The men reminded us that if we tried to escape, they'd come after our families.  Then the tall one flipped the switch and it started.  The white noise.  It came from nowhere.  At first it was soft and cut at the secret parts of our minds.  It got louder as the day went on, until it tore at our chests and made our eyes water.  Sometimes the noise would suddenly stop for a few minutes, and we'd all gasp, but the noise always came back.  Once the noise came, we weren't allowed to make any sounds of our own.  There was a clock on the wall.  At 3:30 every day, the men would come back, unchain us, tell us how many years we had left, load us into vans and bring us back to our rooms.  Some of us.  Others had to stay for yelling out, crying, pulling at the chains, or not completing the assignment.

The assignment--every night we drew circles. They had to be 4 mm wide.  The number of circles we had to draw was always different.  Sometimes we had to stay up drawing circles until the armed men come back the next day.  Sometimes we couldn't draw enough circles in time.  Then we were left in the noiseroom after 3:30. If our circles weren't good enough, we had to draw more circles the next night.  They gave us weekends off and some longer breaks; we always had to draw circles.  Millions of circles.  On special days, we got to draw squares.

Most of the others enjoyed this, at least that's what they said.  They believed the armed men:  it's all good for us, that it'll help us move on to better noiserooms.  The non-believers suffered.  Some of us died of mind failure, and many of us, suicide.  I lost my memory and now I hear voices.  I can't sleep at night.  But some of us died.

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You create your past.