The fluorescent lights of the office hummed with an unenthusiastic drabness, casting a pallor over Alfredon as he sat at his cluttered desk. The bullpit thundered with the sound of thousands of computer keys being pressed by his coworkers. He was surrounded by a maze of cubicle walls and monitors that seemed to tangle as much as his thoughts did. He tapped away at his own computer, his tired eyes scanning the emails on his screen.

"Urgent: Internal Error Reported!" The subject line screamed, exuding an urgency that seemed disproportionate to the mundane marketing company setting. Al's brow furrowed as he read through the contents of the email, his fingers instinctively reaching for his temple.

He stared at the red letters that ran under the text box. “Internal Error.” 

Al sighed, “You and me both pal.” 

He leaned back in his creaky chair, his gaze drifting from the computer screen to the clock ticking away on the wall. Only a few minutes remained before he could finally clock out and escape the humdrum world of IT support. He closed his eyes and let the ambient sounds wash over him like a corporate America themed white noise machine. 

With a resigned shake of his head, he decided to deal with the email tomorrow, typing out a brief response that simply said, "I'll look into it first thing in the morning." He hovered over the send button for a moment before finally clicking it, feeling a vague sense of accomplishment despite his growing exhaustion.

As the clock struck the magic hour of liberation, Al's fingers danced across the keyboard for one final task: setting his status to "Out of Office." Then, with a deft click of the mouse, he logged out and stood up, stretching his arms above his head.

Outside, the afternoon sun beat heavily on the pavement. Al's steps were heavy as he walked to his car, but something caught his attention and pulled his gaze skyward. There, amidst the expanse of blue, was a cloud. A particularly square cloud. It was still fluffy in what he thought of as the middle, but the sides were so smooth and straight.

His brows knitted in confusion as he stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the anomaly. A chuckle escaped him as he shook his head, muttering, "Well, that's a new one." After a moment or two it shifted and became an amorphous, more standard cloud-like shape.

With a bemused smile, he finally continued on his way. It rained for his entire hour-long drive and coincidentally tapered off to a drizzle just before he reached his destination. 

Home awaited him, a small studio apartment that held more memories than its modest size would suggest. Comic posters adorned the walls, and maps of fantastical realms covered tables and bookshelves. It was a sanctuary of imagination in a world that demanded conformity.

Al let out a long exhale as he stepped inside, the apartment enveloping him in the warm comfort of familiarity. He kicked off his shoes, crossed the room, and flopped onto the pull-out couch that served as both bed and seating.

For a while, he just stared at the ceiling, lost in thought. He considered eating, not sure if he was hungry or bored. He debated ordering a pizza. Doing the math in his head and calculating how much a pizza delivery would cost, he decided against it, since it would significantly impact his current finances. 

“What the heck am I doing?” he said, sitting up on the couch. With a determined huff, he rose to his feet, grabbed his jacket, and headed out the door.

The city streets were alive with the hustle and bustle of people on their own journeys. Al walked among them, his mind slowly unspooling as his steps became more purposeful. He had a destination in mind. His neighborhood contained a golf course. The greens were empty at this time, devoid of the typical golfers.

Fairway number 4 beckoned. The fading daylight enveloped the landscape in a warm embrace. He could see the red flag ahead indicating one of the checkpoints on his path. 

As Al walked along the road leading to the golf course, he noticed puddles on the ground from a recent shower. Sparse raindrops still fell, causing ripples that danced on the water's surface. In one puddle, the ripples seemed to spread out like squares instead of circles. Though when he blinked and shook his head to turn back, the illusion vanished, the ripples returning to their usual circular pattern.

By the time he arrived at fairway number 4, the sun was setting, casting an amber glow over everything. Al would normally spend a good hour here, lost in thought as he pondered a myriad of things. It had been several months since he’d come here last. He started to wonder if he should make this a nightly routine. And then he started to wonder if he would keep up a routine if he started one. 

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

As he questioned his level of determination, he picked up one of the solar lights that were stuck in the ground, twirling it playfully like a makeshift lightsaber. The dim glow illuminated his surroundings as he swayed it through the air. But then, something caught his eye—a movement in his peripheral vision.

Al stopped, the solar light poised mid-swing, as he scanned the area. A shadow darted swiftly along the ground, moving from cover to cover behind trees and rocks. There was no indication of what was casting it. It looked like a perfect square about two feet by two feet in size. 

Mesmerized, he followed the shadow's erratic path. Eventually, it moved underneath him, and he saw it grow slightly thicker, rising an inch or so up his shoes. His curiosity gave way to confusion and then to concern as he watched the shadow move again, this time closer to him.

Like a shot it slid towards him and tried to stop under his feet. As a reaction Al jumped to move away but the shadow slid with ease across the ground to where he landed. From an onlookers point of view it appeared that Al was losing badly at hopscotch. 

He tried spreading his legs fat apart so that the shadow couldn't touch both feet. However, it grew to double its size in an instant, enveloping his area. Once it had both of his feet he could no longer move them. He looked at his shoes to see that the shadow had become thicker, and had risen up about an inch or so on his shoes.

Then, without warning, the shadow surged sideways causing him to lose his balance. Essentially pulling a rug out from under him. Al stumbled backward, his arms flailing for support, but he managed to grip the ridge around the drain's opening. His heart raced as he dangled precariously over the dark abyss.

"Help! Somebody, help!" Al's cries echoed through the still air, but there was no response. Panic gripped him as he struggled to maintain his hold, the solar light still in his hand had caught in a ridge of concrete around the drain and was acting as a cheap plastic anchor.

Suddenly, the shadow moved once more, sliding underneath the solar light. It grew more dense as it approached. And then it began to grow upward again. Slowly lifting the light from its anchored spot. Al watched in horror as the light lost its grip on the ledge and he tumbled into the drain, disappearing into the darkness below. 

He fell, and he fell, and he fell some more. The sensation was disorienting, and the darkness around him was absolute. He tried to scream, but the sound was swallowed by the void. His body went rigid as his arms, legs, and head froze. Time seemed to lose its meaning as he continued to descend. He fell for such a long time that he stopped worrying about hitting the ground, because by all means he should've hit it several times over by now.

The falling became so accepted that he didn't notice that his descent had slowed to a stop until he'd been hanging there for a few minutes. He hung suspended in an emptiness so profound that it was almost suffocating.

Alfredon's bleary-eyed consciousness resurfaced, only to find himself suspended in a silence so profound. He wasn’t sure when or how he’d fallen asleep. He tried to wiggle a finger, to flex a muscle, but he might as well have been a mannequin in molasses.

"Right," he thought, attempting to shake off the sensation of being caught in a jelly-filled stasis pod or cryogenically frozen solid. "Well, at least I'm not a popsicle."

Abruptly, a colossal white text box emerged like a cosmic pop-up ad. Al blinked, realizing that he was no longer horizontal, but floating vertically. The words on the screen were crisp and pixelated, like they'd been borrowed from a classic text-based choose your own adventure game.

The luminous display created a sort of ambiance, although it failed to provide any clue as to his whereabouts. And then, like a cosmic butler being summoned by some intangible bell, a *ding* chimed from somewhere behind him. Suddenly, his body became his own again, unshackled from its invisible constraints. He was still suspended in the void, which wasn't exactly the dance club he'd hoped for, but at least he was mobile, sort of.

Another *ding* chimed accompanied by the words, "ARE YOU A BOY OR A GIRL?" 

Al blinked. "Oh sure, let's just skip right past the existential dread and jump into the important stuff," he thought with a chuckle.

"Boy?" Al ventured, his voice wavering as if trying to find its footing in this whimsical chaos. He cleared his throat and continued, "I mean, technically a man, but if that's not one of the options, I'm more of a 'man boy'—wait, can I change my answer?"

Before he could ponder his own words further, the text vanished, replaced by a new question: "BOY SELECTED. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?" A twinge of nausea fluttered in Al's gut. Food? He was floating in a digital limbo, and the universe had the audacity to ask about his culinary preferences?

"Gosh," Al mumbled to himself. "I honestly don't know, maybe something... sweet? Salty? I really d-"

But the words on the screen had other plans, fading away like twinkling stars. In their place, sat some fresh text: "SQUASH SELECTED. WHAT IS YOUR PREFERRED HEIGHT?"

Al was bewildered at the question. As the shock he initially felt began to wane he considered the sheer outlandishness of his scenario. He started flailing his arms and legs trying to convince his body to move somewhere. A red light pierced through the dark, jutting out from the white text box. It reminded him of a grocery store scanner and it followed his arms. The light tracked his flailing with all the enthusiasm of a diligent security guard.

As Al's flailing slowed, the red light blinked, and a *ding* echoed from behind. The text box transformed again, displaying new words: "HEIGHT OF ONE THOUSAND AND SIXTEEN MILLIMETERS SELECTED." Al's internal monologue went something like this: "One thousand and sixteen? Is that a lot? That's gotta be like... five feet right?”

The text box shifted again, bearing the words: "IS THIS DARK THEME ACCEPTABLE?" Al sighed, feeling as though the universe had finally gotten the joke. "Ah, the ultimate question. The real test of character."

A wry smile touched his lips as he responded, "Yeah, obviously the dark theme is always the best option."

"DARK THEME ACCEPTED." The text seemed poised to offer another query, but Al cut in before it could continue.

"Okay, hold on a second. What's the deal here? Is somebody playing a game with me?”

Immediately the text stopped the sentence it was on which so far had gotten to, “WHAT IS YOUR PREFERRED CLA-.” The text disappeared and was instead replaced with two words.

New text was flashing and from behind him somewhere he could hear a series of dings in rapid succession firing off. 

“PLAY GAME SELECTED.”