at home. He felt the pain agitate until it expanded out of him in a flash of light. For a split second, it was as if time had stopped. The world seemed to go grey and deathly silent. Just as quickly as everything had stopped, it seemed that time had decided to resume and with it, an explosion rang out, knocking Linden towards the wall behind him and leaving a cavity in the wall in front of him.

When Lee woke up for the second time that day, he realised that he had been moved. Now that he had left his granite box, he breathed a sigh of relief. He couldn’t sit up but he could see the ceiling was white. It remained to be seen whether he was in a better situation now but the pain in his head was gone and he felt significantly less claustrophobic.

“You’re awake.”

Lee froze, his heart skipping a beat. The voice was calm, almost robotic. Linden couldn’t quite see where the voice was coming from until a bearded man in a lab coat stood over him.

“Who... who are you?” Lee asked, his voice hoarse. “Where am I?”

The voice didn’t respond immediately, but after a brief pause, it answered, “You are in the L9 containment facility. Your awakening was... unexpected.”

“Awakening?” Lee frowned, trying to understand what that meant. “What do you mean? What is this place? And why can’t I remember anything?” Another pause, and then the voice replied, “We don’t exactly know but we think your memory loss is a side effect. You are not supposed to be awake, Lee Linden.”

“A side effect of what?” Lee questioned “Also you didn’t answer any of my other questions”

“Stand up, it would be easier to show you”

Lee’s body was still stiff and heavy but he decided to stand anyway.  Slowly, he pushed himself up to sit, blinking in the bright, sterile light of the room. The bearded man was watching him closely as if examining a specimen in a laboratory.

The doctor led him out of the room, which Lee could finally fully see. The room had an array of equipment that seemed to be used to monitor vital signs such as heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature and a plethora of others that Lee didn’t have the expertise to differentiate.

He couldn’t have expected what faced him when he left the room.

A panopticon of brutal grey concrete buildings, and in its centre was a human heart.