When the elevator said FINAL DELIVERY, I expected drama. Trumpets. Hellfire. Maybe a sarcastic confetti cannon.
Instead, the doors opened to... my apartment.
Well. Mostly my apartment. The walls were the same awkward beige, my cursed microwave still blinked "12:00" like a digital ghost, and someone had stolen exactly one of my socks from the laundry basket again. Classic.
But something was off.
Everything looked slightly shifted. As if the universe had tried to redraw my room from memory but got the perspective wrong. Like a dream version of reality.
The package was still in my hands. But it didn't feel like a package anymore. It felt like a weight. Like a question I didn't want to know the answer to.
The app on my phone buzzed.
NEW DROP: CLIENT: NEXT. LOCATION: UNKNOWN. ESTIMATED DURATION: ∞
"Great," I muttered. "Infinity. My favorite number of hours."
Suddenly, a knock on my front door.
I peeked through the peephole. Nothing.
I opened it anyway.
Behind it: not a hallway. Not the stairwell. Just another door.
I opened that door.
Another version of my apartment.
And another.
And another.
My building had become a maze of almost-homes. A procedural generation of domestic déjà vu. Every door led to a new instance of the same space—but with one detail wrong. Green microwave. Couch upside down. A fish tank filled with sand.
And always, always the app buzzing.
NEW DROP. NEW DROP. NEW DROP.
Each version of the apartment had a different package waiting on the couch. Some shook. One was covered in frost. One screamed when I touched it.
I was delivering to myself. Over. And over. And over again.
Eventually, I snapped.
"STOP!" I yelled at the ceiling. "I GET IT. TIME LOOP. SPOOKY DIMENSION. HA HA."
The lights flickered. The microwave dinged.
A voice echoed from the bathroom mirror. "One more shift, Ray."
"Who are you people?!" I shouted.
No answer. Just the voice again: "One more shift."
I tried to leave.
I tried the fire escape. It looped back into my living room. I tried the window. It opened to another window, looking back at me. I tried jumping into the laundry basket. Desperate times.
Still ended up in the same room. But now the walls were breathing again.
"Okay," I said, pacing. "Fine. You want deliveries? I'll deliver."
I picked up every box I could find. Stuffed them in a tote bag. Kicked open the nearest door. Started handing off packages to empty chairs, closets, mirrors, sinks.
"This one's for the void," I said, tossing a box into a shadow.
"This one's for future-me. Good luck, buddy."
"This one's for the fish tank full of teeth."
I don't know how long I did that. Could've been hours. Could've been days. My watch started ticking backward. My phone melted. My socks multiplied.
Then—
A final ping.
SHIFT COMPLETE.
The packages vanished. The walls stopped pulsating. The microwave exploded.
And a real door appeared. Normal. Wooden. Gloriously boring.
I opened it.
Outside: night sky. A bench. A mailbox. The hum of distant traffic.
And the Manager.
He sat on the bench, sipping tea.
"You passed," he said without looking up.
"Passed what?" I asked, collapsing beside him.
"The test. The Infinite Shift. Designed to break lesser couriers."
"Oh, cool. So you tossed me into a recursive hell-loop as a team-building exercise?"
He nodded, smiling.
I wanted to punch him. Or at least steal his tea.
"I delivered to myself at least twenty-seven times," I said.
"Twenty-eight. One of you skipped."
"...Do I get a badge or something?"
The Manager pulled something from his coat. A sticker.
I SURVIVED THE LOOP.
"Stick it on your helmet," he said. "Or your soul."
I took it. Slapped it on my moped the second I found it parked nearby.
Back home—real home—I collapsed onto the floor. No pulsating walls. No echoing whispers. Just the comforting silence of post-delivery dread.
I stared at the ceiling.
"Never again," I muttered.
The app buzzed.
NEW DROP INCOMING.
I screamed into my pillow.
Fade to black.