Wide-eyed, staring into the mirror back at myself, returning for a moment to a split second of meaningful thought, a pained gasp clinging to the clarity of being out of the storm for a moment, before I lean up back against the wall, staring now entirely at the door in front of me. It stays the same, cold and rigid, resting comfortably on its hinges, the pathway back into what appeared to be something I understood, though the walls shifted and twisted at the outsides of my peripheral vision, forming distorted faces of mocking laughter, pleased with the dizzying chaos and mismanagement of my thoughts. Pair this with the faces of paralyzing anger, filled with explosive vigor of my inability to hold onto myself, despite knowing the trials that were laid out clearly before me. My mind, darting back to the door and it’s silhouette, I can easily see the quiet sloshing back and forth of the scaly tendrils of a beast awaiting on the other side of the door. Hidden amongst the distant laughter and the buzzing noise of the television, these grotesque appendages press, slap, and rattle on the door, not pressing it forward, but ensuring ever presently that I am indeed aware that they are there, and just on the other side of the door, patiently waiting for me to force my way through the door into their waiting embrace. I press against the far wall from the door, and I slide slowly down onto the floor, my legs splaying to each side, making sure those devious tendrils couldn't rip apart my foot at a moments notice. It’s a terrifying feeling, as my eyes dart from one wall to the other, back to the floor, over to the mirror again, and up to the ceiling, every movement of my head another action of disarray adding to what was beginning to feel like the crushing mountain of uncertainty weighing down upon my psyche. The room pressed into me, imposing even more claustrophobically then it did just a moment ago, almost as if it too were pushing me towards this door, and the horrors of a tattered splayed mind waiting on the other side, voraciously hungry, readying to tear me asunder at my weakest points. Allowing this to wash over me was another desperate clinging gasp of air in what felt like a living world, but deep underwater, and I was hopelessly, and passively drowning underneath it, given just a moment of respite, a reminder that this prison can’t be the saving grace, pressed back as far back as I can be into the wall, it doesn’t feel like I could distance myself from it any further then I already had. I stiffened, pressing my back hard into the wall. I looked down at the tiles of the bathroom floor, the cheap material of a poor imitation of a finished floor my only respite from the ensuing storm of confusion that was sure to befall me next. I pressed up from my feet once again, taking a moment to steady myself, standing with one hand against the doorknob, feet planted firmly to the ground stretched out before me, the facade of confidence lying above a distinct fear that the floor could give out under me at a moment’s notice.