Duality;Solaris Vol. 1

Chapter 6-1: Morning Routines

*Beep*
  *Beep*
      *Beep*

    The early morning sun rises upon the forgotten cousin of the Jet City. Amongst the numerous towering skyscrapers, lies the many shorter buildings, and districts, that bask in their shadows. One of these buildings being the Art Deco apartment our straggler lays his weary head. In the back of his apartment, past the mess and remnants of visitors long gone, one can find the place that finds the most neglect from his current track in life: his bedroom.

    There sits no pictures. No ornaments hanging off the walls. No achievements decorating his bedroom. This room is empty from all except the necessities and his growingly outdated music technologies. John lays snuggled up onto the plain white pillows and comforter upon his queen-sized bed. Beside this bed, there sits a tiny nightstand. And, on it, there blares a digital alarm clock.

"Hmm—", John groans at those depressing beeps pounding on his groggy eardrums. Swatting and smacking haphazardly, his hunt for the snooze button is the same as any other morning. It's been this way ever since these special training duties began to be tacked onto each of his standard work requirements. These exhaustive duties draining every bit of his already limited luster since they started two months ago— and there seems to be no end in sight.

    John sluggishly drags his face from out of his cloud-like pillows as the blue glare of the clock's digital numbers fuel his smoldering internal flames. '7:19am', the time imprints the cause for it's alarm. This hadn't been the first time he pushed that well-worn snooze button this morning.

    "Ah, crap..." John knew this new, familiar routine all too well by this point. Punching more adrenaline into him than any amount of coffee could, John leaps through his comforter and out of bed as this straggler's morning rush begins.

    From the closet to the small dresser drawers to the nightstand, the frantic scrummaging for presentability is quickly followed by his penchant for hygiene. The frantic rush between the bedroom and bathroom picks up speed as the minutes tick away— and the honking outside traffic grows with every aggravated shout.

    Between a double-handed toothbrushing technique to his oft-colored tie strangling around his neck, John spits out into his sink and finishes buckling his belt as the clock clicks onto '7:26am'. John, dressed and stuffing his essentials into his khaki pant's pockets, rapidly stumbles down the apartment's hallway and into the living room onto his way out. As he struggles with his tie, something catches the corner of his eye.

    Through the huge panoramic-like windows, the parallel apartment building can be seen— yet, something was distinctly different about it. Some of the gothic ornamentation hanging off the side corner of this building appears to have collapsed at some point during the night. The shroud of darkness was no longer around to hide what had bumped around under the guise of midnight. The damage, while minimal, would've been dangerous all the same— still, this isn't what John's unintended focus was spent on. He squints his eyes through the sunny reflections grazing in from the windows. The relevancy of time flying out said window, alongside his focus, as the assumed peculiarity unveils itself.

    On the side of the building, beyond the crumbling remnants encircling it, there marks a familiar indention: what seems to be half of a sneaker's sole print. The sight as baffling as the lack of any noise of the collapse itself. The unfathomability of a shoe print seemingly sitting pretty far up on the side of a multiple stories-high building is groan-inducing enough for John, but it made even less sense to the lack of where the collapsed pieces of the building went off to once it fell. As much as his mind was taken up by this absurdity, his feet were still stuck in their previous endeavor: getting to work.