I look around and I'm engulfed in white. Everything is alabaster. Even the spines of the 200 or so books are hidden showing only the cream guts of their narratives.

It reminds me of a hospital.

Perhaps that's the point.

Come one, come all. Come and be cleansed of the internal, eternal dirt.

Out of the corner of my left eye I spot some color. A collection of different pigments melting into each other.

Greenblueredorangeyellow.

I get lost in the vibrant variety. They seem to play with each other. 

Accepting and denying one another. Similar to my pesky thoughts. 

My early morning optimism slowly mutates into teenaged angst cloaked in depression. The depression claws its way through to the forefront of my fickle mind. The voice that says just breathe is suffocated until it is silenced.

I tilt my head to the right, still staring at the kaleidoscope. 

"--ella? Stella, are you listening?"

Dr. Rio's voice slices through my muddled thoughts.

"Your body is tense. Just by looking at you I can tell you aren't breathing properly." She sighs heavily.

"Where is your mind right now?" she asks in a concoction of concern and frustration.

Stillness hangs thick in the room, clogging my ears and throat. I forcibly expand my lungs holding in the air sucked in through my reluctant nostrils. 

I slowly part my lips hoping that with this exhale I can.