A vast, thick fog rolled outside the window, so dense that it felt like the entire world had vanished beyond it. Only a dim light managed to pierce through the fog, filling the quiet room with a half-lit glow.
In a slightly messy apartment, Zhou Ming sat at his desk, pushing aside clutter with a rough hand. He looked worn out, yet he was writing furiously:
"Day seven, and nothing has changed. The thick fog covers everything outside the window, and an unknown force has sealed the window shut... It feels like this room has been cast into some strange space...
"I can't contact the outside world, and there's no water or electricity, but the lights stay on, and the computer still works—even though I've unplugged it..."
Suddenly, a faint sound of wind seemed to come from the window. Zhou Ming, who had been focused on his journal, looked up in surprise. There was a flicker of hope in his tired eyes, but the next moment, he realized it was just his imagination. Outside the window, the pale fog still lingered, wrapping his small home in a cold, silent world.
He glanced at the windowsill and saw a wrench and a hammer tossed aside—evidence of his attempts to escape the room over the past few days. Now, those hard tools lay there quietly, as if mocking his helpless situation.
After a few seconds, Zhou Ming's expression returned to calmness. With this strange calm, he lowered his head again and resumed writing:
"I'm trapped, completely at a loss. In the past few days, I even tried tearing down the roof, walls, and floor, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't leave a mark on the walls. This room has become... like a box fused with space, with no way out...
"Except for that door.
"But what's outside that door... is even more unsettling."
Zhou Ming paused again, slowly examining his own handwriting. He flipped through the journal, looking at the words he had written over the past few days—oppressive thoughts, meaningless ramblings, anxious doodles, and forced jokes meant to lighten his mood.
He didn't know why he was writing all this, or who might read it in the future. In fact, he wasn't even someone who usually kept a journal—being a high school teacher with little free time, he didn't have much energy to spare for this.
But now, whether he liked it or not, he had plenty of free time.
After waking up one day, he found himself trapped in his own room.
Outside was an unending fog, so thick that he couldn't see anything beyond it. The world seemed to have lost its day and night; a constant dim light filled the room, the windows were locked, water and electricity were cut off, and his phone had no signal. No matter how much noise he made in the room, he couldn't attract any help from the outside.
It felt like a bizarre nightmare, where everything operated against the laws of nature. But Zhou Ming had exhausted all means to confirm one thing: this was not an illusion or a dream. It was just a world that was no longer normal, and a self that was still somewhat normal.
He took a deep breath, his gaze finally landing on the only door at the end of the room.
A plain, cheap white wooden door, with a calendar he had forgotten to replace since last year still pinned to it. The doorknob was shiny from use, and the welcome mat was slightly crooked.
That door could be opened.
If this closed and twisted room was like a prison, then the cruelest part was that it had a door that could be pushed open at any time, constantly tempting the prisoner inside to leave—yet what lay beyond that door was not the "outside" Zhou Ming wanted.
There was no familiar hallway, no sunny streets filled with lively crowds, nothing he recognized.
There was only a strange and unsettling foreign land, and "over there" was just as much a trap.
But Zhou Ming knew he didn’t have much time to hesitate. The so-called "choice" had never really existed from the start.
His food supply was limited, with only a quarter of a few bottles of water left. He had tried every means of escape and call for help in this closed room, and now the only path before him was to prepare himself and seek a glimmer of hope on the other side of the door.
Perhaps he could also find out what caused this strange and dire supernatural situation.
Zhou Ming took a deep breath and wrote down a few final lines in his journal: "... But no matter what, the only choice left is to go through the door. At least on that strange ship, I might find something to eat, and my explorations and preparations over the past few days should be enough for me to survive there... even though my preparations are quite limited.
"Lastly, to whoever comes after me, if I don't make it back, and one day someone opens this room and sees this journal, please don't take what I've written as a ridiculous story—this really happened. Despite being terrifying, there truly was a person named Zhou Ming, trapped in a bizarre and chaotic anomaly.
"I’ve done my best to describe the strange things I've seen in this journal and recorded all my efforts to escape. If there really is a 'future reader,' please at least remember my name, and remember that all of this once happened."
Zhou Ming closed the journal, tossed the pen into a nearby holder, and slowly stood up from the desk.
It was time to leave, before he fell completely into passivity and despair.
But after a brief moment of thought, he didn’t head straight for the only door leading to the "outside." Instead, he walked directly to his bed.
He needed to be in top shape to face the "foreign land" on the other side of the door—and right now, he wasn’t in the best condition, especially mentally.
Zhou Ming didn’t know if he could fall asleep, but even forcing himself to lie in bed and clear his mind was better than going into the "other side" in a state of exhaustion.
Eight hours later, Zhou Ming opened his eyes.
Outside the window was still a chaotic fog, with dim light that felt oppressive.
Ignoring the situation outside, he took some food from his dwindling supplies and ate until he was about 80% full. Then he went to the dressing mirror in the corner of the room.
The man in the mirror still had messy hair, looking quite disheveled, with no charm to speak of. But Zhou Ming stared intently at his reflection, as if trying to imprint this image in his mind forever.
He watched himself in the mirror for several minutes, then quietly spoke to himself, as if addressing the person in the mirror: "Your name is Zhou Ming. At least here, you are Zhou Ming. Always remember that."
After that, he turned to leave.
Standing in front of the familiar door, Zhou Ming took a deep breath and placed his hand on the doorknob.
He carried nothing extra except for the clothes on his back—no food, no weapons. This was a lesson learned from previous "explorations"—he couldn't bring anything through that door except himself.
In fact, he even questioned whether he could consider this "self" as certain, because...
Zhou Ming turned the knob and pushed the door open. A swirling mass of gray-black fog appeared before him like a curtain, and within the shifting fog, he thought he could hear the sound of waves.
Stepping through the fog, a slightly salty sea breeze hit him, and the illusory sound of waves became real. He felt a slight swaying beneath his feet. After a brief moment of dizziness, Zhou Ming opened his eyes to find himself on a wide, open wooden deck, under dark clouds with towering masts, and an endless sea gently rising and falling beyond the ship's railing.
He looked down and saw a body that was stronger than he remembered, dressed in a finely crafted but completely unfamiliar captain's uniform, with large hands gripping a beautifully designed black flintlock pistol.
Yes, even his "self" was now a question mark.
(Mother! I'm back!)
(End of Chapter)