I felt refreshed, relaxed, and ready to challenge another day of life. My eyes gradually opened as my brain slowly grasped my senses. I motioned towards the blanket draped over my body.
Except, there is no blanket. I look around frantically, only to realize I'm not in my room. Everything around me betrayed what I knew about my room. The mattress's firmness, the carpet beneath my feet, the familiar walls, they didn't exist here.
The clothes I put on last night before sleeping, were replaced with white garments. They were a simple white T-shirt and shorts.
I turned around to where I had gotten up from, only to realize there was no bed. It must have been the shock of the possibility of kidnapping that I didn't see earlier.
I look around.
It's an endless, white expanse.
The only things I could recognize were the white floor or ground stretching to the horizon. A blue sky without clouds with a gradient from dark to lighter shades from directly above me to the horizon, as if I were in a video game where the sky was rendered as a sphere.
Jagged little formations decorated in the distance where the sky met the ground.
I looked down and wiggled my toes. It's not sand.
I kneeled down and traced my finger across its surface. It certainly felt like a floor, possibly the smoothest floor in existence.
Wait, this isn't the time to admire the floor!
I snap myself out of my tangent and look around.
Maybe it's a trick on the senses to make you believe it's endless! Yeah, I might be the unwilling test subject of a secret government experiment or some rich guy's sadist boredom!
I storm from my position resolute about my decision to leave before stopping a few steps later.
If this place is meant to give the illusion of being endless or just a massive space, the floor might not be completely flat. There might be a pitfall I could've walked into in my carelessness.
I turn around to look back where I came from.
How many steps did I take again?
I replayed my memory of my decision to leave.
6 or 7 steps since I didn't go too far.
But how do I know if-
"This place isn't a trap."
What?
Panicked, I looked around, falsely believing that knowing where the source of that voice was would help me in my current situation.
"I'm not here to hurt you, but there is something you should know."
"Why should I listen to you?"
"That's the kind of person you are."
Seriously? Playing god with someone you've kidnapped? Well, it's not like I have anything better to do.
I ease my reluctance and give the voice my attention.
"Turn around."
Huh?
Before I could question their command, a small "blink!" sound was made behind me. My growing curiosity got the best of me and I complied.
It looked like a screen, a disembodied rectangle hologram you'd see in sci-fi comics or TV shows, but that wasn't the most shocking thing.
What was displayed on my screen was my room, with a little play button icon smack dab in the center.
First, I'm kidnapped. Now they want me to watch a video of something I did in my room?
What kind of sick shit is this?
"If you're threatening to leak a video of me masturbating, you win! Just tell me what you want and I'll comply." I surrendered, not wanting to be subjected to any embarrassment.
"Just watch the video." The voice commanded dismissively.
I comply with the voice's command again, bringing my hand to the play icon.
I tap, letting the feed play.
It was dark since I turned the light off before leaving. I remembered how horrified I was when I learned I accidentally left the light on all day, so I made sure to double-check before leaving for work.
The light turned on and the me in the video entered the frame, making some inaudible noises, probably me complaining about work.
I undressed, tossing my work clothes onto the bed before getting some clothes from my vanity dresser. After getting into more comfortable wear, I took the clothes off my bed and went offscreen to put them in the laundry hamper.
The point of view of the camera didn't change from my bed, staying silent for a good few minutes.
"What is the point of this?" I asked the disembodied voice.
The video paused. I hear another blink.
Below the screen was a slider bar, a play button, a fast-forward button, and a rewind button. The common interface for any video on a device.
I instinctually reached for the slider bar to see how much I had to sit through. It was over 7 hours long.
"Again, what is the point of this?" I impatiently asked the voice.
"These are the events that occurred in the hours between you getting home and going to sleep." The voice answered.
I dragged my finger, scrolling through the video. The camera stayed focused on my bedroom for a good 6 hours.
I stopped a few seconds before I entered my bedroom, retreating to bed when I felt sleep creeping in. I pressed play, wondering why the voice's owner was showing me all this.
The camera was positioned above my door, so when the 'me' in the video got on my phone, I could only guess so much of what I was doing based on the gestures and orientation I held it in.
I played games on my phone for a few minutes before scrolling on another app, likely browsing a social media platform, a forum site, or a webcomic or web novel app.
I scrolled further through the video until I saw myself turning off the light and going to sleep, then let the video play from there.
"So you have a video of my bedroom with the last of it showing me using my phone before going to sleep. Why?"
The voice didn't answer.
I look around, seeing no point in watching, but letting the video play in case it merited some kind of prompt or reward at the end similar to those unskippable interactable videos I went through in college or a surprise teaser or easter egg that would play after a movie's credits.
I went around behind the screen. There was only a blank gray back.
I touched it and went back to the video feed side. The video was still playing with the seconds counting down.
"Can't you say something? I'm bored looking at myself sleep."
Nothing again.
"Please?" I realized I'm still hostage in this weird space.
"Just wait."
Seriously? I'm certain serial killers in movies are more engaging with their victims. At this point, I'm hoping my captor is a serial killer just to stave off my boredom.
I glance back at the video with minutes to spare, anticipating whatever outcome the voice is telling me to be ready for.
Beep beep beep beep!
A new sound finally came from the video feed.
Hang on...
I waited again. A few seconds later, the same sequence of beeps played.
I slap myself, hoping to wake up from this nightmare. A punch, a face plant, the splits despite my lack of flexibility, nothing.
I moved to skip to the end of the video in hopes of ending this out-of-body experience.
When I touched the slider bar, the amount of time left had changed. The hours counter reached over 74 hours.
I tapped the counter. It changed to a fixed amount of over 81 hours.
No...
I bash at the screen.
"WAKE UP!" I screamed at myself, hoping it'd work.
The beeps repeated.
There were still so many things I wanted to do. I screamed at the me on the other side of the screen every little thing I ever thought of doing.
Anime I still wanted to watch.
Novels I wanted to read.
Movies I've yet to watch myself, despite getting spoiled.
I screamed every single thing my mind could muster, yet the beeps repeated. It wasn't until I noticed the room was illuminated by natural sunlight that the realization hit me.
I'm dead.
Trembling, I scrolled through the video, speeding through 3 day-and-night cycles until someone entered my room, covering their nose in the bend on their arm. A few hours later, people dressed head-to-toe in white hazmat suits extracted my corpse.