Simon awoke to an unfamiliar sensation. Warm sunlight on his face, creeping in through the narrow slit in the curtains. His drowsy mind compelled his eyes to open to narrow slits, immediately turning his head away from the accursed brightness, turning over in his comfy bed. Then the fog of sleep started to lift a little, and he came to a slow realization: the sunlight would only enter his room once it had crept over the houses across the street. He would often be working by then. He was not right now, even though he had an early appointment. Simon had forgotten to set his alarm.
His stomach sank, and he jumped out of bed in a panic. He picked up the clothes that were the least dirty from his bedroom floor, wiggled his way into them, and quickly made his way out into the upstairs hall of his home, turning right past his 'office' to his bathroom. A cold splash of water on his face and some extra deodorant would have to do for a shower. He quickly brushed his teeth, then ran down the curving stairs. Shit, my phone.
He ran back up, got the phone from beside his bed, and made his way downstairs while checking the screen. Halfway down the stairs, he stopped. 06:09 AM, his phone displayed. His appointment was at 07:30 AM, so he had all the time in the world. So how did the sun shine into my room?
He walked the rest of the way down the stairs, an unsettling feeling slowly rising with every step. Once down, he walked to the front door to his right, reached for the knob, and opened it. Sunlight poured in, and he shielded his face from the overwhelming radiance. Once his eyes had adjusted, he just stood there in the opening, mouth agape. A narrow path of ground stone made its way through the neatly-trimmed green grass of his garden. Any other day, the path would connect to the pavement of his suburban street. His house was on the smaller side compared to his neighbours’, two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs connected by a hallway, where one of the rooms housed his computer and some supplies for an emergency assignment. Downstairs, a similar hallway with a broom closet under the stairs with stuff he could find no other place for, a simple bathroom at the end of the hallway, and a large combined living room and kitchen, divided by the kitchen counter. The yard in front of him was neat, but simple. Just green grass going around both sides of his house, finding its way around to the backdoor into his kitchen. It wasn’t much, but about as much as he could expect from his location fairly close to the city center.
Except, there was no city. Where the gravelly path was supposed to meet the pavement of the street, it just stopped in mid-air. The short brown picket fence surrounding his garden no longer seemed to be a border between his property and his neighbours’, but rather between his property and clear blue sky.
“What the fuck?”, Simon muttered. Very slowly, he stepped out, placing his bare feet on the gravel. Ignoring the occasional sharp pebble, he cautiously walked to the edge of the path, got down on all fours, and peeked over it.
Aside from the earthen foundation of his home, there was nothing but clouds, with the occasional stretch of green through the odd break in the cloud cover. He thought of two things that both terrified him. One, he was up very high. So high in fact, that he wasn’t sure if the stretches of green he saw were grass, trees or perhaps even water. What really scared him was what he didn’t see: a support. He’d expected, or at least hoped, that there was something underneath his home that kept it there, supported it. Instead, it seemed it was just… floating? A sensation of vertigo came over him, and he crawled away from the edge. What if his house wasn’t actually floating, but in freefall? He’d know if that were the case right? There was still gravity here after all. But could it suddenly decide to no longer float? Why was it floating in the first place? Would the ground suddenly drop out underneath him, making him fall to his death?
Deep breaths Simon. At least it’s a decent excuse to miss my appointment.
After he had calmed down a little, he went back inside, shut the door and got his phone out of his pocket. The fact that he had no reception did not surprise him, but aside from that it seemed to be working just fine. So had the lights and water in the bathroom. How did he still have working utilities when there was clearly no real access to it?
He walked to the living room to check what more still worked, but noticed something odd in the room. Where previously his TV had hung on the wall in front of him, there was now a large, oddly glowing ring, with in its centre something that looked like a gem, seemingly suspended there in mid-air. He carefully approached it. The ring and gem were gently pulsing with a bluish light, but it suddenly seemed to grow in frequency as he approached. It’s not gonna explode right? He stepped back, nearly tripping over his coffee table, and landed on his couch. The ring returned to its gentle pulse.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“I need coffee”, Simon declared, and he got up and walked to his kitchen counter on his left. He walked around it to his coffee machine, and got to work. Thinking he was somewhat hungry too, regardless of what was happening, he also opened the fridge, only to behold a fridge that was far more fully stocked than he remembered. Everything was. He had enough food to hold himself over for weeks, and whenever he took something out, closed, and reopened his fridge, the missing item was replaced. Simon had food, utilities, pretty much everything ad infinitum. I’m not gonna get billed for this suddenly at the end of the week, am I?
He took his coffee and toast back to his couch, and plopped down on it. The ring had remained unchanged.
As he ate breakfast, Simon thought of what to do. Simply living here for the rest of his life didn’t seem impossible. Sure, he’d go insane out of loneliness since this was basically a fancy prison, but he wouldn’t die in the short term. Secondly, he wondered what had happened. Did his house and the yard around it just magically teleport to some place high in the sky? Was there just a hole left where his house had been? Could he go back there? Was he at risk of being hit by an airplane? He tried to connect his phone to the internet, but even though he had a wifi signal, there was no connection to any website. Am I going to be imprisoned without Mugbook? No Nile? No Porn?? Why me?
There were many questions to be answered, but Simon realized he wasn’t going to get anything answered by simply sitting around. He had a lead, and he was looking right at it. The ring, and the little diamond floating in its centre, the sunlight from the window on his right suppressing its glow only marginally. He was very certain he hadn’t had that before. No drunk late-night purchase or gift from a client would ever result in something that could float. In air that is. He drank the last of his coffee, and got up to try again. He approached, and again the ring began to pulse faster and faster. And then Simon touched the ring.
It was horribly anticlimactic. It just remained pulsing at a frequency similar to his own heartbeat right now, but aside from that, nothing of interest happened. The ring itself felt like a block of smooth marble, with a soft warmth radiating from it. Maybe it was just a fancy radiator? He hadn’t tested that yet after all. His thumb barely touched his fingers when he closed his hand around the ring. It had a diameter similar to an arm’s length, and as far as he could tell was completely immovable. The little diamond seemed a lot more mobile, so he grabbed it, and suddenly the ring flashed a bright blue, and a searing pain traveled up his right arm. Dazed, blinded and in pain, he jumped back, and fell over the coffee table, landing with his ass between the couch and the table. He barely registered the fall, and was clutching his right hand tightly with his left. Like the pulse had transferred into his arm, there was a throbbing, burning pain that radiated throughout his entire body from the palm of his right hand. Tears welled up in his eyes, and just when he was about to scream out in pain, it suddenly stopped. He blinked away his tears, and took a deep breath.
“That hurt. That was a stupid thing to do Simon. Never mess with what you don’t fully understand,” he chastised himself. The ring had stopped pulsing, and was now a cold blue. The palm of Simon’s hand was a little red, but nothing else. “Don’t tell me I just short-circuited my food supply,” Simon groaned. That would be bad. If the ring actually was powering all the conveniences left in his home, and the pulse had been some sort of warning, then he was screwed right now. He noticed the little diamond was missing from the ring, and looked around on the floor in hopes of being able to put it back and restore power to the ring. However, he did not see it. He got back up, and walked to the kitchen. To his relief, everything still seemed to work, but he didn’t know for how long. Let’s just hope it didn’t screw anything up.
Feeling somewhat fatigued from the whole ordeal, Simon left the room and went back upstairs. He was still supposed to get properly washed, and figured he had all the time in the world right now. He certainly wasn’t going anywhere. Right when he wanted to get in the shower however, he noticed something in the mirror. The little diamond from before now seemed to be firmly embedded into his chest, like he was some sort of Metal Man. He looked down at the little rhombus, and gingerly touched it. It felt cool to the touch, but not necessarily odd. Aside from there suddenly being a weird gem entrenched in his sternum, he didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary. Strangely enough, he even felt the touch of his own fingers through the gem, as if it were a part of him. This day keeps getting weirder and weirder. At least this had taken his mind off the fact that 10 meters below him there was nothing but kilometers of air before a sudden hard ground. He elected to keep his focus on the gem instead while he took his warm shower.
When he was done, Simon dressed in clean clothes and went back downstairs. The ring still seemed his best option of figuring out what was up, so he returned there. Once again, he cautiously approached it, but it did not seem to have any reaction to his approach this time. However, when he grabbed it again, a weak glow returned to it. He stood in front of it, and grabbed the opposite end of the ring with his other hand. Suddenly, the ring grew bright, and the wall that he saw through the ring was replaced by a swirling blue mist. Simon let go, and the mist evaporated.
Then he grabbed it again, and held it as the mist returned. He could feel a connection to it. It was impossible to describe, but he felt the gem in his sternum being drawn towards that mist, and Simon felt as if he was holding on to a force that wanted to move through the gem into the mist. And he let the force go.