Castle of Glass

I.

“Wonder how this castle of glass looks from outside.”

That was my first thought during that one cold morning. The light pierced effortlessly through the walls that kept me locked in.

I don’t know why it happened, one morning I was woken up in this uncomfortable bed by the sun shining on my face. Four see through walls and only one door leading inside a bigger transparent building with the same glass walls. This castle of glass, as I came to call it, was beautifully built, tall transparent doors which opened to long hallways, flanked by even more doors leading each to a different room.

The bedroom where I woke up initially was at the end of one of these hallways, nearest rooms were a big bathroom, a library with blocks of glass imitating books, a dining room with a pretty long table with only one seat, and a room occupied by a perfectly working crystal piano. All the furniture in the rooms was also made of a glass-like crystal, from chandeliers with always lit candles to the tableware I used to eat.

All hallways came from a big hall, giant doors gave way to an enormous staircase that reflected the light from outside. The castle was only two floors tall, but with two corridors from the main hall in each floor, one right and one left, a castle that felt tailor made for eccentric royalty… and soon after, I discovered that I was locked inside.

The shock of waking up in this unknown building took a while to settle, then came the stress of looking for a way out, and eventually, the despair of being locked with no exit. I hit the walls with my everything, even used some of the crystal furniture, but not even a dent appeared in the walls or the furniture. Breaking my way out was not an option.

So, I started looking outside, green fields on one side, and a lush forest on the other one, no signs of society on either one. Even if my screams could make their way outside, no one would be close enough to hear me. I was absolutely stuck, and it terrified me… for a while.

Eventually, reality and routine set in. Wake up, look through the walls to see any changes outside, see no source of hope, and continue on with my day, every so often looking again through the walls. It continued on day by day for so long, eventually I stopped counting, but never stopped looking outside.

During the day the sunlight lit the place more than was needed, sometimes the reflection of light hurt my eyes; and during the night the never-ending candles lit the way when the moon wasn’t enough. I wasn’t as lucky with the temperature, on hot days I could feel myself melting, and the crystal, while it didn’t melt, it got so hot that I was unable to touch most stuff without burning; on cold days I feared freezing there and then, the crystal absorbed cold way too well, sadly I was inside having to stay close to the lit candles.

Supplies appeared every morning at sunrise in a glass box, always in the furthest room from where I was standing. Just barely enough to last me for a day, even then, the food became rotten, and drinks turned sour as soon as the sun started rising, but as soon as I took my eye off of them, they disappeared like they were never there. Whatever brought me here kept me alive.

And that was life inside the castle of glass, a solitary confinement as if I’d committed the gravest crime in the land, cursed to stay stuck in there all my life.

At least that was what I thought until one day after waking up I saw someone looking in from outside.