Standing in the middle of his room, he looked at his door with slightly dropped eyelids.
For several moments, he stood still. Thoughts bouncing in his head. Thoughts he couldn't have a hold of.
After some time, he made the first step towards his door.
Navigating his way to the handle, he pulled it down.
The feeling of cold entered his body the moment he touched the surface of the handle. That sensation was something he knew all too well. It was the same when he grabbed one of the instant noodle cups and peeled its top off. Wasn't cold or warm. Always the same.
When he pulled down the handle, the door creaked with each moment.
He stepped outside his room into a corridor.
Some cardboard boxes were stacked on top of each other, while a few had fallen to the ground. A bunch of water bottles and other necessities were scattered on the floor.
He looked to the side. Before he could have experienced what the outside world was looking like, aside from the light faintly entering his room, a door stood before him. A door that was nothing like the one he'd just opened. This one was sturdier, larger. Windows half the size of the door occupied the upper part, as it was divided into four smaller rectangles. No one could see out nor in. It was just clear enough so that the light could pass through. Though it wasn't strong enough to create an accurate image of what was outside. Only some blubs moving here and there.
As he was standing like his legs were chained to the floor, something reached his chest. Unable to shake himself free from that sensation, his gaze lowered gradually until all he could see was the gray floor.
Why go out?
Keeping his hands in his pockets, he raised his head enough to look through the frosted glass. It was bright.
Staring off into the distance through the glass, his mouth began to change its shape to be able to enunciate the sounds of letters through his vocals.
"Too late to start now." His voice barely audible.
It came out tense and dry, as though the act of speech had become a redundant part of his life he'd shelved away.
He walked to the big door, touched the handle, pulling it open.
It didn't budge.
Course it's locked.
He turned back.
The floor was a mess. Sea of boxes inhabited most of the ground. Some were opened; some were still taped shut; a few were empty with their contents spilled to the floor.
On the left side, the door he came from, opened. His soft bed visible in the corner.
He walked away from the door that stood behind him.
The bed before him; he sat down.
Holding his head low, he stared at the floor with almost closed eyes.
For a minute, he didn't move, only keeping his head fixated on the half-finished udon on the top of one of the boxes.
There was no steam anymore, just a metal fork sticking out from a pile of noodles.
He laid back on the pillow, his feet still touching the floor, and closed his eyes.
It was dark and calm.
For minutes, he laid there. Though, unlike before when his eyelids peacefully rested on the top of his eyes, this time, they weren't loose. He had to squeeze them tight to keep them shut. Every now and then, opening them lightly and then closing them back.
As much as he tried to feel at ease, half of his body didn't let him.
Even when he had most of his upper body relaxed, his lower half tensely bound him to the ground.
Despite everything trying to disrupt him, he kept lying with closed eyes, unbothered by what state the world around him was in. The only thing he focused on was regulating his unsteady breathing.
While he concentrated on the slight motion his chest made as his hand descended and ascended on it, the inside of his eyelids sparked under a dim reddish light.
He squeezed his eyes, then opened them.
Above him, the dark ceiling.
He shifted his head to where the light came from. His eyes landed on his window.
There was a faint light shining directly into his eyes.
From his chest, his right hand raised, moving towards the blinds. But before he could extend his hand fully, the light disappeared.
Keeping his hand in the air, he sighed quietly.
Moments later, he pulled back his hand and got up from his bed.
He stared at the bottom of the gray wall between his bed and the door. Everything that wasn't the wall blurred around it. The boxes beyond the door painted the whole floor brown as they merged with the darkness of the corridor.
For some moments, he didn't move, just kept staring in front of him.
Eventually, his legs began to move, leaving the small room behind as he stepped foot in the corridor once again.
The big door, like before, stood in front of him.
He glanced at the keyhole and turned around.
Running through the cluster of boxes all over the floor with his eyes, he attempted to search through all of them until he found what he was looking for.
At first, he only looked from a distance, hoping not to be placed in the situation where he had to be physically there to find it. Though that hope was short-lived. Even when he ran through all the boxes and other objects scattered all around the floor, there was no sign of anything that could be the key.
Realizing he had to make a move, he walked to the closest box and searched it.
It was empty.
He walked to the next one.
The same as before.
Some time and emptied-out boxes later, though, he spotted something that was amongst the possible options of being the key. He walked there, bending his knees slightly, searching through the contents of the box with his left hand until he found nothing. After the box was fully emptied, with him pouring the whole contents on the floor, he made his way to the next one.
Even though minutes had passed, there was no sign of frustration growing on his face. He might've even wanted the search to be for nothing.
He dug his hand into the next box and pulled out a paper bag. Inside was a small, dark blue mechanical pencil snapped in half. He took it out and placed his thumb on the top side. A slight pressure was created, but nothing happened. Even after pushing his thumb down, there was no click.
Some moments of silence later, he crouched down. The mechanical pencil was put down on the floor right on top of a blank piece of paper. A bunch of other papers littered the ground in proximity.
Before he came back up, his eyes accidentally landed on something far back, where the corridor was cut by a wall. A faint light shone before it, coming from the door, making all the dust particles surrounding it visible. Leaning against the wall, stood a lone guitar. Nothing was in its vicinity. Dust coated its vibrant color, painting it dull grayish-brown. Its E string snapped in half, curling down to the floor.
He stood back up.
He kept staring at the dusty guitar in the distance for another ten seconds before his legs started moving towards the wall.
One step. Two steps. Three—
Crack!
He stopped, looking down. His crocs crunched glass and plastic beneath them.
Next to the shattered glass, a box was poking his right ankle through his thin black cotton socks.
His right hand reached for it and picked the small box up. As he lightly grabbed it with his fingertips from the top, the box shook, creating the impression of the sound of metal colliding like small bells in a tiny space.
He opened the box and brought it closer to his face.
Inside, sitting at the bottom, were highly reflective silver keys with a ring keeping them together.
A breath escaped as his hand grabbed the keys and put down the box on top of another one.
The cold metal pressed against his palm.
After closing his hand with a slight squeeze, he looked back at the wall. His eyelids cut the ceiling from him. He kept staring at the guitar until his eyes almost became watery. But before his eyes could reach that dry state, he blinked three times, rapidly one after the other.
He glanced at his right hand, tightly holding the keys. Slight swing visible on his arm.
Blinking one slowly, he raised his head, gazing at the guitar for three more seconds, then turning away.
Before him, the dim light shone through the big door's frosted glass, painting the dark floor beneath him with dull white.
It was quiet. Only his crocs made some sounds as they pressed against the floor.
He kept walking.
The door was almost an arm's length away from him.
As he gazed at the light, a small water bottle got under him.
He fell over and hit his head on the door.
Bang!
Although he had suffered some injuries, moments later, he rose up from the ground.
Slight pain was coming from the top of his forehead, though, all he did was brush his semi-long hair to the right side.
He grabbed the keys from his pocket, which he had shoved there just before tripping, and raised his left hand, trying to insert the key. It took him numerous attempts before he could have made that happen. Each time he tried, he missed the mark by a few inches.
But then, he finally found the right angle.
He started to rotate the key until the door was unlocked.
When he heard the clicking sound, he stopped.
Just before he pushed the door open, he looked through the blurry view of the world outside.
His chest tightened.
He puts his right hand on his chest, squeezing his shirt.
After emptying his head, he lightly grabbed the handle and pushed it down.
When he heard the click, he slowly started to pull it to where he was standing.
The moment he cracked the door, sunlight flooded in.
Before he could have reacted, the rest of his body already spread the door wide open.
The blazing light intruded on his apartment, which he once had all to himself. He reflexively shut his eyelids. Nerves protested as hard as they could, to the point that they filed their report to the embassy. When the complaints arrived, his will to open them up no longer worked.
Covering his eyes with his left forearm, he slightly turned away from the light.
Having remembered possessing something that could help ease the pain, he looked back at the cardboard boxes on the floor.
Still standing in the doorway, his eyes were mindlessly switching from one place to another. After going through the same boxes repeatedly, he thought it was hopeless to find what he was looking for.
But then, a place he had just barely missed each time gets spotted.
A slight calmness entered his body, just to then immediately trade places with the feeling he had before.
He had spotted the object he was looking for. A pair of sunglasses. Just there, a few feet away from him, next to an open box that had a piece of red glove sticking out, lying on the floor.
Though he found the sunglasses, they were broken.
Did he step on it when he tried to make it to the door, or was it something that had been broken for a long time now?
He couldn't answer, but there was no need to. Whether it broke now or years before doesn't matter anymore. He can't go back to fix it, so finding reasons why it broke besides the fact that it's broken was a waste of time.
As he was gazing at the broken sunglasses, he let out a sigh.
He put his hand back to his pelvis, formed a fist, and squeezed it.
Turning his head back where the light was, he squinted.
Despite that, he stepped away from his door.
When he made it outside, he pulled out his phone and checked the time left until the end of the world.
00:48:05