Guy in the Matrix

Kumi stood and watched on as quite a few people worked on a sort of metal and glass large tube in the centre of the room.

'That's not gonna squash me into juice is it? Because it looks like an extractinator from that lab.'

She thought as one of the workers walked over and handed her a tailored black onepiece that she was instructed to put on. So she did just that in the nearby changing corner.

Ayaka helped her with putting on the futuristic suit by tying it closed with a glowing neon string and pulling the floating zipper on the back to tighten the string and suit as tightly around Kumi's small body as possible.

'Really high-tech suit you got here for me, have to say. Floating zipper that isn't in any way connected to the suit yet still acts as it should, cool self tying neon string that acts as the teeth that the zipper locks together, cool weird futuristic grey patches around the suit that seem like a statement on art or something like that.

Very nice. Comfortable to some extent too.'

Kumi thought as Ayaka stood back to the side and the workers carefully brought her over to the machine while explaining what they were doing with the suspicious glowing blue wire-like tentacles that they attatched to her suit as she sat in the vibrating machine.

'So the suit was the best part and now there's only bad stuff awaiting I presume? I hope the place my mind is going isn't any place similar to the void.'

She thought as the workers carefully and manually lowered her head and let her rest lying down in the machine as they checked some info on the surrounding screens and wrote some stuff down.

'Since when did they have such good technology here anyway? I mean the whole place has a medieval type vibe so I can understand why they leave stuff like this in storage... or maybe the whole world is really advanced and we actually are poor. Or option 3 which would explain everything perfectly... Whatever option 3 may be.'

Kumi contemplated with herself as she tried to keep her focus off the weird machine and the weird stuff that the weird machine did.

She didn't feel any discomfort or any comfort, the pod-like machine was seemingly completely neutral. It had nothing great about it nor anything terrible about it.

As the workers finished whatever they were doing, they told her that they would now start the machine and to remain calm. Ayaka reassured her with some words as well but Kumi was busy having a slight panic attack as the lid closed, air was sucked out of the tube and a weird liquid slowly replaced it.

'How the fuck would someone remain calm?! I can not breathe under any liquid!'

Slowly though, fatigue was building up as she suddenly had no stamina to use on freaking out in her head or even on thinking.

'Shiiiiit....'

...

The darkness she was in lasted for a while as her eyes stayed closed but soon enough she felt a small amount of light through her eyelids.

Opening her eyes and readjusting them to the level of brightness around her by blinking a few times, she looked at herself only to see some things looking off.

Instead of her high-tech suit she was wearing long tight jeans, a slightly baggy white shirt and a black tie.

"Whazza all of this."

Looking at her hands, legs and body itself, she saw no change.

"Still the same size. Though growing wouldn't be unwelcome."

Sitting up, she noticed how she had been lying down on an office chair that had its back reclined.

"Chair. Modern chair. Suspicious chair."

She concluded as she stood up and watched the chair return to its natural office chair state.

"Weird."

She then looked around and at her surroundings for the first time after arriving here.

She was in a cubicle, in an office space with no windows or doors.

A single clock stood on the barren white walls. Every cubicle around her was empty and each one contained a chair, a table, a bin and a computer.

The computer in Kumi's cubicle was turned on.

It was a blank white screen with nothing special on it.

All other computers were turned off, their screens black. Well, all others except for one.

Right under the ominous, unmoving clock, in that open small office cubicle there was a mug of coffee, a semi-broken chair with coffe stains and a computer, turned on.

"Sooo. Hints and clues obtained. There is someone else here then? I wasn't informed of anything like that. Ayaka should really be clearer with the missions she gives me."

Kumi looked around.

"The whole place is white."

The only visible sources of light were the lamps imbedded in the ceiling. The only sound in the entire space was just Kumi's breathing and moving around.

"Well. No seeable exit for now. Better make the most of my time here then."

She walked out of her cubicle as the heavy silence in the area was disturbed by the sounds of her walking.

Looking down she saw how she was actually wearing some Mary Jane high heels.

"Would you look at that. Full office lady."

She commented as she kept walking towards the cubicle under the ominous clock.

"The clock is pale yellow..."

Walking into the cubicle, she found nothing strange.

"My Skills aren't alerting me of anything dangerous around either. If they even work in this space."

Taking the mug of coffee from the desk, she walked back to her own cubicle and sat down.

Smelling the coffee, she took a sip.

"Somehow... slightly melancholic..."

She thought as she held the hot mug of joe and slowly sipped on it.

Though a sudden shaking of the entire office space pushed Kumi out of her moment of melancholy as a small amount of coffee spilled on her white shirt.

"Ahh. Damn. Somehow my melancholy has been replaced by annoying deja vu."

She leaned back in her chair and took a glance around the shaking office space.

"Still no danger that I can see. Though my reaction to an earthquake like event is pretty mellow right now. I guess coffee in this space has a calming effect?"

She took another small sip as she glanced out of her cubicle and scanned the area.

The clock was ticking.

The shaking suddenly stopped and the previously silent office space now reverberated the mechanical and ominous sound of the clock handles moving second by second.

Kumi simply waited a lone moment as she knew that something was definitely coming.

And it did.

The lights flickered and turned off as the ceiling caved in, breaking apart like it was made of cake, what fell through was a giant amount of debree along with a few scrambled humanoid shadows and an actual human dressed in office clothing similar to Kumi's. Brown hair and eyes along with a rather muscular and well built body, an annoyed face and a loud voice.

He fell onto the debree that squashed half of the office space while yelling as if he had fallen off a cliff. He attempted to stand up as he grumbled through his seemingly broken vocal cords and shattered bones.

Blood dripped from his head and mouth as he spit and stood up, stumbling over the bodies of the scrambled shadows.

A faint sound of a door opening somewhere nearby yet nowhere near here could be heard echoing around.

The bleeding and stumbling man could only say.

"Ahh Fuck."

Before a pillar of stone crashed through the remainder of what was left of the ceiling and squashed the man into paste.

"Yikes. Not a good way to go."

Kumi commented to herself as she placed her stolen mug on her desk and stood up while moving to near the rubble and blood that stained the carpet.

Looking up at the now open sky, through the falling debree and broken ceiling all there was to see was a faint yellow and white void. Dots of black were scattered around in it. It slightly reminded her of a huge and empty canvas. It reminded her more of the screen that was shown on the two computers that were turned on here. One of them now broken and under the rubble and caved in ceiling.

To say it simply Kumi was a little awestruck by the sight of the white void. Her face, reflected that.

As she stood there marveling at the sight, she could not help but turn her head to the clock that stood on the wall.

Louder than ever and getting louder with every passing second, even through the earthquake and falling rubble + destroyed ceiling incident, the clock stayed undamaged. Unharmed.

It ticked backwards. Counterclockwise.

A few seconds passed as Kumi observed the weirdness of the situation.

The clock struck twelve with an extremely loud tick sound and just as Kumi blinked a mere moment later, she found herself sitting behind her desk. Her chair reclined and her computer turned on, blaring a silent white screen.

"what..."

"God Damn It! Where the hell did the floor go back there?!"

An interruption.

Kumi pushed her chair towards the opening in her cubicle and glanced out.

There, below the ominous clock, sat the same man that had been squished to paste right before her eyes, sitting on an office chair and holding his own head.

"Ughhh! Ahhh! One more time!"

He jumped off his chair that then smashed into the cubicle wall and broke before running in a random direction where a door appeared right before he slammed into it and broke it off its hinges. A few moments later, the hole in the wall was glitched and replaced by another wall.

The scene turned to exactly the way it had been before.

"The fuck did I get sent into Ayaka?"