The Endless City

“And… done! I can’t wait to go on a trip for summer break.” I say as I get up from my desk.

“Don’t forget to submit your work Genji. Remember what happened last time.” Says my co-worker.

“Ah right, I forgot to do that again. Thanks for always reminding me.” I say as I submit my work.

“You never change do you? And don’t mention it, it always has been my job to remind you anyways.” My co-worker answers.

“Ehe, sorry for always bothering you Shouko.” I say in a funny tone.

“Like I said, don’t mention it.” She answers.

I grab my stuff and begin to walk towards the elevator to go to the bottom floor of my office. I open my phone whilst heading my way back home.

“Hey Ryo wanna go on a trip to Komodo Island?” My friend texts me.

“When?” I text him back.

“Next week during summer break, I already asked Rokuto and he said he’d come. If you want to go then I’ll buy you the plane ticket.” He texts me back.

“Have you researched and planned about the trip?”

“I have. We’re going to go to El Tari airport, the plane is going to fly at 1 P.M. and after we've arrived, we'll pick a place to stay and take a boat to go to Komodo Island. If you want to go, then I’ll buy the ticket.”

“Have you researched on where we’ll stay?”

“Uh… no?”

“I knew it.”

“Ehe” He answers in a light hearted tone.

“Alright, I’ll research about where to stay and I’ll pay for the hotels, I don’t want you to pay for everything.”

“Alright alright, Rokuto’ll pay for the food expenses.”

“Alright, see you then.” I say as I close my phone, arriving at the front of my apartment room.

I take a shower and watch some anime before going to sleep at 12 A.M. midnight.

(The next day)

I wake up and check my phone to see what time it is and to my surprise it’s still 12 A.M.

“What the hell. Did I really just sleep for a second?” I say to myself in confusion.

“My phone must be broken.” I say as I open my window, and I was surprised to see that it’s completely dark outside, with only lights from buildings illuminating the outside.

“I really did sleep for a second.” I say as I lay down in bed trying my best to go to sleep.

(A few moments later)

I wake up and instantly look out my window.

“What the actual f*ck? How can it still be dark?” I say in confusion and frustration.

As I start to pay more attention to the buildings I began to notice strange things, such as how the buildings aren’t the same as the buildings before, and how each building seems to be completely empty and barren with only little furniture and no people at all.

“Is this a dream? Am I going insane?” I say to myself in complete confusion.

I immediately open up my phone and began to search the internet looking for answers, and to my surprise the internet was completely empty, no posts, no websites, just nothing, even though my phone’s connected to the internet. I began to panic even more.

“Okay, this has to be a dream. There’s no way any of this is real. This has to be a lucid dream. There’s just absolutely no f*cking way any of this is real.” I say as I go to my kitchen frantically searching for my kitchen knife to slice a bit of my hand.

I grabbed my kitchen knife whilst at the same time, knocking everything down. I sat down and begin preparing to slice my hand.

“Should I really do this?” I asked myself.

“I mean, if it is a dream then, I won’t feel pain right?”

Suddenly one of the objects that I knocked down fell from the kitchen counter and scared me, which made me accidentally slice my right hand.

“Ow sh*t that hurts!” I yelled as the knife slices my right hand.

“So is this not a dream?” I say in confusion and frustration.

“Alright I must be going crazy, none of this has to be real.” I say angrily.

“Take a deep breath and relax yourself, none of this is real.” I tell myself to try to calm myself down.

As I calmed myself down and began cleaning my wound, I try to look out the window and it turns out that nothing has changed.

“Alright f*ck it! I’m going outside to check the goddamn stupid buildings. Maybe they’re still the same and I’m just sleep deprived.” I say in frustration.

I change my clothes and go outside of my apartment room.

“Wait, what if I ask my neighbours? They’ll probably think I’m crazy but the more I look at the surrounding buildings, the more obvious that they’re not the same buildings that were there before I got to this… whatever f*cking hell this is.” I say to myself as I knock my neighbour’s apartment room.

I waited 5 minutes and got impatient and tried to open the door, and to my surprise it opens, revealing an empty room with no furnitures and the lights still on, flickering. The bathroom of the apartment consists only of a shower, a sink, a bathtub, and a toilet with no lid.

“Okay, what in the actual f*ck. This has to be a dream.” I say as I began nervously sweating.

“What about my friends? What about the f*cking vacation? Why me? Where even am I?” I whimpered.

“No, no, now’s not the time to panick. You’ve lost everything once, you can go through this, you are strong, you just need to find a way to get out of this stupid place.” I try to encourage myself.

I finally got outside of my apartment and I begin to look inside the buildings. The buildings were indeed, completely empty and barren, containing little furniture with no one to be seen. The weirdest part about it wasn’t that it was completely empty, but it somehow felt very familiar.

“Have I been here before?” I ask in confusion.

“I feel like I’ve been here before? Why does the inside of the building look so familiar yet unfamiliar?” I say confused.

“Are the other buildings like this? What kind of world is this?”

I begin frantically looking inside the other buildings. The other building interiors were different, but they all have one thing in common, they all feel familiar.

“Okay, if this is a lucid dream, then this is a very weird one.” I say as I try to think of making something to try and test if this was truly a dream.

“…”

“Well that didn’t work.”

“Alright let’s just try to survive until I find a way out of this f*cking hell.”

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