This. This is Worse.

I sat in my cell, a condemned man. I could hear the guards approaching. They were coming to take me to my death. I didn’t know how I would die, but I knew it wouldn’t be quick. I knew it wouldn’t be painless. Above all, I knew it would be cruel and unusual. Anyone who defied the king had their death live streamed to the world. It was certainly an effective deterrent.

The guards took me, and quickly brought me down the hall, saying nothing. After passing maybe a dozen doors, many of which I could hear screaming behind, the guards opened a non-descript door and shoved me in. When the door was closed I saw that there was no handle on the inside. In fact, there was nothing. The walls were absolutely white, as was the ceiling and the floor.

In the absolute silence of the room I thought I got lucky. Perhaps this sensory deprivation room was meant to drive me to insanity. It might make for good TV for the viewers, and I hoped that by the time I died I would be to far gone to even realize what was happening.

I wasn’t so lucky.

After an hour, or was it two…maybe three, it began. The walls and ceiling began to move. Or maybe they were moving the whole time, but it was so slow I didn’t notice. The pure whiteness was so disorienting. Once I realized it, however, it was quite obvious. The room that was once spacious was now starting to feel a little cramped. And then I realized that my punishment wasn’t the sensory deprivation. I was going to be crushed.

This. This is worse.

After a time (several hours? Maybe more?) the walls were so close that I could touch them both by reaching out, and I could no longer stand up straight. And the room continued to shrink. As soon as the walls were close enough that I could brace myself on one and push the other, I tried with all my might to stop them. As I knew would be the case, they continued to move. Slowly.

The sheer terror of being trapped in a shrinking room is indescribable. I was beginning to panic as I thought about the pain that would come as the walls and ceiling slowly crushed me. It would be hours of excruciating pain before something finally snapped and killed me.

I was now crouched down with my knees pushed to my chest, I couldn’t move. The walls kept pushing in. My head was pushed down onto my knees, my knees held together by the walls on either side while being pushed into my chest. It was so hard to breath. Just as the pain was beginning to become intolerable, it stopped. The walls and ceiling stopped moving. That was days ago, and I knew I would be stuck here, unmoving, barely breathing, until I died of thirst.

This. This is worse.