A polyphonic ringtone woke me up, like every morning. I wanted to stay asleep.

Another day in the company I didn't want to be in.

I was sweating. I went to grab my phone like I did every day, but I missed.

I kept trying to grab something by hitting the wall with my hand.

The mattress was softer, not the ergonomic one I took a loan to buy 3 months ago.

The smell hit me. The stench of dirty clothes.

Did I forget to use the washer?

I opened my eyes.

My phone was on the other side. Not even my ringtone.

It was the default Bokia ringtone I had changed years ago.

The room was smaller.

My phone was much more compact.

And the windows were claustrophobic.

My hand knocked over a bottle—wait, my old bong, from years ago?

I raised my head.

There was my old Solid Gear poster on the wall.

Which I sold... some years ago, to pay rent.

I looked at the screensaver on my phone.

"Luck $urprise." The slice-of-life anime about girls having fun in school.

Generic, but it was the best, and I even bought a figurine on my first paycheck at the guild.

I woke up and saw my hands.

They didn't have the slash from making sandwiches at the company picnic. They didn't have the red little marks from when I touched the cursed dagger that got stuck to my hand for like a week.

But it still had that scar from when I fell off my bike at 8.

I looked at my hands for a moment more.

"Maybe I should call dad..."

I grabbed my phone, swiped to his number.

My finger hovered over the call button.

I held my breath. I froze.

I put it back on the table face down. "Maybe later."

Standing from my bed, I was lighter. My back didn't hurt.

I grabbed my chest and looked at the place where the hole was.

Only skin and flesh.

I pressed two more times.

There wasn't blood gushing out, or the feeling of my insides, or a metal blade.

Nothing.

"I am alive? I am alive!?"

The contract was real.

My shaking hands took hold of my stomach.

"Oh god." I stopped breathing.

I fell to my knees. I laughed so hard my stomach started to hurt... My vision went wet and blurry.

I could feel my legs! The cold, gritty linoleum tiles against my face.

I should think of cleaning the floor.

The world was not gray like the grayspace; I could hear the birdsong outside and see everything once more, even feel.

I didn't know how much time had passed.

I stood up and looked out. I tried to open the window.

I heard a knock on the door.

"I KNOW YOU ARE THERE!"

I was still in my pajamas, but at that point, I didn't care.

I opened the door.

There he was, a fat man, a small man in his 40s. "Telos! Where is my rent?"

I had already lived through this.

"You have been trying to sneak out for the last week," he pressed one of his greasy fingers on my chest.

"BUT NO, NOT THIS TIME, ROBERT WAS AWAKE, WAITING FOR YOUR SCRAWNY ASS." He shook his head as he spoke, spacing every second word.

"Mister... Lunking?" I said.

"DON'T ACT AS IF YOU DON'T KNOW ME, KID!" Mister Lunking stretched his hand. "Now give me the moolah." He put it in my face.

"Mister Lunking, could you come at another time?" I asked.

Mister Lunking stopped. "OH... Now I remember, it's because of your job at the guild?" Right. I worked at the guild. "What day is it?"

"IT'S RENT DAY!? THAT IS THE DAY!" He hit me in the head. "Remember! You still owe me this month. This is the second month. The third one is a strike."

Mister Lunking left, wobbling out of the passageway.

I pressed my hands together and half opened my mouth.

I remembered Mister Lunking. He wasn't that bad of a landlord. He died of a heart attack in 2 years. He even let me skip rent a few times without any interest while my grant got delayed. Still, he was kind of a douche.

Was it a waste of time to try?

I shouted, "You should exercise a bit more, Mister Lunking."

Lunking laughed, "Kids these days, they have everything figured out." I shook my head and turned back to my apartment. Let's put that on the back burner.

We had more important things than Lunking — like being greeted by a window in the middle of my room.

I looked at the screen in front of me.

I stepped back, and I squinted as I read the text that appeared in it.

I saw that on the floor. There was no shadow. I almost raised my hand to see if it had strings attached.

Nope.

Breakfast.

I opened the refrigerator.

How did I ever manage to live like this?

It held mostly negative space, no vegetables, no fruit, nothing that you could classify as healthy.

There was a half-drunk soda that, at this point, was completely flat.

There was a tiny white takeout box with Chinese characters.

I decided against checking it, as my past self had.

Then I found a bottle of milk, opened it, and smelled it.

"It's only a bit sour... right?"

 

"Oh, what a nice day of not seeing anything," I said, grabbing my milk.

What else did I have? Cereal box.

I pushed it aside and decided to have milk solo.

 

"Aren't you being needy?" I said as I sat down and drank from the bottle itself.

I gagged.

 

Are you kidding me?

 

"What? Are you insane? Pyromite? That's hunter-grade explosives." I pointed to the floor.

"That stuff can kill damn near anything under C-rank, and it's illegal as hell for me to even think of it."

"Nuh. No way. Not gonna do it. Not ever. You're insane if you think I'm touching that."

I set my milk down a little too hard on the table, spilling some of it.

"If they find that kind of explosive on me, I'm dead. Not arrested. DEAD."

The paperwork from the last time I ordered pyromite for a group of hunters. Page after page of signatures. There were ten class C hunters escorting a single piece, as if it were Director Park himself.

"The guild probably has some, sure, but I'm not going to steal that on my first day as a fucking intern."

 

The TOS shot up again on the screen, showing section 8 once more.

"Subject's residual awareness to the Lower Strata (subterranean, alimentary, fully immersive)"

Reading that, I answered, "No, it means nothing to me."

 

I spat my milk. "I didn't sign that!"

 

"But they will execute me." I started to clean the spilled milk on the table.

 

It's either an eternal lake of shit or a firing squad.

At the table, the spilt milk, it made puddles on the cheap plastic table which I would have to clean up.

The phone on my night table, I needed some time, before...

I grabbed my head and pulled on my hair. I was really going to steal pyromite. Who do they think I am, a spy?

That or an eternal lake of shit.

Getting shot didn't sound half as bad, to be honest.

I hate this.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember what happened on my first day.

It was a day mostly spent on onboarding; I did almost nothing.

Wait, something did happen, something that lets me dodge the firing squad.

There was an incident, an opportunity, the evacuation alarm.

"Okay, fine, I will do it," I said. I stood up. "I have a plan."