"Next."
The voice coming from the speaker sounded emotionless, synthetic. And even though I was used to being alone, this room felt… off.
It was white. Not warm, not cold. Just… sterile.
There wasn't much to see—just two doors.
The one I entered through, and the other that ominously pulled my gaze. Both were certainly equipped with one or two security mechanisms and couldn't be opened from the inside—I was trapped.
Yet I didn't feel out of place, even if everything around me said I should.
"Next."
I didn't move. Even as the voice filled the colorless room with even more emptiness for the second time.
I had a plan. And I would stick to it.
"Next."
Today was my annual screening. The day the government checks if you've developed a disorder—a so-called Anomaly.
Anyone who misses it without a valid reason gets arrested.
The same goes for those who ignore the call inside the waiting room.
"Next."
No one knows what happens in these rooms—but those who draw attention are never seen again.
The world isn't what it used to be. Not since that day three years ago.
But honestly? I don't care. I've gotten used to it.
And I don't care if others haven't.
'Let them live their lives and leave me the hell alone.'
"Next."...
The emotionless voice spoke its final word.
The blinding white light of the waiting room turned black.
Not even I—used to the darkness—could see a thing.
But it didn't last long...
Flashing red lights pulsed in one-second intervals, and the speaker began playing the symphony of a siren.
Finally, a bit of color in all this emptiness.
It wouldn't take long until the first guards entered the waiting room.
Barely 100 seconds and only five warnings from the synthetic voice later—I took one step closer to my goal.
The door I had entered through opened.
"Hands behind your back and on the floor!"
A soldier in a thick black vest shouted at me.
But still—I didn't move.
My life, my pain, even my bad luck… it was all supposed to end here.
"I will shoot! This is your final warning!"
The room filled with more soldiers.
I looked up and noticed that two of them had a band on their left arm—in my favorite color.
I couldn't help it—one final tear rolled down my cheek.
So many people and so many colors in this room, and even the red light was flashing just for me.
The tear on my cheek held no sorrow—it was a tear of joy.
Who would've thought that my final breath would be taken at a party full of guests made just for me?
…And it was my first party.
Before the tear even reached the ground, I felt my body freeze.
The emptiness was no longer the only hole in my chest.
I closed my eyes as my body tilted forward.
Soon, I would touch the floor.
In my mind, I had already said goodbye.
I was ready to give it all up, hoping to start a new life on another, less cruel world.
But I never touched the floor.
***
My fate changed.
The sound of the siren faded, and I no longer heard the soldiers.
My thoughts were still clear, and I could feel my heartbeat.
Didn't I say I was ready to go?
Wasn't the whole plan—to die here—thought through enough?
I'd heard it countless times before: if you act suspicious, you get killed.
So why the hell was I still conscious?
And why couldn't I feel the damn floor?
I opened my eyes—and wished I hadn't.
Beneath me was no floor—just endless nothing, stretching in every direction.
A night sky without stars, like an ocean without fish.
As I spoke the metaphor in my mind, the void changed.
The once weightless space beneath my feet solidified, and water rose up to my knees.
Even the starless night sky above transformed.
It was as if something was being born from nothing.
The void folded in on itself, and I watched reality bend.
A whirl of 'nothing' sucked the water into itself and began to form a vortex.
Strangely, I felt nothing—as if I was only allowed to witness.
The vortex twisted itself into the shape of a sphere, its violent motion vaporizing the remaining water.
And as the final layer of water was pierced, something shimmered beneath the surface.
A round stone. No—not a stone. Not a normal one.
Above the empty ocean, I saw the impossible.
A moon with a face.
But not one of those gentle, fairytale moons from bedtime stories…
No—this one looked like the Devil himself was staring down at me.
The moon glared with blood-red eyes, a mouth filled with endless, jagged teeth, and a surface not marked by craters, but by screaming faces.
My breath caught in my throat.
Minutes ago, I was sitting and waiting for death—
And now… now I am here.
Is this Hell?
Is this the price I pay for never truly living?
Or am I just dreaming?
A scream tore through the sea—not loud, but endless.
I pressed my hands to my ears, but the sound was already inside me.
It was the moon. It was screaming.
And with each wail, it painted the sky a deeper red.
Clouds began to form—writhing and alive, like angry thoughts—until they cracked open.
Something began to fall.
Slowly, I lowered my hands.
My fingers were wet.
Not with water—but with blood.
The sky was bleeding.
I shut my eyes, hoping that maybe this nightmare would end.
And it did.
In the darkness, a cold, synthetic voice rang out:
"Welcome to Therapy."