The morning sun filtered through the window, but it brought no warmth.
It was a sterile, white light, like that of an operating room.
Elias, a thirteen-year-old boy, woke up with his usual heaviness.
Living abroad was a dream for many, but for a teenager whose only
company was the walls of an apartment funded by absent parents, the
dream felt like a gray static. He brushed his teeth while staring at his own
reflection in the bathroom mirror—pale skin, mid and brown hair messily
shielding a pair of eyes that looked far too tired for his age. He looked like
a ghost haunting his own life, got dressed mechanically, and prepared to leave.
Outside, the city's heat was suffocating—the kind that makes you wish you were
anywhere else, or anyone else.
"I wish Mom were here," he whispered to no one as he locked the door.
He walked toward the corner store, craving an ice cream to fight the
heat. When he reached the intersection, he slipped his hand into his
tight pockets, searching for his wallet. His fingers brushed against his
keychain; the metal slipped, and the keys clinked before bouncing
against the pavement. Kneeling to reach for the keys, Elias watched a bead of sweat hit the pavement. It didn't soak into the concrete; it just sat there, a perfect silver sphere. Then, the sound died. It wasn't just quiet, it was as if the concept of noise had been deleted from the universe's source code. No hum of distant tires, no rustle of wind. Just the thumping of his own blood against his eardrums, loud and rhythmic, like a countdown.
Elias stood up, the hairs on his arms rising. He looked at the store:
it was open, but unsettlingly clean, without a single stain of grease on
the counter. No employees. When he looked down the street, a cold panic
began to bubble in his chest: his city, famous for its uneven slopes
and hills, had become flat. Symmetrical. The houses were carbon copies
of one another, aligned with a precision that defied physics. He pulled
out his phone.
No signal.
He was terrified. He didn't understand what was happening or why
everything had suddenly changed. He simply stared at his surroundings,
breathing unevenly, feeling as if he were being watched by a thousand
invisible eyes. It was that instinctive fear you feel when something is
wrong—and everything was wrong. After standing frozen for several
minutes, desperation pushed him to move. He walked for hours, searching
for a mall, a face, a voice, any sign of life.
Nothing.
Only buildings that shouldn't be there and streets stretching into infinity with a terrifying perfection.
By nightfall, hunger forced him into a stranger's house, though he did
so with trembling hands and deep distrust. The interior was an ode to
obsession: furniture aligned at mathematical angles. In the
refrigerator, the cans were arranged so perfectly it felt disturbing. He
took two, ate rice and beans in a silence that rang in his ears, and
left the empty cans on the table.
"God… why is this happening to me?" he exhaled, wondering if the world had gone mad—or if he had.
He went upstairs to try to sleep, but the moment his foot touched the first step, a sound froze his blood:
clink… clink… clink…
Elias went still. Irrational fear flooded him, along with an
overwhelming urge to run, but he forced himself to peek from behind the
doorframe. His heartbeat was so loud it hurt. One of the cans had slid
off the table and was rolling across the floor.
It was the first sound he hadn't caused in hours.
Terrified, he ran upstairs and locked himself in a room until morning.
When he came down the next day, the cans were no longer on the floor. They were back in the refrigerator. Sealed. Perfect.
But when he shook them, he knew the truth.
They were empty.