Chapter 1

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Endless fog rolled outside the window as if the world had disappeared at the end of the fog. A ray of soft light from the sky was the only light that could penetrate through the fog, and it dimly lit the quiet room.

Inside the slightly messy studio apartment room, Zhou Ming sat in front of the table. All the stuff on the table was violently swept to one side while the man with a depressed expression wrote swiftly on a book.

“Day 7. Nothing has changed. The fog outside the window still hides everything from me. The window is shut tight by an unknown force… It’s as if the entire room has been ‘tossed’ into an abnormal space…

“I have no means to contact the outside world. There’s no running water or electricity either. But the lights can still be turned on and the computer too. It’s still running even after I’ve unplugged everything.”

It sounded as if a gust of gentle wind was coming from the window, making Zhou Ming, who was diligently documenting his day in his diary, suddenly raise his head. Hope flickered in his weary eyes, only for him to realize it was all his own hallucination the next second. The pale white fog remained outside the window as if it was a cold and quiet world that had surrounded his room.

He diverted his gaze to the window sill and noticed the hammer and wrench he tossed. Those were signs of his struggle to get out of his room through the window a few days back. Now, they were just heavy tools silently lying there. It looked as if they were laughing at his dire situation.

Calmness returned to Zhou Ming’s face a few seconds later. He was calm in an unusual way. He lowered his head once again to write in the book.

“I’m trapped here and have no idea how to leave this place. For the past few days, I’ve tried destroying the ceiling, walls, and even the floors, but despite all my efforts, not even a scratch was left on the walls. It’s as if the room has become a box that’s molded into this space with no means of escaping…

“Except for that door.

“But what lies outside that door…is even weirder.”

Zhou Ming paused once again. He slowly read through the words he had written before aimlessly flipping through the pages. He saw the things that he had documented for the past few days. Those were words of despair, sentences of imagination, scribbles of desperation, and jokes to force himself to keep a cool mind.

He couldn’t tell if there was meaning to writing in his diary. He had no idea to who he was writing that gibberish. The truth was that he was never one to keep a journal. As a high school teacher with limited free time, he never had the time to do such a thing.

However, now, whether he liked it or not, he had a lot of spare time.

When he woke up one day, he learned that he was trapped inside his room.

The view out the window was replaced by a thick fog, so thick that he couldn’t see anything past it. It was also as if the cycle between day and night was gone. That time had stopped. Inside the dim room, the window was tightly locked, the water and electricity were cut off, there was no mobile signal, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t get any help from the outside world.

It was as if he was in a ridiculous nightmare, and everything that happened in it went against the law of nature. However, Zhou Ming had tried everything and had one thing confirmed. He was not in an illusion and not a dream too. He was in a world where nothing made sense, and he was temporarily still normal.

The man took a deep breath and looked at the door at the edge of his room.

It was a regular and cheap white wooden door. On it was an old calendar from last year that he had forgotten to change. The doorknob had been turned so much that it was shiny. The floor mat was a little off-centered.

That door could still be opened.

If the sealed room was like a prison, then the cruelest part of the prison was that a door that could be open anytime remained. It was as if the door was tempting the prisoner to push it open. Yet the world outside that door was not the world Zhou Ming was hoping for.

The old but warm hallway was no longer there. The lively street was nowhere to be seen either. There was nothing out there that he was accustomed to.

Instead, it was an unfamiliar place that gave off an eerie vibe. It was also another trap that he could not escape.

Zhou Ming knew there wasn’t much time left for him to hesitate. There was no option for him to choose from to begin with.

The ration he had left was the problem. To begin with, the few bottles he had were now a quarter of what they were. He had tried everything he could to get out of the sealed room and seek help, but now, only one option remained for him, to get prepared and look for a way to survive in what was outside the door.

There was also the chance for him to discover the cause of the bizarre supernatural phenomenon happening to him.

Zhou Ming took a breath and turned his head back to complete the remaining few paragraphs in his diary. “Whatever the cause is, the only option I have left is to head to what’s across the door. At least I can still find food on that weird ship. The exploration and preparation I’ve done over there for the past few days are enough for me to survive on it. Although… there was only so much I could do to prepare.

“Lastly, to anyone who arrives after me, if I never make it back, and if anyone manages to open the door to this room, please don’t think of what I’ve written in this diary as a mere fictional work. Everything in here really did happen despite how terrifying it sounds. There really exists a person called Zhou Ming who is trapped inside this crazy and strange space.

“I’ve tried my best to describe every weird phenomenon that happened after I arrived here and all the things I’ve done to try and get out of this room. If there really is someone who’s reading this, please, at least, remember my name. At the very least, remember that all of these happened.”

Zhou Ming then closed the diary, tossed the pen into the container, and got up.

He had decided it was time to leave before he was wholly sunken into a passive and desperate state.

After a short ponder, he didn’t head toward the door that was the only thing connected to the “outside world.” Instead, he walked toward his bed.

He concluded that he needed to be at his best to face whatever was in the “foreign land” past the door. He knew that at that moment, his condition, especially his mental state, wasn’t the best yet.

Having no idea whether he could fall asleep or not, he still forced himself to lie down on the bed and entered a state of emptying his mind. It was still better than trying to wander on the “other side” of the door when he was mentally exhausted.

Eight hours later, Zhou Ming opened his eyes.

The thick fog remained outside the window while the dim nature light still gave off a depressing vibe.

Zhou Ming ignored the situation outside the window and took out the remaining food he had left. After ensuring he was at least 80% full, he walked toward the standing mirror in the corner of his room.

The man in the reflection still had messy hair that made him look dispirited. The man was not attractive either. However, Zhou Ming stared at his reflection in the mirror as if trying to forever carve that look into his head.

He continued to stare at the mirror for a few minutes until he started to mumble in a low voice. It sounded like he was trying to talk to the man in the mirror. “Your name is Zhou Ming. At least, you are Zhou Ming ‘here.’ Zhou Ming is your name. You have to remember that.”

After that, he turned to leave.

He approached the door that he was very familiar with and took a deep breath before resting his hand on the doorknob.

Besides his attire, he did not bring anything with him. No food or any weapons to defend himself with. That was his experience after “exploring” the other side a few times. Other than himself, nothing could go through the door.

The truth was that he even had to question if he was himself or not.

Zhou Ming twisted the knob and pushed the door open. The dark and heavy fog rolled before him like a heavy curtain. He felt he could already hear the ocean waves among the mist that expanded indefinitely.

He walked past that heavy fog and was met with the slightly fishy smell of the ocean wind. The sound of the waves became real instead of his own imagination. The floor he stood on rocked somewhat back and forth. He closed his eyes for a second and waited for the dizziness to pass before opening them again. The first thing he saw was a wide and open wooden deck, the tall spar that spanned high up into the dark clouds, and the seemingly endless ocean past the side of the ship.

Zhou Ming lowered his head and looked at his body, which was a little more muscular than he had remembered. He was wearing an expensive-looking and exquisite but unfamiliar captain’s uniform. On his vast and firm hands was a classic black flintlock pistol.

He was right. He had to question if he was himself or not.