Businesspunk! (1)

Somewhere beyond the void

A young man was lying on a large leather sofa with arms along his torso. He was dressed in a simple shirt, ordinary looking pants and black shoes. The shirt was white with a hint of lavender color and the pants were black without any accessories. His face could be called "handsome" with great reserve: there were no obvious flaws and it was symmetrical, no excessive fat or skin defects. His hair was brown with a hint of ash in them.

Suddenly his peaceful and relaxed face twisted in a painful grimace and his blue eyes were busted wide open. He sat up and started massaging his face to calm down and get himself together. His breathing was very heavy.

'Holy hell, that was awful. I would not wish this upon my worst enemy, not even upon my arch nemesis if I had one. I died for real. No chance I would be alive after that. I bet that I'm on my Final Judgment or something, and these feathered guys are giving me a minute to prepare myself to hear the verdict. Oh, I don't like it. But they are not touching me, so they are being nice and "ready when you are". Maybe I should just sit like that for all eternity? If I'm already here I won't suffer from hunger or thirst, right? F*cking heaven, why are lust and gluttony are classified as deadly sins? They stem directly from our biology, god dammit! If you'll exclude these two from the equation and do some mental gymnastics I might be able to go through the Pearly Gates! F*ck it, too late. Facing consequences in three, two, one!'

A young man opened up his eyes and what he saw was not heaven, but still something very eye pleasing nonetheless. It was super expensive looking room. The ceiling was made from a spotless white plastic with warm lighting around the edges. Three walls were made from a white marble with rectangular recesses along them, while the fourth one was just a huge window.

The only thing that could be seen behind the glass was a sea of white clouds illuminated by a setting sun below them.

Looking below him, the guy noticed that the floor was made of glass too, and 20-30 centimeters below it was a colossal terrarium that filled every square meter of the floor. Moss, stones, snags, twigs, puddles of water, even mini-bushes could be seen. There also were snails and some bugs. The young man wondered why the glass wasn't foggy and wet from the condensation.

Shifting his gaze up from the floor he also saw two giant glass columns connecting it to the ceiling. They were aquariums, filled with colorful corals, fish and sea life he has never seen before and... well... water. They were extra see through because of the light from the window behind them, which made them truly mesmerizing. These aquariums were around ten meters tall and one meter wide perfect cylinders.

There also was a big pedestal in a ten meter gap between the sea columns which held a futuristic TV on it. It was so futuristic that it wasn't even a TV anymore, just a vibrant screen that was showing a video of burning pile of wood with sparks flying into the night sky. Exact location or even terrain were indistinguishable.

After a half a minute that he spent in awe a young man sarcastically smiled

'Well, I'm an idiot. Nothing new on that part'

At that moment the video suddenly changed. The logs kept on burning, but a bunch of text appeared and swiftly changed as if it was a ticker. Yellow English letters formed a sentence.

[You are currently in a personal waiting room. Please, use the time you have to replenish your mental strength and return to the most optimal state]

There was something ominous in the way it looked. A video of logs burning in a middle of nowhere without a single sound. The yellow text with blocky font that appeared letter by latter. Luxury and comfort mixed with a dead silence and the absence of a door in this room

"F*ck, how do I leave this place"

He said trying to deafen the silence back.

At this moment yellow text disappeared and the new one popped up.

[This room is completely safe and yours to use. Feel free to do anything your heart desires. You will be warned in advance before your departure]

"Well there's a bunch of things in the left part of the room that I haven't looked into yet. Maybe I'll not even die from boredom here"

The text changed once again

[There are a number of games, puzzles, books and other engaging objects in the left corner of a room. There is also the Everything Vending Machine in the opposite corner]

Letters disappeared. No further massages were shown.

The guy rushed into the left corner after making sure that there is no addition information.

"So this room is around 30 meters in length, 20 meters in width and..."

He paused and looked up

"Around 10 meters in height. 6000 cubic meter of pure "where the f*ck am I". Well, minus the volume of aquariums but I'm not in the mood for slightly more complex arithmetics right now. What am I waiting for? Where I'll go after that? Departure? Via wrecking ball or teleportation? Like yeah, if this mysterious entity "X" can bring me back from the dead it can surely put me here and scoop me out"

He reached the desk in the middle of a corner and pulled out an office chair that was placed there in a most compact way possible. The glass floor appeared to be a one singular piece of glass without any joints or other means of connection, so the chair glided out in a very satisfying manner.

Young man's knees were kinda shaky from the over stimulation, excitement and stress, so he fell into this luxurious chair and started grabbing and fumbling everything that wasn't bolted down.

There was a thick notebook with an expensive looking pan. Empty. Drawn a penis on a first page.

Rubik's cube. Feels like it has magnets inside.

Small wooden chessboard and all the pieces. Has a distinct juniper smell. Nice.

Newton's cradle.

"Useless garbage"

A set of office appliances. Stapler, scissors, ruler...

He took the scissors and put them into the pocket.

Puzzle.

Box with a picture puzzle. Box has no information about the manufacturer. It just says that there are 800 puzzles.

"Oh my god, even the picture we are supposed to assemble is a picture of a f*cking office. I was reincarnated and trapped in a dream of a white collar. Or in a nightmare of one"

He opened the box and looked at the disorganized pile of pieces. There was a piece with a face of a business lady in the top layer. He took it and put into the pocket

A pot with a plant. It's short and the leaves are plump.

*crunch*

Plump and bitter.

"I wounder what "completely safe" means. Does it mean that there's no one that'll try to cut my head off, or this room is completely idiot-proof and I will not hurt myself no matter how I try?"

Distracted by thoughts like that, the guy went through everything that was on the table. Nothing useful was found. Except the slinky. It was useless too, but at least it was cool.

He looked under the table.

"Ohohohoho! Now we are talking"

There was a 32kg kettlebell. He made a proper stance, lifted it off the ground and pulled to his chest. Pretty heavy. After holding it for a few seconds he had an idea. The idea was immediately turned into action. He pulled the kettlebell as high as he could and let it go, while simultaneously pushing it away

*SLAM*

*rasp*

The kettlebell hit the glass floor and slightly damaged the surface of it, making a small dent filled with glass powder.

"Well, it was way thicker than I thought. They said that this room is "mine to use" and I should "feel free to do anything my heart desires". If I misunderstood something then screw it, charge my soul, cause everything I have on me was stolen from you five minutes ago"

The young man stepped on the table and walked towards the book shelf. He grabbed a random book, looked at the name, scrolled through the pages and placed it back. Rinse and repeat.

"A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. Ironic"

"Crime and Punishment by Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky. Ominous"

"The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri... Thematic?"

"Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. Rude"

"One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. That's just a threat"

"Buddha's Little Finger by Victor O. Pelevin. Never even heard about this one. Let's scroll it a bit."

*mumbling*

*rustling*

"I have no idea what is it about and I don't want to spend time figuring out. And the last two pages before the contents are stuck together. I thought that everything here is brand new."

"Yeah, I'll just rip them out if I'll apply more force. Why are they so stiff? It almost feels like they were drenched in epoxy. Wait."

The guy jumped off the table and walked towards the window wall. He put two glued pages against the glass. The light shone through them revealing that there was something thin in between.

"Solved your quest, Mister "X"! Seems like I'm ripping them out. Well, tough luck."

After two minutes of careful cutting and scratching with the scissors the foreign object was revealed. It was a very thin card made of nearly weightless plastic with holographic patterns and a question mark on both sides.