Thankfully, zombies sleep too.

While I was only nearly approached once and nearly assaulted based on what my wits told me, I got a lot of progress done. Finding what marker Rebecca suggested was so easy that I’d have to be blind not to find it. The City has a bunch of lights everywhere. Lamp posts glow in a cold hue, with salt encasing each light. They all buzzed with this annoying high-pitched hum. But sound and obnoxiously bright luminosity aside, they were lined up in rows that led right to where she mentioned.

Maybe I should have been louder when setting up my hammock. By the way, it was actually a rope net made to hold pomegranates for easy access. Untying it, let the entire stock spill onto the floor with ease. I put it in a cart, along with a tablecloth, unprepared food, supporting materials for the hammock, and a few tools for general-purpose use.

My work almost felt too easy: my hiding spot was dark, close to the rendezvous point, tied between two banisters a good two stories high, and I had enough extra rope to tie each end taut.

When hanging up a makeshift hammock, you would think it’d take all night. I noticed I had plenty of night to spare when I was done, possibly too much. As the following events transpire, I know now I had way too much night to spare.

…

Nearing the completion of setting up my temporary bed, exhaustion set in. It was how my eyes wanted to stay closed, no matter how alert all my other senses were. It was how, although I had the strength to move what I wanted, I didn’t have some sort of external motivation, as if my body needed to be as motivated as my mind. It was how I kept returning to the same thoughts over and over without producing any new internal dialogue. Maybe not instantly, but as the silence set in and my ears began to ring, my energy drained rather quickly.

It was late, sure; I know I should be tired when it's late. It was also late while I was eating dinner. I don’t know. Maybe it's not worth examining at the moment. I wish I could call it a blessing, as I think I’ll have a good night’s sleep tonight. I don’t know.

I tested the bed before fully jumping in. Sure, I rocked back and forth, but it was stable.

…

Normally, when someone falls asleep entirely, they can’t really remember when exactly they did it. It makes sense since their perceptions of their outside environment and even their inside introspection shut down a little. At the same time, I feel like you can really deduce when what happens and how. For example, maybe I’m ranting to myself when trying to sleep. If there’s a point where I feel like I’ve left off, that’s probably when I fell asleep. Another roadblock to figuring out when exactly you’d fall asleep is the exciting result of a dream you go through.

Oh, look, I appear to have fallen. I’m in a room with checkered floors, wavy walls that extend far past where I can see, that has a table, a teapot, and a door. From what I could see up above were red velvet drapes that hadn’t fully lowered to the ground. What is this, a theater? Am I supposed to be an actor or a puppet? The walls around me had tacky, faded wallpaper, though, suggesting I was in some sort of a house.

So, I get up, feet first, and then throw myself forward by pushing my hands from the floor. And what is there to do? It’s a room. There’s nothing in it. I could call out to see if anyone’s there, but I have no faith that has ever worked in history, or I could try to open said door. One problem: I can fit at most my hand through said door, which is also locked. I have a stellar idea. I could kick the door to see what happens. Better yet, I could kick the table to see what would happen.

Instead, I half-heartedly decided to play along with whatever puzzle I’m supposed to participate in.

“Whatever this place is, I’m ready to move on to what I’m supposed to see next.” I sing into the void. My voice travels up into the air, echoing back and forth as it rises.

“If only someone would tell you which way to go.” Said the ground.

No, the ground can’t talk. I frantically looked around to find the source of the voice. Lo and behold, the door had a tired scowl. In short, it had a face. As I locked eyes with it, it continued.

“Sadly, you missed the reception. Everyone else had a blast, networked with each other, and now they’re all of one mind and spirit. You’ll never have another chance because of how tardy you were,” it yawned through its speech.

I guess it has a mouth, too, and isn’t afraid to use it. I squatted to try and get to its level. My eye level was still twice the height of that tiny door.

“Well, maybe I can’t connect with them. I do want to progress with what I want to do, though. I have my own goals, and I don’t think I need others to achieve them. Besides, it’s risky to entangle yourself with those whose values override yours.” I chided.

Then, it scoffed at me. The nerve of that door. “Well, look where that got you. There were a few stragglers, you know this, and you never made a lasting connection. Whatever happened to being pen pals- writing back and forth, updating each other on your lives, and visiting once in a while?”

I scooched closer. “They didn’t accept me. I was in no position to keep these friends, so I decided to focus on goals that didn’t need them. You can’t blame me for trying to hone into my strengths instead of my weaknesses.”

“Yet here you are, crying out, ‘Can anyone help little old me to move on?!’ Don’t you know they have the key? Your network is the key you’re looking for to find success in life, no matter what goal you have.” It made the worst attempt to imitate my voice that I’d ever seen.

“Alright. Let me spell it out for you. I’m looking for answers. I want to know why I’m so different from everyone else. I want to know what exists outside of the City. Then, I want to know what reason someone like me, in particular, would journey into the City. Then I’ll get out of your and your annoying little ‘network’s hair. Deal?” I squinted my eyes to make my point.

Something on the table rattled. It was a plate with a small slice of cake. I looked back to see it had a tag, which said, “Eat me.”

After an uncomfortable moment of silence, the door began to say, “Try it.” I interrupted it, declining. We then got into a back-and-forth, commanding me to eat whatever foreign morsel of potentially poisonous waste lay on that plate. After standing up again to contemplate it closer, its next command to eat it made a loud booming noise.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I swiped the plate onto the ground, causing it to shatter. What was strange was the horrific swelling racket, like an orchestra of breaking glass. I held my ears as its shrill tornado of noise punished my disobedience.

"I'm beginning to think you're more of a cat than I am." Said two yellow, glowing eyes.

"Don't label me!" I shouted back.

An eerily smiling cat began to materialize, laying down and holding its head with one of its arms. It was the fattest, most annoying creature I had ever laid eyes upon.

“You know, if you never reach out to get a good grip on what you want, it’ll slip away from you.” The cat said while pieces of the shattered plate got legs and began to tiptoe away from me.

“Well, I don’t care about these experiences. They’re hardly offered to me, and when they are, I’m humiliated! I have to grasp at something I never innately cared about, and I have to beg despite wanting nothing to do with it! I’m not gonna keep playing these games!” I slammed my hand onto the table.

“Despite all your protesting, you’re the one who asked for the key. The key is with them. The only way through them now is to participate in what they do. You have to become like them, isn’t that interesting?” The cat rolled around on the table.

“Let’s get something straight. The key is mine. Just because you all have it right now doesn’t make it yours. Give me the key. I can’t become someone I’m not. I break at the seams if I even try to be or do something that isn’t innately me. I want the key, and I want to be me so I don’t collapse into a pile of dust.”

“Well then, look behind you. Is that her? Your precious key? I’m sure you know her oh-so-well.” as it pointed to…wait.

That’s Rebecca. But I just met her yesterday, there’s no way I could know her as if she were some childhood friend. She’s holding the key, though. As she’s making a smug grin, she holds the key close to her heart.

From what I noticed, it looked like she had a bunny nose. She was also wearing a relatively complicated dress: primarily in white, but had various designs of playing-card soldiers, hearts, rabbits, and caterpillars on it. It was a coordinated look, where it had quite a few layers, even having stockings that had a matching design. Her mary-janes were the only element that stood out, having the same hue as her raven-colored hair.

“You know, with how adverse you are, both to touch, experience, and connecting with others, you should just fully become the cat you were always meant to be.” The cat got up on two legs and grabbed a tail from behind his back.

He tried pinning a tail to me, and I ran around in circles to escape it. “I’m me! I’m not a cat! I am Ishmael; why won’t you listen to me?!” I pleaded.

“Ishmael, you say? I’ve never seen one of those in the City before. They always seem like a walking contradiction, with their legs attached one way and their head going the other way. If one were to exist, I’m sure someone in the City would deal with them. You know, taking them apart, piece by piece, and putting them back together the right way.” That cat was hiding something.

“And why would they do that? It’s not like he’s causing any harm to anything in the City!” I didn’t necessarily yell, but I was heated.

“You’re extremely loud, actually. Imagine being someone else: you’re minding your own business, and one day, your senses get hijacked. You begin to see from someone else’s miserable angle, hear what they hear and how they hear it, smell with what intent they have to smell from. Do you know what you are, Mr…I guess…Ishmael? You’re a virus. To us. Every time you get upset, every time you say you hate one of us, every time you insult us and disrespect our culture, we feel the immense irony. We’ve seen your every move, and how couldn’t we have? You’re so easy to spot. You might think you're invisible, but really, no one knows how to actually deal with you. At the same time, they see every excruciating moment from your perspective when you’re near us. You’re an eyesore and don’t know even half of our pain. You don’t know how much we want you gone whenever you’re even within a mile of us.” The smiling cat said nonchalantly.

The expression of shock was my recurring look now. “Then…I need the key. With it, I can leave, and everyone wins.” I focused back on Rebecca again.

The key accidentally slipped from her hands, causing her to have a surprised expression. As it hit the ground, making a ‘cling’ noise similar to a glockenspiel, a large crack appeared across her face as if it were made of porcelain. The key bounced a few times, far away from me and her.

“Be careful! I don't want anything to happen to you!” I shouted out.

She laughed and began to run away. “You never cared about me, silly! All you want is to hungrily stare at me, chomping away at my dignity. My well-being and safety only matter so much as how pretty I am, isn’t it? Once I’ve wilted, you’ll move on, isn’t that right?” She said in a light, slightly mocking tone.

My eyes widened instinctually as if the reaction of ‘shock’ was an instinct in itself. “That doesn’t even make sense! I’ve never even done anything that’d lower who you are as a person! I’ve tried my best to respect you, to learn about you, and to appreciate who you are!”

“Yet you reached out only when you had to.” her voice scattered all across the now extending room.

Admittedly, the key was my top priority. I felt like she would have become defensive for it, misinterpreting the desire for the key for desiring attention, or worse: her body. I just needed answers, but whenever I tried asking them, two problems occurred. They never came out of my mouth right: accurately, with precision, and with value. The other person also never knew what to say. Trying to get the key has always been a complete waste of time, as I just didn’t have the tools necessary to acquire it.

What once was a round room whose floor sunk in the middle became a long hallway with uneven flooring as if it were turbulent water. The walls curved upwards as if I were looking at them through a fish-eye lens.

“Rebecca! Can I please have that key?” I call out desperately.

She swiveled for a moment with her hands behind her back, saying, “Of course, you can!” she promptly giggled in an echoey, ghostly way and then accidentally kicked the key even farther from me.

I tried to run after her. A sound stopped my attention in its tracks. Behind me, dozens, if not hundreds, of mannequins taller than me, trudged toward me, filling the entire space behind me. For the brief moment I stopped, Rebecca’s giggling rustled throughout the walls, as if the source dispersed like a puddle that dried up into steam.

I howled out for her. Yet in my distraction, the mannequins, labeled various desires that those in the City had, grabbed me and made me stumble onto the ground.

I pounded my fist on the ground and howled from the frustration. Mannequins behind me keep tugging me back while I’m entirely pinned to the floor. As their limbs chattered, disembodied voices - primarily feminine - reverberated around me.

“Aren’t you having a good time?” One said.

“I just thought it was funny,” Another said.

“Can’t you just open up more?”

“Can you just give an example of what you mean?”

“It’ll be fine, sweetie, just calm down!”

And so forth. Their sharp edges began to cut into me upon piling onto me. I just needed the key. If I could just reach Rebecca one more time, I’d have the key to move onward. Just one last word, just one last goodbye, just one last time to feel like the first time. The mannequins crushed me under their weight. I felt the violent press upon every muscle and tendon of my body. All I felt was rage, instigated anger.

At first, I slowly crawled forward towards her, slower than she was prancing away from me. As they stoked the flames of my anger, my calm advances became frantic, feral clawing: anything just to get closer to her.

My defiance came to an abrupt and violent end. An invisible hand grabbed my ankle, and with the velocity of an airplane taking off, I was thrown up, up, and upward until I jolted awake, as if someone had used a defibrillator on me. Rather than the shock of the dream, I believe my body alerted me to something in my presence. I poked my head out of my covers, where my suspicions were confirmed. I didn’t see a zombie. I didn’t see, at least I don’t think I saw an animal.