For the 31st time, I stare at the colorful number pad of the elevator.
It doesn’t matter which floor I take. All of them have been the same so far, regardless of my choice. At first, I’d get excited whenever I’d find new signs on the buttons on my rides, but the novelty quickly wore off – they’re all the same.
They all take me back here, to the train station.
Punching the button with the cute rabbit, I get that sinking feeling in my stomach as the elevator is set into motion. A bit later, it dings.
Home sweet home. This elevator only goes one way and it’s the train station’s way.
I sigh.
If only they hadn’t gotten rid of the stairs at some point.
When did that happen?
It doesn’t matter. The facts are, there is no exit but the elevator, and the elevator ceased being an exit at some point.
Also, there hasn’t been a train in ages. Isn’t the schedule supposed to be tighter than this?
I pull out my phone again, but it still won’t turn on. Silly thing.
I shouldn’t have gone to sleep. It’s all because I tried to catch some shut-eye on my way home, and now I’m way past my stop in some unknown station with nowhere to go.
And usually, my station is the last stop, so it’s supposed to be safe to sleep, too! Yet here I am, at the end of my wits.
I enter the elevator again. The lights are out. Sometimes, this happens.
I flick the light switch, but it doesn’t respond.
Typical.
It doesn’t matter.
I can smell the buttons plastered across the walls even without my sense of sight.
There’s the apple red one and the chocolate brown one. They feel boring. Instead, I give the button that basically screams Mariana Trench at my nose a shot. It’s a soft orange.
When I try to press it down, nothing happens. It must have been a fake button.
Fine. I’ll take the one that smells like vibrating brain instead. It’s exotic enough to raise my hopes.
Alas…
No luck.
This time, we don’t even move, yet I dutifully exit the elevator to take stock of the unchanged train station.
It’s such a stupid situation to be stuck in.
Also, where are those trains?
They must be coming at some point.
The instant this thought crosses my mind, the typical electrical whirring announces the approach of a train. From one second to another, the dimly lit train station is flooded in light, and I shut my eyes. It doesn’t help. The light goes through my eyelids unhindered.
I turn away from the train to get some relief by staring into the darkness in the corner and wait until the train comes to a halt.
Now that the lights are further down the station, I can bear to look at it again.
It’s a single blank carriage with dark windows concealing the inside. Whatever the case, I’m not about to let it go without me.
I need to get out of here.
When I approach the door, it opens up for me and I step into the darkness.
Great.
Patting down the wall, I find the light switch. It clicks, but nothing happens.
I flip it a few more times before rolling my eyes and sitting down in resignation.
As soon as I do, the train starts moving again.
I’m alone.
I bet no one else was stupid enough to fall asleep and get carried away to this godforsaken station.
Now that I think about it… this train is going even further out. It’s not taking me closer to home. I feel it in my gut.
But maybe it’s taking me somewhere with an exit.
At this point, that’s all that matters.
I wait patiently. Now that we have left the station, I would expect to see the landscape outside, but a complete lack of sky leaves me in the dark. We may as well be traversing a tunnel.
Across from me, a billboard advertises a program to adopt stray goats. The words swim in and out of focus, and whenever I manage to lock down on a single one, the others dance into a new arrangement. Whoever made this is clearly more interested in frustrating the general populace than in getting people to adopt goats.
Wait.
Something itches at the back of my mind.
It’s right there.
In front of me.
If the train wasn’t humming so loudly, I may be able to focus on what’s bothering me!
It’s…
Right.
It’s the billboard.
The first word.
It says ‘Porgram’.
This can’t be right.
If you pay someone to design an ad for you, you make sure to double check it for spelling errors.
I… something is very wrong.
Something-
It’s a dream.
It’s as easy as that. The light switches not working, my electrical device dying on me, the changing buttons in the elevator, the theme of being stuck, the unreadable writing… It was all right there, all along.
Great. This means I can wake up now.
Any second now.
This is how it always works. As soon as I realize what’s going on, I wake up.
Except…
Nope.
It’s not happening.
Okay, fine. I guess it’s time to enjoy myself. I’ve heard that you can have a lot of fun while dreaming, so why not give it a try?
I walk over to the carriage door. The humming has increased ever since we started on our journey through nothingness.
In dreams, walls aren’t an issue, so I take a step, intending to walk through it.
Instead, my foot hits solid metal.
This is… irregular.
Alright, no issue.
So this isn’t as easy as those esoteric articles in trashy magazines claim. I’ll try flying instead.
Bouncing up and down inside the car, I will my body to float.
Nothing happens.
This is frustrating. It’s the neverending elevator all over again!
Why does my brain have to make everything so difficult?
I stare down the billboard with the friendly little goat kid printed smack in the middle of it. Let’s try something easier, like changing the picture. What if I try to turn it into a sheep?
Closing my eyes, I imagine what I want to see before opening them again.
Nothing changed.
It’s still a goat with cryptic words slipping in and out of existence around it.
Frustrated, I punch the billboard, attempting to hit it with superhuman force.
Instead of shattering it, my hand slides into the material. The billboard is made of a warm, vibrating liquid, encompassing half of my arm after my strike.
When I try to pull back, it won’t budge.
I thought I was supposed to be in control of this stuff, now that I’ve gotten aware!
Negative pressure begins sucking on my hand, stretching my fingers as I fight against the pull. What the hell?
I grab hold of one of the seats, clinging onto it to avoid being dragged further in.
This isn’t happening.
Aren’t you supposed to wake up when the situation gets too dire?
Maybe that’s the key.
Maybe I need to let go, be swallowed whole, and wake from the panic.
Yeah.
Anything beats staying in this nightmare.
Still, everything inside me recoils at the thought.
It’s like my primal instincts are screaming at me to hold on.
I-
Something crackles next to me, drowning out the deafening hum of the train for a moment.
It’s- I can’t quite make it out.
My eyes refuse to tell me what I’m looking at, as it is shrouded in the eternal darkness of the carriage.
I never did manage to turn on the lights.
“Human.”
The situation is getting more and more ridiculous.
“Alien?”
A hysterical laugh escapes me. This is driving me insane.
“You are the only one. I could find. I wish. To take you with me. For. Preservation purposes,” the thing in the darkness explains. Its words are human, but its inflections are not.
Also…
“What now?”
“Your world is being deconstructed by an outsider. Your reality is failing. It has devoured most of your logic. Your space will not hold you much longer. You will be consumed alongside what’s left.”
What?
At least its speech pattern has improved. Already, the sentences have a distinctly human flow to them.
“I wish to help,” it adds.
I… this is the weirdest dream I’ve ever had.
From the darkness steps the shadow of a human shape. Whatever has joined me in the car is distressingly good at imitation.
“Will you come with me? I wish to help.”
Yeah. You’ve said that before, mate.
Anything is better than this nightmare, right?
That’s what I thought earlier.
It reaches a hand out towards me.
I’ll have to let go of the seat that is currently saving me from being sucked into a billboard.
“I wish to help,” the alien thing repeats.
Well, as it turns out, I currently wish for help.
I take its hand.
NotHack Europa 