Arc 1. Chapter 1. The Gray Rooms.
"Huh?"
He looked up and saw a gray rectangular room.
He didn't understand. Why was he here? Why couldn't he remember anything from just now? It was like his life started just now, in this new world. Or was it new? What if this was his true world?
The thoughts coursing throughout his head made his body go numb, or rather, it was the cold from the floor below his feet, a gray and cold floor.
He got up from his sitting on the cold floor. His butt had gone numb by that coldness and he wondered just how long he had been sitting there with his arms around his kneecaps, waiting to wake up.
His eyebrows raised as he looked around the room, estranged by this view.
It was a gray room, a room that creeped him out. He felt like the walls were suffocating him with their coldness and the aura of something hidden infiltrated his mind.
Along the wall he had been sitting against, five doors were placed, each in a different color presenting them.
One blue door, one yellow, one black, one green, and one red.
He couldn't understand why they stood there, their tall figures casting a dim light, colored the same way as them, themself.
He was curious about what was on the other side of those five doors, so he tried opening one, the green one. He hadn't tried the black one, which he was leaning against, due to the sudden feeling even colder than the cold coming from the floor.
Rastle, rastle it went as he pulled in the handle. But the green door didn't budge and it didn't seem like it was unlocked. His curiosity, which had been growing more and more despite this, took the better of him, he tried all of the doors and the same reaction came from them, they were all locked.
He had of course seen the great locks put on the doors that indicated that they were locked and would not open whatsoever, but still, he felt like he was meant to get them open somehow, and if he couldn't even do that, then, how would he escape this room that was giving him the creeps.
"So.. what now?"
He was laying down on the floor but instantly regretted that as its cold made him jump up again.
Just then he realized that he was wearing clothes meant to withstand cold, a winter jacket and pants worn for the outdoors. Were they there for him to use so that he could stay in that cold room? He didn't know that either, but the scarf wrapped around his neck was warm enough for him to feel comfortable.
He sniffed his scarf and looked up from the floor where he was laying on his back now, mainly because he was way too lazy to stand up. But a reaction came out of his mouth as he looked up to the ceiling.
"..?"
The ceiling, which normally would be just as boring as the rest of this gray room, was a night sky with glimmering stars spread across it. It was a night sky and no ceiling.
He got up quickly and tried to jump up to see if he could find a way out, or maybe escape over a wall. But when he jumped, his head hit the ceiling instead.
It didn't hurt. But it was a stranger feeling. The feeling of putting your head in mudd, not that he had tried it or anything, but that was the only thing he could compare it to. The strange, floating night sky had met his head and pushed back against it, sending him down without a chance to look over it.
He looked at the knitted gloves on his hands. They were now covered in the night sky above him, the same, but in a fluid form. But how could that be?
It didn't drip, or at least not that much. Sure, black droplets carrying shining white things dropped down from the roof, but they disappeared when touching the ground.
He didn't know if he could wipe the night sky off his hands but he didn't really feel like it, instead, he tried tasting it as any normal person would do.
Can I even eat it? He asked himself. He was curious if he, Han, would be the first to taste the night sky.
"..."
He waited for a second after he swallowed, which wasn't the plan, but he wanted to be the first to swallow the night sky too.
"Heh?"
The strange sensation, like water running down your throat but it was a more lumpy version but just as cold. He didn't feel anything particularly bad, and that was a good thing considering he didn't have a toilet in that room with him, which could've led to a disaster if it was critical.
"–"
He sighed deeply and stretched his back.
What could have caused such immense pain to his back, how long had he been asleep? And hadn't he asked that before already?
He didn't know, but now he felt that this wasn't his world. He, Han, felt like he had been transported here somehow.
He wanted to know all the basic questions of, why, when, how, who, where, and what had happened, but he felt like that wouldn't help him right now, not in this situation, considering that he was now stuck in a dark and gray room, lit up by the strange light coming from the strange, colorful doors behind him and the white door in front of him…
"Wait…"
He looked up.
He had been rolling around on the floor for a while, not paying attention to his surroundings and prioritizing his thoughts and feelings over anything else so he hadn't realized…
"A white door too?"
He looked at the door while kicking his legs behind him like he was a high school girl texting at 3 am.
What was different with this door tho, was that it was first of all, in front of his face, and second of all, a whiteish, light-grayish color. And most of all, it bore no lock.
"–!"
He instantly got up and walked up to the door which had been the minority of his thoughts until just now.
He reached out his hand and...
Please let this work..!
Creak said the door as it opened. Stunned, he instantly opened it all the way and decided to walk outside.
"What?" He said, surprised at the sight before his eyes, for what he had expected to see was not the sight before his eyes.
He hadn't opened a door to the outside but rather the inside. The gray room he just left was smaller compared to this one, but this one gave off an even stranger vibe than the door room behind him.
It had the same color, gray, all of it. When he looked at the mirror leaning against a wall, he realized that he too, was straight-up monotone, like an old tv show from the 50s.
"This wasn't what I expected, but, it's interesting…"
He looked around the gray room he had just entered, and much to his surprise, it was made to look like a bedroom.
This can't be my room, right?
But the facts pointed to this, or so he thought. But as he slowly explored the room, he understood that it belonged to someone else, namely, someone way smaller than him.
He saw it on the gray bed standing in the right upper corner of the room. It was clear as a day that it didn't belong to him.
It was probably 170 cm or 5 feet and 7 inches in length, with a nightstand table next to it. Facing the left wall from the right. It had a lamp on it and when he tried to turn it on, it didn't work.
"What's the point of having a lamp if it doesn't even work?" He muttered as he continued looking around the room.
Right beside the nightstand table was a desk, probably used for drawing. He moved the chair standing beside it away and looked at the recent drawings made in the gray sketchbook laying atop the desk.
There was no name, unfortunately, and the cover was loose.
Either way, he was curious enough to open it up.
"Alright.. what the hell is this?!"
Staring down at the drawing, he made a shocked face.
"As if this couldn't get any creepier!"
The drawing depicted a boy getting eaten alive, blood everywhere, and standing over his body was... a dog?
"Now I'm scared to continue.."
And so he said as he turned the page again, only to find another picture, not as creepy, but it was depicting a white doll with black, button eyes.
"And it's settled, I'm not sleeping tonight."
He closed the sketchbook and sighed as he turned around. He still didn't know who drew these nor who the boy in that drawing was, but he hoped they weren't depicting him, especially as he loved dogs.
Where am I even going to sleep? He asked himself as he looked into the corridor that continued out of that room. He had noticed it when entering the room, but his curiosity lay elsewhere and he hadn't tried to explore it yet.
"Hmmm…"
It seemed to be more to this strange place than he thought and less than he had hoped for.
Slowly but surely, his body lead him out of that room and into the corridor that lead out of it.
"Please don't let a big and scary-looking monster jump out from the walls and scare the life out of me now…" He said as he begged whatever high power that watched over him.
But no monster came and as he passed the windows on the sides of the room, he looked out only to see pitch blackness, not even stars on it. It was like it was placed so that it wasn't meant to show a thing to anyone, maybe to not make their escape through them, or for some other reason that he didn't yet know of. Either way, the place spooked him.
"..."
The sound of his footsteps stopped as his path was blocked by a strange door in both blue and red with strange symbols he didn't understand, written on it.
He shook his shoulders, and as he didn't see any lock nor any sign telling him not to enter, or at least not one he could read, he opened the door.
"–?"
What greeted him was something almost too surprising.
Across the room, standing close to a strange rainbow door, stood two creatures, one in red and one in blue.
What was strange about these was that they didn't seem to notice his presence at all.
"Uh.. hello?"
They didn't listen, or maybe they just didn't hear him.
"Hello?"
"–!"
"Bro, I sure hope no one walks through that rainbow door we just came from, right bro?" Said one of them, a figure dressed in blue.
"Yes." Answered the other, dressed in red.
"Yeah, all the others would be so mad at us if we just let some gray child run around wild in that world."
"Yep."
"Let us just take a quick ten-minute pause and come back later, alright?"
"Sure."
"..?"
Confused by their very strange behavior, he took a step toward the creatures. He couldn't see their faces because their heads were covered in hoods. And as they went out of the room, seemingly disappearing into the wall, he ran up to it.
"Wait a minute please!"
No answer came his way as he knocked on the cold, gray, wall.
He had completely forgotten how scared he was at confronting others, but somehow, this time was different.
"Who was that?"
He looked back. The aura around them had felt friendly, but they were mysterious like they were hiding something important from the world, from him.
He looked down at the floor.
Left behind by one of them was a clump of blue gue, no, slime?
He bent down to inspect further.
What he saw on the ground was nothing out of the ordinary, it was, blue, blue slime.
"Slime?"
He touched it. It felt weirder than he expected and the sudden urge to eat it came out of nowhere.
But that would be disgusting he thought as he chewed on the blue slime.
Why was his first thought to taste everything that looked eatable?
He shook his shoulders and got up, still wondering who those figures were, he went over what they had previously said up to disappearing into the wall.
He remembered them hoping that no one would go through the rainbow door they just left at least.
He looked at the rainbow door.
"Well.. what is the purpose of a door if you can't go through it?" he said loudly, hoping that, if it was something dangerous on the other side of that door, the mysterious creatures that just left him alone there, would pop out of the wall again and stop him somehow.
But no one intervened and when he took another look at that door. It almost felt welcoming, like it was calling him over so that it could be opened up for the first time in a long while. But hadn't those who just left already seen the other side? Shouldn't he trust their judgment on this?
His thoughts wandered off and when he once again looked around the room, he realized that it wasn't empty. A long gray carpet had been placed on the floor. And just like the corridor he had come from, it was filled with strange windows that didn't show the outside.
But, how else would he get outside? None of the things he had seen up to that point could help him. All except that one rainbow door that now was calling for him.
He took a step forward, now facing the door that didn't seem to be made out of anything other than light. But it was light that wasn't see-thru nor was it light in the form of light. It was a rather solid form but made of light.
What was the worst that could happen if he walked through this door? He wondered as he stretched out his hand toward it.
Instantly, he felt a feeling in his stomach, the feeling when you fall in your dreams or when you are going downwards on a rollercoaster.
He coughed and before he knew it, he vomited on the floor, spewing out what he had inside him, which was practically nothing, except, that blue slime he ate. The thing was, he hadn't even touched the doorknob. This wasn't just a coincidence, but a stupid one at that.
"Hueh! N-note to self... Do not eat the random things you find in the strange realm you've been sent to!"
He got up and wiped vomit from the corners of his mouth.
"What the hell, even the vomit is gray!"
He looked at the mess he had made in front of the rainbow door and sighed.
"Well. I'm not eating that again." He said to himself as he turned toward the door once again and grabbed the handle. He was still determined to leave that place, and if that meant less vomiting by eating blue slime, he was in.
The exact opposite feeling of falling flashed throughout his body. It felt like he was rising, fast, flying in a sky that didn't exist, and then finding himself, trying to open this door with all of his power. But he couldn't, he had to use all of his strength just to get it to open, and then to pull it, it was a test to see how determined he was to get out of that place, and he, Han, slammed the door open and tumbled outside.