Chapter 1: The Float

I am not sure if I am real.

Everything is dark—no, not dark. There is no light to be absent.
Only the feeling of… floating.

And even that is a guess.

It’s a warm float.
Uncomfortably warm.
The kind that glues your skin to the back of a seat.
The kind that comes after too much air, too much fabric, too long in the wrong place.

“...haaaah... flhmm…”
“...nnnaaaaooowuhh—!”
“–kkhhk!”

I’m speaking.
Or someone is.
The noise is wet. Sloppy. Wretched.
It doesn’t sound like it belongs in a mouth.

I do not remember what mouths are for.

‘Who am I?’

That one rises clear. A thought. It belongs to me. I think.

‘Where am I?’

Floating. Still floating.

‘Feels… warm. Too warm. Sticky hot. Like… summer bus seats. Skin sticking to coats warm.’

Another thought wiggles loose:

‘Clearly, I am dead.’

There’s no panic in that. Just the passing of the idea.

‘No swim meet with the guys… Good. I hate swimming.’

‘Fear of drowning.’

Pause.

‘Oh no. Am I drowning right now?’

There is a silence that isn’t quiet.
It buzzes, low and deep, like lights that shouldn’t be on.

And then—
Sensation.

A pulse. A push.
Something under me. Or around me.
The weight of the world… returns.

The top part of me—that thing that stores the buzz, the spin—
It hurts. It has a name.

‘Head.’

Yes.
My head aches.

Fingertips tingle. Burn.
Feet feel like stone.
My back…

‘Ah, my back is killing me.’

That thought—
That one feels old. Familiar.

I must have said that before.

“–nnnggGHHhhg…!”
“ehhhghuh—!!”
“...aauuh—hhHh…”

The noise escapes again.
It sounds like trying to speak underwater.
Like wet cloth stuffed in my throat.

Like I’ve forgotten how to be human.

‘Always tired…’

It slips out like a sigh inside my mind.
Not sad. Just… old. Worn in like an elbow-shaped dent in a mattress.

‘I miss candy.’

Yes.
Candy.
That word means something.
Sweet. Sticky. Plastic wrappers peeled in nervous hands.
Colors I can’t name now, but they were bright. They smiled at me.

‘More. With friends.’

Yes.
Candy is better with friends.

‘…Did I ever have friends?’

That thought doesn’t echo—it hurts.
Sharp.
Sudden.
A cold realization, like metal teeth snapping shut inside the chest.

‘No. No, not me. I was too busy to have… friends.’

The pause afterward feels like a hallway with no door.

‘…Surely.’

A sting.

Small. A prick in the dark.
Then—

AGONY.

The back of my hand—burns.
A needle.

It doesn't hurt like a poke.
It hurts like truth.

Something pours in.
Floods upward.
Liquid fire chasing veins.

It moves.
Like it’s looking for a way into my brain.

And it finds it.

The void erupts.
Black is shattered—
replaced by blinding colors:

RED. Not a sunset. A scream.
ORANGE, vibrating like a migraine.
YELLOW like dawn on a day you wish hadn’t come.

It is too much.
Everything is light. Everything is pain.
There are—

‘Stars…’

In my skull.
Too many stars.
A galaxy of them, pulsing with wrongness.

It is blinding.
It is beautiful.
It is horrific.

And I…

I begin to fade again.

‘The play is about to begin.’

That final thought falls like a curtain.

And like that, the pain folds in on itself.

Colors collapse.
Sound bleeds away.
The light withdraws—leaving only the sour taste of electricity on the tongue.

I don’t wake up.
I just… am.
Suddenly.

I’m standing. Upright.
Weird.

Not lying in a bed.
Not curled in a pit of candles.
Not strapped to a machine like the movies always say.

Just—standing there.
Like someone forgot to finish setting the scene.

‘Where the hell am I?’

The words don’t leave my mouth. Not worth the effort.
Still babbling like that? Get it together.

My head rolls side to side, surveying the nothingness.
No beeping. No bleach.

Just… wood.

Wooden planks.

‘A real gripping narrative.’

The room is a shack.
No—less than that.
A shed, someone stapled into the shape of a home.

Two rooms.

The one I’m in now is bare, save for some debris and a lovely collection of mildew growing near what might’ve once been a closet.
To the left, a doorless frame yawns toward—

The bathroom.
Boarded shut.
From this side.

‘Guess I’m not taking a piss today.’

The other room… the bedroom, I assume.

I peek in.
Nothing welcoming about it.

The mattress is gone—only the metal frame remains, and someone’s lovingly decorated it with barbed wire.

Not symbolic barbed wire.
Actual barbed wire.

The bed is a single. Narrow. A bit longer than I am.

‘Comfortably sized for a corpse.’

I don’t know if the joke is mine. But I think it is.
That feels right. That feels like me.

I pace slowly. Cautiously.
The floorboards groan like they’re telling secrets.

The whole place is…

Wrecked.

Not abandoned—violated.

Something happened here.
And not the good kind of something.

Half the roof has collapsed.
Beams hang like broken teeth.
There’s debris everywhere—splinters, cloth, metal, maybe a pipe or two.
Like a fight broke out between furniture and gravity.

The mirrors—and there were a lot—
All shattered.
Glass removed.

‘Not a single shard left… who the hell cleans up broken glass and leaves the rest of the disaster?’

Not even a glint of reflection.
Just frames, like dead picture holders.

And worst of all—

The color.

It’s not absence.
It’s not mood.

It’s wrong.

Everything is grayscale.
Wood that should be brown is gray.
Metal, white.
Shadows, inky black—too black.

‘Did I blind myself?’

‘No. No, this isn’t my fault. This isn’t me. This is…’

‘…I don’t know what this is.’

The windows are boarded over, but someone left just enough space between the slats to let the light through—

beams of bright white, slicing the room in strips.

But you can’t see out.
No hint of trees. No road.
Not even sky.

And there is no door.

Not kicked in. Not fallen.
Gone.
As if the entrance never existed.

‘Right. Cool. So I live here now.’

‘In a featureless cube of trauma with no mattress, no plumbing, and the color palette of a funeral brochure.’

‘10/10. Would float again.’