Chapter 1: That day, it was very foggy.

Chapter 1: That day, there was a big fog

The boundless fog rolled outside the window, so thick that it seemed as if the whole world had disappeared on the other side of the fog, and only the chaotic light of the sky penetrated the fog and shone into the room, making the quiet room maintain a half-dusk, half-bright light.

Inside the slightly messy single apartment, Zhou Ming ambled in front of his desk, the sundries on the desk were roughly pushed aside, while the haggardly-described man was writing furiously:
“On the seventh day, the situation has not changed at all, a thick fog shrouds everything outside the window, and the window is blocked by an unknown force …… The entire room seems to have been ‘cast’ into some kind of anomalous space as if it had been given an entire ‘cast’ by something ……

“There’s no way to contact the outside world, and there’s no electricity or water, but the lights stay on and the computer turns on – even though I’ve unplugged it ……”

As if a slight wind sound suddenly came from the direction of the window, Zhou Ming, who was burying his head in his diary, lifted his head violently, and a slight light flared up in his haggard eyes, however, the next second he realized that it was just his own hallucination, and there was still only the coiled and unbroken pale fog outside that window, a dead world indifferently shrouding this small snail’s dwelling place of his.

His eyes swept across the windowsill and saw the wrenches and hammers discarded haphazardly – traces of his attempts to leave the room over the past few days, yet now the hard, crude tools just lay there, as if mocking his predicament.

After a few seconds, Zhou Ming’s expression regained its calmness – and with this unusual calmness, he once again lowered his head and returned to his writing:
“I’m trapped, a completely clueless predicament, over the past few days, I’ve even tried to tear down the roof, walls and floor, but with all my strength I wasn’t able to leave a single trace on the walls, this room has become like a …… like a and space ‘poured ‘ in a box, with no way out ……

“Except that door.

“But what’s beyond that door …… is even more wrong.”

Zhou Ming paused once more as he slowly examined the handwriting he had just left behind, and then flipped through the diary somewhat absently, looking at what he had left behind over the past few days – depressing words, meaningless ramblings, irritating doodles, and cold jokes written when he was forcibly relaxing his mind.

He didn’t know what the point of him writing all this was, didn’t know who he could show this gibberish to in the future, and in fact he wasn’t even a habitual journaler – as a middle school teacher with rather limited free time, he didn’t have much energy to spend on it.

But now, like it or not, he had a great deal of free time.

After waking up with a start, he was stuck in his room.

Outside the window was a thick fog that wouldn’t dissipate, so thick that you couldn’t even see anything but the fog at all, the whole world seemed to have lost the alternation of day and night, a constant, dim light filled the room twenty-four hours a day, the windows were locked, the water and electricity were interrupted, and there was no cell phone signal, so no matter how much commotion was made in the room, it wouldn’t draw any rescue from the outside world.

It was as if it was a dystopian nightmare, where everything in the dream was running against the laws of nature, but Zhou Ming had already exhausted all means to determine one thing: there was no hallucination here, nor was there a dream, there was just a world that was no longer normal, as well as a self that was temporarily still normal.

He took a deep breath, his gaze finally landing on the only door at the end of the room.

Plain, cheap, white wooden door, still nailed to the calendar he’d forgotten to replace since last year and kept until today, with the doorknob worn to a dull shine and the footrest placed a little askew in the doorway.

That door could be opened.

If this closed and alienated room was like a cage, then the most vicious thing about this cage was that it actually kept a door that could be pushed open at any time, luring the prisoner in the cage to push the door to leave – but the opposite side of that door was not the “outside” that Zhou Ming wanted. But the opposite side of that door was not the “outside” that Zhou Ming wanted.

There were no old but friendly corridors, no sunny streets and vibrant crowds, nothing familiar to him.

There was only a strange and disturbing foreign country, and “over there” was also an inescapable dilemma.

But Zhou Ming knew that there was not much time left for him to hesitate, and the so-called “choice” had never existed in the first place.

His food reserves were limited, and only the last quarter of the several buckets of mineral water remained. He had already tried all means of escape and help in this closed room, and now there was only one way in front of him, and that was to get ready and go to the opposite side of the “door” to seek a ray of hope.

Perhaps, there is still a chance to investigate what caused this strange and embarrassing supernatural situation. Zhou Ming gently inhaled, lowered his head and left the last few paragraphs in the diary: “…… But no matter what, the only option left now is to go to the other side of the door, at least I can still find something to eat on that strange ship, and the exploration and preparations I have made over the past few days should be enough for me to survive on that ship. myself to survive on that ship …… although the preparations I can make over there are actually really limited.

“And finally, to those who come after me, if I don’t make it back and some rescuer or something does open up this room sometime in the future and sees this journal, please don’t think of all that I’ve written down as a dystopia – it really happened, and even though it’s creepy, but there really was a person named Zhou Ming who was trapped inside a crazy weird space-time vision.

“I’ve done my best to describe all the anomalies I’ve seen in this diary, and I’ve also recorded all the efforts I’ve made to get out of the trap, so if there really is any ‘later on’, please at least remember my name, and at least remember that this has happened before. ”

Zhou Ming closed the diary, threw the pen into the nearby pen holder, and slowly stood up from behind the table.

It was time to leave, before completely falling into passivity and desperation.

However, after a short period of reflection, he did not go directly to the only door that could lead to the “outside world”, but instead went straight to his bed.

He had to be ready to face the “foreign land” across the door – and his current state, especially his mental state, was not good enough.

Zhou Ming did not know if he could fall asleep, but even if he forced himself to lie on his bed and empty his mind, it was better than going to the “opposite side” in a state of mental exhaustion.

Eight hours later, Zhou Ming opened his eyes.

Outside the window was still a chaotic haze, and the light of day and night carried a depressing obscurity.

Zhou Ming directly ignored the situation outside the window as he took out food from the few remaining reserves and ate until he was eight points full, then came to the dressing mirror in the corner of the room.

The man in the mirror still had disheveled hair and appeared rather wretched, and there was no temperament to speak of, but Zhou Ming still stared at himself in the mirror with a deadpan expression, as if he was trying to permanently imprint this appearance in his mind.

He stared at the mirror like this for several minutes, then spoke in a low voice to himself, as if he was about to speak to the person in the mirror, “Your name is Zhou Ming, at least on ‘this side’, your name is Zhou Ming, always keep that in mind.”

Only after this did he turn around and leave.

Arriving in front of that all-too-familiar room door, Zhou Ming took a deep breath and placed his hand on top of the handle.

Apart from his clothes, he hadn’t brought anything extra with him, neither food nor self-defense equipment, this was the experience left behind by his previous “explorations” – apart from himself, there was no way he could bring anything through this door.

In fact, he even felt that even the “self” was a question mark, because ……

Zhou Ming turned the handle and pushed open the door, a gray-black mist that rose and fell like some kind of curtain appeared in front of his eyes, and in the rising and falling mist, he seemed to have heard the sound of ocean waves coming into his ears.

Stepping through the layer of fog, the slightly fishy and salty sea breeze greeted him, the illusory sound of the waves in his ears became real, and a slight sense of swaying came from under his feet, Zhou Ming opened his eyes after a short period of dizziness, and what he saw was a wide and open wooden deck, the towering masts standing under the dark and cloudy skies, as well as the slightly undulating sea outside the ship’s side where he couldn’t even see the edge of the sea.

Zhou Ming lowered his head, and what he saw was a body that was a little stronger than he remembered, a captain’s uniform that looked exquisitely crafted and costly, but in a style that was completely unfamiliar, a pair of bony palms, and a classically beautiful black flintlock pistol that was held in his hand.

Yes, even “itself” is a question mark.

(Mom! I’m back!)
(End of chapter)