Faulty Utopia

In the pitch black, the deep sound of footsteps echoed until they slowly ceased, and suddenly a beam of light pierced through the darkness, originating from a mobile phone.

The light from the phone illuminated a rather handsome face. He looked exhausted, with a gaunt complexion, and appeared to be in a foul mood.

"Starting the fourth video recording, the time is 3:51 PM." Sun Jack activated the recording function.

"I still haven't found the exit. Everything here is enclosed by metal, even the floor and the ceiling." Sun Jack reached out to touch the wall beside him, feeling its unique texture with his fingers. Cold, smooth, hard.

Then he turned the phone towards the metal wall, turning on the flashlight to capture as much of the repellent silvery-gray color as possible.

"These metal corridors are all square, interconnected to form a vast metal maze, with many metal doors along the walls, most of which won't open. I crawled out from a freezer in one of the rooms."

"I don't recognize this place, I've never seen anything like it before, not even on the internet, and I've found no information about it here."

"I also don't know how I got here, my memory is fragmented, my recollection stops at the summer after the college entrance exams."

"The memories before that, the yellow dog we had at home, my parents, every single game I played, I remember all those things clearly, but after that... after that it's all gone."

"Something must have happened afterward, that's why I ended up stuffed in a freezer and sent to this place, but what exactly happened, I have no memory of it at all!" Sun Jack said, his tone becoming anxious. He took a moment to catch his breath and continued,

"The time on the mobile phone in my pocket is the year 2030, if that's accurate, then it means I might have lost five years of memory."

"What exactly happened in those five years, where am I right now?"

Just then, a beep sounded, and a notification appeared on the phone screen, "Battery low, flash unavailable."

Sun Jack knew he couldn't waste any more time. No matter what had happened before, he needed to escape from here first. If he were to die trapped in this place, everything that happened before would be meaningless.

Sun Jack pursed his lips, perked up, and continued speaking into the phone, "I... Did I just mention some metal doors on the walls? What's strange is that some doors are not only on the walls. There are doors on the ceiling and the floor too, and behind one of them, I heard some noises, some unusual noises. I'm going to go check it out now."

As he said this, he moved forward to the left, feeling his way along the cold metal wall. After a minute, he stopped, looked up, and raised the phone towards the dark door overhead.

"Can you hear it? There's a sound coming from the door in the ceiling, very faint dripping noises, as if coming from far away."

"The battery's running low, so I'm going in now," said Sun Jack as he exited the recording mode.

After judging the height, Sun Jack took a few steps back and then made a determined leap, his four fingers clinging desperately to the edge of the doorframe.

Eventually, Sun Jack summoned all his strength, using his hands and feet to climb through the door.

As he stepped onto the doorframe and looked up, neck craned, shining the light from his phone into the room, he found it was filled with high-precision machinery that he couldn't understand, many with their casings fallen off.

Bizarre, branch-like mechanical arms stretched out from the walls on either side like a metal forest, and at the end of the arms above, another door appeared directly overhead, with the dripping sounds emanating from its deepest part.

"Why is this damn place so weird? Where the hell am I?" Sun Jack stepped on the mechanical arm, carefully climbing upward.

When Sun Jack climbed through this door, he finally found the source of the soft dripping sound—a small red dot that flickered on and off with the sound, like the standby signal of a computer.

As Sun Jack shone the flashlight on his phone around the red dot, he discovered that the place was actually a circular, arched room with nothing but a few chairs.

Sun Jack switched on the video recording mode again, aiming at the red dot. "Look, there seems to be a screen above this red dot. I'll record everything that happens next on my phone, so if I lose my memory again for some unknown reason, these recordings will be my—"

Just as Sun Jack said this, the slightly warm phone suddenly went black, and then his phone brand's logo popped up, "Of all the times to run out of battery! Damn it, what a piece of crap phone!"

Extremely irritated, Sun Jack stuffed his phone into the pocket of his left pant leg and took a deep breath as he looked at the red dot in front of him. He knew he had no choice.

He was afraid that something bad might happen after he touched the red dot, but was also afraid that nothing would happen at all.

Because this was his only option now; he had already searched everywhere else. If the red dot didn't respond, he would be utterly trapped in this metal labyrinth.

After calming himself with closed eyes for a moment, Sun Jack held his breath and reached out his finger towards the red dot.

When he saw the red dot go out, blending completely with the surrounding darkness, his heart almost stopped beating.

But soon everything around him began to shake, and a buzzing sound of resonance came from below his feet.

The sudden change in the surroundings made Sun Jack extremely nervous. He stared intently at the enveloping darkness, watching for any signs of alteration.

However, there were no changes to be seen around him. The first thing to alter was himself; with the press of the red button, his feet gradually lifted off the ground, and eventually, he was actually floating in midair!

This bizarre change stunned Sun Jack. What kind of world was he in? "I can fly? I can actually fly? Magic? Some kind of special power?"

But before Sun Jack could rejoice, accompanied by a muffled sound, a crack suddenly appeared directly in front of him on the wall of the arched room. An extremely bright light shone through the gap, illuminating everything inside the room.

As Sun Jack squinted and slowly adjusted to the glare, he saw the walls of the arch slide open, right and left, from the center of the crack.

And the moment the walls slid open with a whoosh, a giant planet filled his entire field of vision.

Sun Jack felt his heart pounding violently, his throat tightening as if constricted, each breath suffocating him.

The planet, a concept so common, took on an overwhelming weight and substance when it appeared so tangibly before his eyes.

The light from the star illuminated one side of the planet, while the other side, swallowed by darkness, was like a gaping abyssal maw, giving Sun Jack the shivers as if he was being watched by a giant celestial beast.

Suddenly, something occurred to Sun Jack. He looked down at his feet, now floating, and then raised his head again to look at the giant planet outside the glass.

"Holy shit! Have I been in Outer Space this whole time?!"