1 Death number one
The grey metallic room he was sitting in made even the worst prison on planet Earth seem like a holiday resort in comparison. It had a door. The door was open. You could pass through it easily anytime you wanted, but what awaited on the other side was only misery and death.
Jack knew what awaited him since he passed through the door many times and also died every time he did. After experiencing tortures that almost robbed him of his will to continue living, his only two wishes were a quick permanent death or an escape from this nightmare.
It all started what Jack could only guess was a month ago and he could only guess by looking at the lines he drew on the wall on the other side of the room. They did not depict how much time had passed. They listed the number of his deaths.
There were so many lines by now he didn't even want to count them since it was completely meaningless to him. Every one of them represented a stab with a dagger or a knife into a part of his body and the pain and release which came with it.
He kept mumbling to himself, "This is a dream. A nightmare. I am going to wake up soon and it will all be gone."
In fact, he had long since given up hope that everything is going to be gone.
"I should not have played with that cube,", Jack thought to himself.
"It must have been that cube."
To clarify which cube Jack was referring to we have to go back a bit.
Let's start with his name.
His name was Jack Russel. He loved his name, Jack. It was a strong name for such a weak-bodied person like himself. Unfortunately, as he found out in kindergarten it was paired with an unfortunate surname Russel.
Kids at that age were cruel and when one of them found out that his name and surname was actually a very popular small dog breed they started calling him "doggie".
This made him a very popular target for bullies until the end of his scholarly career and influenced his work and of course, also made him into a person he now was.
He was a loner. His view of life was don't bother me and I won't bother you. Live and let die if we steal from a popular song. The closest thing to a relationship for him were the baristas at his nearby Starbucks. He only drank regular black coffee and they could easily remember his choice and his gloomy presence.
He was a software engineer and worked from home which even more distanced him from the rest of the world. After the death of his parents, the only time he came from his house was to buy groceries and visit Starbucks store on the way.
There were two things he hated his parents for. Hated is probably too strong a word for it. Resentment would probably fit better. First thing was his unlucky name and the other was the debt they left him with, which together with his college debt pressed like a knife on his neck for seven long years since his parents left him alone on Earth.
He was a great software developer. Was very creative but even then Jack had to resort to freelancing jobs, since most of his ideas took more time to develop than the monthly payment for the mortgage allowed him. He was constantly on the lookout for lucrative postings on the internet and somehow managed to repay everything owed in a mere seven years.
Some of it was due to him working sometimes even up to a couple of days consecutively without a break to finish the deadline for his employers. This austere life has taken is toll on him both physically and mentally.
His skin was almost pale grey not seeing the direct sunlight for prolonged periods of time. His eyes always looked unfocused and he left people with a feeling he might explode at any given time from the nervous vibe he presented himself with. If he were to be put into a police line up with nine other people and other people would have the task to find a psychopath within it, then he would be picked nine out of ten times.
As he finished his last payment he swore to himself this lifestyle is over and done with. From now on he will spend what he earns on himself. That is also one of the reasons he was in his current predicament.
As he was browsing the internet an advertisement for visiting Greek islands came up and it looked like it was just what he needed a 14-day holiday in the sun on a beach with skimpily dressed women in bikinis beside him.
Since it was a last-minute offer he jumped on it called a cab and didn't even pack a bag. All the things Jack needed was a passport and his mobile phone to show his booking and payment confirmation at the airport. Jack didn't worry about lacking clothes because he was sure he could buy things on site and his clothes were out of fashion since a long time ago so Jack was in a desperate need of a makeover.
The ride on the airplane was smooth and Jack slept most of the time as if he didn't get a proper night of sleep for several years which in fact he didn't. The travel agency representative picked him up at the airport and they delivered him to the hotel.
As soon as Jack got his room keys he asked about the beach and he was told it was on the backside of the hotel. He asked if he could buy some swimwear and they offered him the only thing they had. A black speedo type brief swimwear which was even a bit too large for his scrawny body.
Jack bought it none the less.
He rushed to his room changed into swimwear, grabbed a towel from the bathroom, wrapped it around his legs and rushed to the beach.
Since it was in the middle of the day and the Sun was high there were not a lot of people exposing themselves to the high UV index. He got a chair right by the sea and frantically jumped inside and started to swim.
As he enjoyed the coolness of the water compared to the scorching sun he begun to look around. The hotel beach was actually just 200m long surrounded by high cliffs in a natural cove. Jack swam towards the cliffs to get into the shade and started to dive to look if there was any sea life.
He saw some urchins and some small fish but what attracted his attention the most was a rectangularly shaped dark object near some white rocks. He dove for it, grabbed it and resurfaced from the water.
What he had in his hand was a 12 cm cube with layers of shells sticking on it. It felt heavy in his hand and he wondered what it was made off.
Jack swam back to the shore with it and asked the waiter for a knife. As he started scrapping of the shellfish he noticed strange markings first, followed by Roman numerals and the normal numerals which he was used to. Once he washed it in the sea and wiped it with his towel he noticed the surface was looking like it was new.
He sat in his chair and started examining it. There were nine roman numerals and nine decimal from 1 to 9 all mixed up with the other markings. Jack thought this could be a Rubik's cube using different numerals instead of colors just that it looked seamless with no way to turn it. As he tried to turn it anyway, a weird thing happened, the upper row of the seemingly solid cube started to turn.
He got excited and started to the deducing what the other markings represented. He had no idea but since they were all pretty different from one another and tended to go from a less complex sign to a more complex one he quickly grasped the logic.
Soon Jack was putting the last symbol in the right place and he was just thinking how clever he was and smirking with an evil genius grin at the cube when it turned to dust and rushed up and into his nose.
Next thing Jack knew he was in a 3 meters metallic cube-shaped room with no furniture wearing his oversized speedo briefs and looking at an opening that looked like a door. Approximately five minutes after walking through the door was also the first time Jack died.
