Max moved outside and sat along the edge of the pond, staring out at the tree line as he finished his tea. He had no idea what had happened to him, but rather than becoming worried he felt extraordinarily calm about the situation.

“It doesn’t seem like I’m in any danger,” he said, thinking out loud. “Even if something was threatening me what could I realistically do about it?”

He was a single person, facing something or someone capable of pulling him from his normal life and trapping him in a place where the number of suns in the sky can change after a short walk and the ground can bend like water. He couldn’t understand how this was happening, let alone why.

So rather than fear, Max responded to the situation with resignation. Whatever entity had done this to him saw fit to give him ample food, water, and even his preferred mediums of entertainment with those books (though he was now wondering if his laptop was somewhere in his new bedroom).

With no answers or even clues to help with his questions, Max resigned himself to his apparent captivity. Perhaps an answer would come on its own.

~~~ A few hours later ~~~

Max lay back on the couch, his stomach full with a crumb-covered plate before him on the coffee table. Over the last few hours, he continued exploring the rest of the cabin. He had just managed to locate his laptop in his new bedroom when he realized he should probably eat something.

It was then he discovered yet another supernatural feature of his new home. Opening the cupboards to look for a plate, he realized that the one that previously had a variety of tableware in it now held only plates along with jars of peanut butter and jam, as well as a container of sliced bread.

Curious, he took one of the plates before closing the cupboard and thinking of only mugs as he opened it again. Sure enough, the space was filled to bursting with identical copies of the same mugs from before.

“Anything I want huh?”

He tried again, imagining a fully prepared burger from his favorite fast-food chain, only to be given a single bun. He briefly wondered where the rest of it was, before checking the refrigerator and finding a small pile of chopped meat and a few slices of bacon and cheese within.

“I guess I still have to cook for myself then.”

Although he knew how to cook out of necessity, Max wasn’t overly enthusiastic about only being able to eat his own cooking from now on, even if this place was able to give him any ingredients he wants.

Experimenting further, Max discovered that he could get modern drinks like soda from the refrigerator as well as cold ingredients and that the old-fashioned oven not only lit itself but could also replicate the functions of modern cooking appliances like air frying.

He threw together a quick snack (munster cheese broiled on italian bread) and was now lazily sipping on a soda while letting his eyes wander around the room.

After a while, he realized that it was getting dark out (the inside of the cabin was still bright without a lightsource) and he decided to settle down for the night.

~~~ Three months later ~~~

Time passed uneventfully. Max had explored essentially the entire cabin and much of the surrounding land, and everything he found was either perfectly ordinary or supernatural for the purposes of benefiting him.

The grass and dirt was soft and perfectly devoid of bugs, a beautiful melody of birdsong was constantly playing despite the fact that Max had yet to see a single bird, and his body still feels clean and fresh without any need to shower, bathe, or use the restroom.

It all certainly made his stay here more enjoyable, but it only made him question his situation more. A part of him wondered if this some kind of virtual reality, but as far as he knew this complete recreation of reality was something only found in fiction.

“Like, if this was a simulation, wouldn’t I have noticed at least one glitch by now?” he asked out loud. While he had never been one for the company of others, the complete isolation of the oasis made the sound of a human voice more comforting, even if it was just his own. “And I definitely don’t remember agreeing to some kind of private testing. They wouldn’t kidnap some random guy for something that would have anime nerds lined up around the block, right?”

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Whether it was by magic or technology, Max had recently given up wondering how he had been brought here, as both were well beyond his ability to understand. Instead, the question that had occupied his mind for the last three months had been a simple one.

“Why? Why bring me here?”

Max’s presence in this place seemed to serve no purpose. It wasn’t as if he was performing some kind of labor or producing anything (unless it was supernatural and imperceptible). The only thing he could do here was continue enjoying this little paradise. Max was a completely ordinary person, never the type to stand out any more than was necessary. He had few friends, fewer enemies, and just let life take him where it would. He had never done something that would earn him such luxury, and it didn’t seem like his captors benefited from keeping him here in any way.

This made him think that it might be some kind of virtual world, as being unable to differentiate this place from reality would certainly prove the technology was effective.

But the problem was that this oasis was perfectly tailored to his personal wants and needs, almost to a frightening degree. Max frequently struggled with sleeping in unfamiliar environments, and yet he has felt more rested here than he has in his entire life. He had always considered himself a picky eater, but none of the fruits available in the garden were anything less than delicious. Once he had gone through the bookshelf specifically to find a title that seemed like it would bore or upset him in some way, but that too was enjoyable.

No one was perfect, and nothing made by human hands could be this perfect. Eventually, someone would make a mistake, or there would be limits to the hardware. The only way for someone to make this place was to have access to technology that (as far as he knew) didn’t exist and also know Max better than he knew himself.

On top of that, he could still leave. The desert past the jungle was not strictly forbidden to him. He had gone out there in his first week, and while the shifting sands made travel difficult, it wasn’t impossible.

“This entire world can’t have been made to hold me, right?”

The idea was a little intimidating. It had already taken him three months to examine this relatively small oasis. If there was some kind of answer out there in the desert, it would make finding a needle in a haystack look easy.

“...Maybe I should just let it happen?”

Max could only come up with three possible explanations for his current situation, a reward, a prison, or a test for some new technology, and each option suggested that he should stop searching for answers.

If it was a reward or punishment for something he had unknowingly done, then there was little point in trying to escape since it was so luxurious.

And if it was testing something, then the people overseeing him would eventually let him out and presumably explain things after the fact.

“I guess they could be testing to see how long it would take for me to give up the oasis to try finding answers in the desert.” He thought about this possibility for a moment before shaking his head. “Well, then I guess they’ll be waiting for a while.”

Why give up this little slice of paradise? Maybe taking too long would result in some form of actual punishment, but that was a problem for future Max. It seemed just as likely as any other option so he may as well take the risk.

~~~ 13 years later ~~~

“....that can’t be right, right?”

Max had stopped keeping track of the days a long, long time ago. After all, there didn’t seem to be any reason for him to keep a consistent schedule. The garden tended itself, the cabin was always perfectly clean, just doing things whenever he felt like it was enough.

So it came as a shock when he glanced at the date on his laptop and discovered that 13 years had passed. It was so absurd that he thought the device was broken for a moment. It was only when he remembered that nothing ever broke in this place that he realized that it must be true.

“I guess the days have been blurring into each other. But still…am I actually 40 now?”

Max had been 27 years old when he woke up in this cabin, and to this day he felt and looked exactly the same. There weren’t any mirrors in the cabin, but he could see his reflection in the pond, so he would still see his own face anytime he went there to get water or go for a swim. Nothing ever changed. He still had the same brown eyes, the same brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and the same face that looked tired no matter how rested he felt.

“Do I not age here?” Max leaned back in his chair as he considered the situation. “Well, at least this basically eliminates VR as a possible answer.”

While there’s nothing that says he would still age in a simulation, the fact that he was still here after so long meant that he was likely being held captive. If they were just testing technology there was no need to do something illegal like kidnaping test subjects.

“Unless something went wrong and they can’t get me out? No, they could just unplug the machine.” It was possible that the technology could harm him in that kind of situation, but after 13 years they would probably be willing to take that risk.

Max continued to think about this new information…for about a minute before returning his attention to the game he was playing on his laptop.

This didn’t really change anything. He still wasn’t looking for a way out with the oasis still being a small paradise. All this meant was that he had all the time in the world to do whatever he wanted. If there wasn’t any limit to how long he could stay here, why not just stay for the rest of his life when the only alternative was the harsh desert?”

“Besides, I’ll probably get bored of this place eventually, exploring the desert will probably seem like a great idea by that point.”

~~~ 1413 years later ~~~

“...Maybe this has gone on long enough.”