The Escape of Building 201

I stood in front of the red painted wooden door, suitcase in hand, coat hung over my forearm. There was a thin silver metal plate nailed to the door, with the number, '516', engraved into it. Reluctantly, I turned the doorknob, with my shaky, yet only free hand, instantly, regretting my decision of coming into the room.

It was a single room, with bland grey painted walls, and a white carpet spread out on the ground. There was a crack in the wall that ran from the ceiling to the floor.

There was nothing in the room in which I was to call home; No bed, no couch, and no table. There was simply nothing, except the single dim lit bulb which hung from the ceiling.

"This must be a mistake," I muttered to myself as I dropped my stuff in shock.

"Maybe you're the mistake," An unfamiliar boy said. The boy stopped in his track, peering in the room through a crack in the door.

I glanced his way. "Go away," I mumbled. I turned back to the room, my light blonde hair swinging forward from the sudden movement.

"Okay, I'll leave you isolated and drowning in loneliness, like you always are," the boy said. He walked off to his room, which was sadly right across from mine.

I've always had stuff in my room. I've also always had a roommate.
"516..." I thought to myself. Suddenly, it hit me. I was in the section of the building for the "misfits, mistreated, and misbehaving." Since I was bullied, I've been moved here, away from the "good" people of the building, who have no serious problems, like my depression.

I've heard stories about this area. Their rooms resemble their internal conflicts. They can only return to the "good" part of the building, when they learn to escape and deal with their problems. For me, mine is loneliness. This explains why there is absolutely nothing in the room, and why I have no roommate. The crack running down the wall resembles me; broken because of my insecurities which formed with the harassment of the bullies.

I turned around sharply, and walked straight out of the room.
I paced across the hall, to my next door neighbor, and I rapped loudly on his door.

"Hey, you! Open up!" I shouted.
The mousy brown haired boy reluctantly opened the door. I glanced past him, trying to see what was in his room.

"What do you want?" The boy asked, annoyed.

"We need to get out of here! We can't just stand around and be marked as the mistakes of society!" I exclaimed.

"I've been here for years, and I still haven't found a way to escape. I haven't found a way to, because there is none!" he said. Maybe he was right. Maybe there was no escape.

I frowned, negative thoughts swirling around in my head, banging against the cage I've built for myself. However, at a time like this, I needed to be positive. "We will find an escape. Can I come in?"

"No," he said harshly. He was about to shut the door, when I stuck my foot in quickly, to keep it open.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Why should I tell you my name?" He grumbled.

"-Because I want to be your friend!"

The boy sighed in defeat. "Finn. Yours?" He asked.

"The name is Hazel. Nice to meet you!" I said. I had a huge smile plastered across my face.

Finn stepped to the side, allowing me to walk into his room. He didn't have a roommate, and the only furniture in his room was old and tattered. There was little color in the room. It was so dull. His walls were covered with pictures of, what I was assuming, was his family and friends.

All of the frames were broken, and the pictures were torn to shreds. The nails holding them up were rusty, and they were hung crooked.

I turned to Finn, smiling. He had family problems. "Finn?"

Finn turned to me, seeing my big smile.

"Everything is going to be okay. You'll be fine," I said.

Finn frowned, shaking his head. "I'm a stranger to you. You don't know me."

"Yes, but I know that you are going through something, or otherwise you wouldn't be here. I'm here because I was bullied, and I don't really have any friends. The doctors say I'm lonely and that there is something wrong with me...."

Finn put his hands in his pockets and gazed at the floor. "You don't have a broken family."

"My family died in a fire two years before we were all sent here, to building 201, when I was 12." I whispered.

Finn's cold gray eyes stared at the pictures hung on the walls.

"I understand," I said. I stood next to Finn, gazing upon the pictures.

"I don't even call these people my family anymore, in fact, it has been a long time since I called them that..." Finn said, trailing off.

"Go on. It's okay, Finn. I'm here for you. I'll listen."

"You know, in my whole time here, you are one of the first people to really talk to me. You are the first person to smile at me, and you are the first one to show me kindness. I'm sorry I was rude to you earlier," Finn said with a small smile. It was the first time that I had seen him smile this whole time.

"It's fine." I sat down on one of the chairs in the room. Immediately, we gasped. The chair looked new again. It turned from the dull, dark rust color, to a beautiful, vivid shade of red.

"What's going on?" I asked. I looked across the hall, towards my room, which still had it's door open. Furniture appeared in the room, like blooming flowers in Spring.

"We're escaping," Finn said. Finn began to laugh with glee, grinning with delight. He took my hands in his, and pulled me up off of the chair. He began to spin me around, his smile not fading from his face for a single second.

"Thanks, Hazel," Finn said. He observed the room in awe as it filled with color. "After years, I have found my escape; kindness." However, the broken frames and pictures remained broken and torn. I began to understand everything. We weren't returning to our lives before, but to a new chapter of our lives. We were escaping the building that we had been stuck in since we were 12.

The only way to escape the building, was to survive and escape the problems we faced. They made us stronger.
When we first came here, we were told that we would get to leave when we grew up. Well, we have. We have faced the challenges of our life, and here we are, moving on from adolescents to adults.

I pulled Finn into my room, and I saw the crack in the wall once again. It had not disappeared, but my look on it had changed. Our problems were still here, but we had learned to handle them. It's funny how one bit of kindness can do so much.

"We're escaping! We're escaping this retched building!" I exclaimed. My hazel eyes lit up with joy.

"Thank you, Hazel, for being my escape."

"-And thank you for being mine."