My first night in quarantine was a Dark night. A night where my nerves spiraled out of control and there was nothing I could do to stop them. There were no dreams, no nightmares, just hours of spiking nerves and restless jittering.

I'd had them back in my old world too, though never as often as I did in this one. But that night was one of the worst I had. Not the worst, no, that one was yet to come, but it was a bad one.

I didn't know exactly when the lights were going to shut off, so when they did, I was standing on a side of the room away from the bed, and thought for a fair moment I'd fallen blind from something in the air. After a second though, I remembered the lights were meant to turn off in the way they had, so I made my way back to my bed, and cautiously laid down as if to go to sleep.

There was no window in the room I was in, and everything was pitch black. I remember it was designed that way to help people sleep. Apparently the people here found it calming. Naturally, it had the opposite effect on me.

Along with the complete darkness, it was also completely silent, save for the quiet hum of electricity that buzzed within the walls. It was the same electricity I'd always known, but I can distinctly remember hearing the difference in the sound it made. I'll never be able to put the exact change in words, but the persistent humming was just off in a way that hung over me with an ominous feeling.

My eyes were wide open, yet I couldn't see a single thing. I'd never had a particular fear of the dark, it had never bothered me before, but I guess I had never experienced a darkness like that one.

I had read articles, about this darkness. Everyone seemed to love it, they claimed it helped them sleep so much better, children fell asleep faster, it was apparently one of the many 'benefits' of this two week quarantine. Just another reason everyone loved it. But for me, it was different. I hadn't grown up waiting excitedly for the darkness. I hadn't giggled and laughed with my brother or sister in the night, whispering jokes back and forth across the room. Everyone else treated it as if it were normal. Maybe even a bit better than normal.

But laying there in the darkness, eyes wide yet truly sightless, hearing nothing but a twisted hum in the walls, my nerves began to spike.

Within moments, the familiar ache in my fingers returned. The feeling of dread, or fear, or maybe something else. I could never perfectly describe it if I wasn't feeling it right then. I had the urge to move, to pace back and forth, to get out my phone and watch videos or listen to music like I did back at home, but I sat there quietly, in the dark, not moving or making a single sound.

One by one, things piled up.

Nausea, from the strange food I still hadn't found the identity of and still hadn't found a way to avoid.

Headaches, from the lack of nutrition, my terror of the nausea preventing me from eating more than small bits.

Grief, for my family, for my friends, for my own bed and my own stars.

Anger, at myself, for every single almost-slip-up I could remember from the past few days, for things I didn't even do and for things I did.

Fear, fear I wouldn't make it home, fear I'd die alone in this cruel world. Fear of this quarantine, and the people behind it, and the tests they planned on running and whether or not they would expose that I wasn't from this time. Fear of being found out. Questioned. Tested on.

Exhaustion, need I say more. Spinning, still back and forth.

And, of course, the knowledge that I was two hundred floors up into the air.

At work, it was easy to ignore. I could keep myself busy, and besides, I was acting as Io most of the time, which took up a lot of my focus.

But alone, in the dark, with no windows to look out of and assure our stability in the sky with?

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

A completely dark room, no sounds, and nothing to keep me occupied?

I might as well have been falling. The nausea in my stomach mimicked the feeling well, and the terror that swept through me could easily be mistaken with the terror of falling.

The building is falling. I know it is. It's falling right now but I don't feel it because of some future science stuff. Any moment the roof will come caving in, as the building collapses under the weight of hundreds of floors falling in unison, it's gonna crush me, a metal beam will come crashing through the ceiling and impale me, and I won't be able to escape the building as it falls and falls and falls.

There's fire somewhere, I know there is. It's growing and growing and weakening the walls, the floors, until everything comes crashing down, it's blocking the door, the hallway, there's already smoke in the air I know there is, I can't breath, there has to be smoke.

Or maybe the fire isn't here. Maybe it's somewhere else in this matchstick labyrinth of a city, waiting for the first to crumble, then to carry the next, and the next, tumbling and crashing and spinning until it arrives at my own building, and before I can even move we're crashing along as well.

I can't move. I can't move. It'll all start falling if I move, it's gonna fall I know it is. I'm never gonna be able to move, I'm gonna be here forever, it's gonna fall forever, I can't move, I can't move. I can't stop shaking, I can't run away, I can't do anything, I can't make it stop falling, I can't get out of here.

For a long while, I was completely frozen, unable to shift even the slightest bit. I longed to sit up in my bed, move my fingers a bit, stretch my legs, pace around the room, do something to get my mind off my nerves, but it was so dark, so dark that I knew if I stood and walked I'd get lost in the scattered walls, twisting floors, lost and spinning and sick and falling.

I knew the slightest movement would jolt me out of my stillness, out of the quiet stasis of waiting for the world to crumble, and my fear would quickly shift into an all out panic I could not afford. So I was perfectly still, breathing in and out as quietly as I possibly could, not moving a single muscle even as my limbs fell asleep and my body cramped and ached.

I lay there like that the entire night, frozen in place, surrounded by dark thoughts and haunted by nerves. It crushed me, slowly cementing the terror into my heart as I waited for the hell to pass. I noticed every hour, every minute, every second of time that went by, and nothing I did made it seem to go any faster, the opposite if anything. I spent ten years frozen in place, all in one night. How sick I am, of years passing so quickly.

Eventually, after enough years had passed, the lights in the room gradually grew again, mimicking the slow rise of dawn, if not a bit later in the day.

I stared at my room around me, but didn't move. I didn't trust it. After so long in darkness, this sunlight, it couldn't be real. Nothing in this world was real, nothing but the crushing weight of the sky above me. This light was nothing more than a trick meant to pacify me, put me at ease, only to flash back into darkness once again and resume my descent. I wouldn't move. I wouldn't let it drop me again.

I heard voices on the speakers in the main room, greeting the people throughout the building as they slowly arose for the day. That's what shook me out of my frozen state. I blinked for a few seconds, then slowly pushed myself up from my bed, wincing with pain at every movement. Every muscle in me ached and cracked, and I had marks on the palms of my hands where my nails had pressed into them. I slowly laid back on my bed and stretched, slowly ridding myself from the physical pain of the night. But I still shivered. Still felt the weight of the building pressing down on me, surrounding me, closing in on every side, and I risked falling into panic with every sudden movement.

I was tired, exhausted really, mere moments after standing up, but I couldn't be tired. I just had a full night of the best sleep I'd have all year, according to the articles I'd read. I had to be awake. Alert. Alive. Io, of course.

I changed into my day clothes, feeling achy and stiff the whole time. I knew I'd never be able to fall asleep until the nerves faded a bit, so I had planned to sit on my bed and read, but a knock said otherwise. I put my helmet on, and was glad that I did, because when I opened the door, Ayer was standing there, holding a small pack of cards in their hands. I looked at the pack for a brief second, and to my relief, they somehow looked the same as the cards I remembered.

"Morning, Io." They said, looking all too cheerful in comparison to my exhausted state. "I remember you said you liked playing cards, and I have a pack on me, so, want to play a bit? We've got loads of time to kill, and there's this game I would always play with my cousins I think you'd be good at, so, you down?"

Internally, it took me a few seconds to process what they had said, but externally, I answered with only slight hesitation. I can't really remember what, 'sure' or 'alright' or even just a nod, I guess it doesn't matter.

"Great! We can use the table in the kitchen, the chairs are already on opposite sides. Do you want me to shuffle first? I'm pretty good at it."

I nod slowly, hoping the movement wouldn't result in a sudden headache. It did, of course.

I had spent all night in a state of fear, with zero rest, and now I had to play mentally stimulating games that would most likely require strategy and planned actions. And, if I really wanted to be like Io, I had to win. At least a fair bit. At least once.

For the first time in my life, I was truly dreading a game of cards.