So you want to know how I got myself into this mess huh?

It's a long story so get comfortable, get yourself something to eat and drink, some apples and tea perhaps?

Where was I? Ah yes, the very beginning — I was in my late teen years, the economy was in the gutter, global warming and all that, trash every few meters, Good ol’ 2010.

That year my distant aunt who immigrated to the U.S. of A. decided to take me there for the summer, but it of course wasn’t out of the goodness of her heart — she just wanted to have an extra worker for her delivery service as I would find out.

Even knowing that — I still decided to go so I could lessen the burden on my parents.

And that's how I began my summer hell vacation — driving around on a slowly crumbling rusty bike that I thought was found in some abandoned building, and delivering takeout.

At least she fed me and gave me my own room.

Never mind that it was just an empty storage room she put a mattress into…

So you get the idea, a friendless teenager in a foreign country delivering takeout — not that original but that was my life.

Ok, enough about my misery from back then.

It was the last month of summer, and if I remember correctly — it was a Wednesday.

I was going to my next client with an order of two large pepperoni pizzas, 5 portions of Chinese takeout, and 2 giant cider bottles.

I knew that Americans liked food but it was almost puke-inducing thinking about how they were gonna shove it all into themselves in the same evening.

I stopped by the building and left my bike by the light post — I didn’t have a lock for it but after so many months I knew nobody would even try to steal this pile of rust.

The client lived on the 7 floor and the elevator was of course — broken, so I had to walk up the stairs.

By the time I got to the correct floor — I was out of breath so I decided to sit down on the stairs for a moment, but as I was about to do so — the lightbulb illuminating the staircase began to increase in brightness before it exploded, getting me scared enough to back away and fall down the stairs back to the previous floor.

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

It hurt a lot.

As I felt the forming of the bruises on my back I opened my eyes and was greeted with complete darkness.

I instinctively reached for my phone that was in the side pocket of my shorts, but I was instead greeted with a shocking realization that I had no pants or any other kind of clothing for that matter.

I quickly got up and patted myself — only to get a confirmation that yes, I was completely naked!

To say that I slowly began to panic would not give it justice — I was terrified, I thought I blacked out and was abducted and going to be gutted for organs, if not worse.

I started calling out for people as I wandered — trying to find the wall of the room I was in.

At that moment when the echo kept going in all directions around me it became clear that I wasn’t locked in some room, it took a good moment for my echoing voice to subside.

Being utterly confused and scared I tried to sit back down to calm down a little, but instead of hitting the floor — it suddenly gave way and I got submerged in some kind of liquid.

Moments later I was flailing my arms and trying to get out, being out of breath because of all the screaming didn’t help with staying afloat at all.

After I finally got out of it I just laid down as painful tears escaped me while I was coughing out the liquid that I accidentally gulped down while almost drowning.

That is how I got there.

It took me some time for my eyes to adapt to that place, even though it was pitch black I still could see the endless horizon.

I was walking there for god knows how long. Days? Weeks? I was struggling to believe that this was happening.

Sometimes I wondered if I was in a coma, but the semi-drowning earlier proved that theory wrong.

The question that was lingering on my mind was simple and hard at the same time — where the hell am I?

Some theories surfaced along as I tried to rationalize it all — some horrible psychological experiment by the US government or some corporation, or all the myriad of anime cliches that were mostly there to humor me.

Whatever the answer was — I was there and the only available options for me were to walk and try to reach the corner of this place, or stay put and hope for someone to come and help.

I chose to wander.

I would walk as far as I could until I got tired of walking and sat down to rest, rinse and repeat — For who knows how long.

The weird thing was, even after all the time spent — I didn't feel hunger, fatigue, or any other natural urges, the only reason I rested was to prevent myself from slowly going insane as I infinitely wandered that place.

It felt like I was on a beach shore — the liquid that I mentioned earlier would sometimes rise right to my chin, or sometimes the ground would liquefy right under me.

For that reason my walks never had a set pace — it was like walking around the frozen pond, trying to avoid cracking the ice beneath.

As for the liquid — it wasn’t water that’s for sure, it wasn’t wet and it didn't give any reflections at all, but I was more worried about not drowning in it instead of all those details at the time.

Sometimes I wished I could find another person just to speak with them a little, but then I would brush off this thought — because who knows for how long they would've walked around here, they would be in a worse mental state than me at the time.

From time to time memories flooded me — my big brother with his weird sense of humor, my mother and her beautiful garden, and my father and his obsession with vinyl records.

Mentally exhausted I stopped going, laid down, and closed my eyes.