"Hey, watch out!" I shouted, as I watched a girl about my age completely ignore her surroundings as she set one foot down, ready to cross into incoming traffic.
She jumped back, startled, falling into a portal that had opened up behind her. And then she was gone.
The darkness surrounded her as she fell through the cold air into the nothingness. She couldn't even bring herself to scream, as she was too busy fixating on the stars that surrounded her. It was as if she was traveling through space itself. She could almost reach out and touch the lights surrounding her (if it weren't for the fact that her arms were currently flailing as she plummeted).
Her life had always felt devoid of purpose, but this hole made her feel like she was meant for something more. She felt like she were in a storybook and the adventure was finally going to start. She'd spent too many aimless days staring at her phone, scrolling into oblivion because her hobbies just didn't feel like they mattered anymore. For awhile now, it'd been feeling like none of it did. So in a strange and twisted way, her literal falling into oblivion felt like more of an escape than her phone could ever be. Her life was finally shaping up to be something bigger than she was.
Her eyes would fixate on random objects passing her by so fast that it would take her a second to process what the object actually was. Most of them were small things. A comet here, a fairy there. All light sources. But hidden amongst the light, were the things that'd been lining the road she'd been taken from. A street light. A fire hydrant. All decorating the gaps between the pulsing gleams surrounding her.
Time felt eternal as she continued to travel. If she thought hard enough, she could make it feel like she was simply suspended in the air, rather than plummeting to an uncertain doom. At this point, she couldn't be certain that an end was even coming. Perhaps she'd end up permanently stuck in this state of free fall motion. That'd be a new kind of monotony she wasn't sure she was ready for. At least the content within her phone would change. Falling down this eternal rabbit hole would simply bring the same sights of light and road signs decorating the background. Sleep would be the only release she'd be able to seek out at this point.
But alas, everything would come to an end at some point. That was the whole thing about life right? Even if she was suspended in this permanent state, her age would not suspend itself. And she would continue to grow older until eventually her death would put an end to the eternal misery that had been brought upon her. What she should have sought comfort in solely brought a sense of sorrow upon her. A final end wasn't the solution she was seeking. She was just tired of searching for something more when she knew she would never attain it. She just couldn't help but feel like this was all there was. Though objectively she knew there were loads of things she hadn't learned or tried yet, she felt so trapped in the repetitive cycle of her everyday life. Trapped by a lack of money, a lack of fulfilling relationships, a lack of change. But even she knew the lack of change was her fault. She just couldn't bring herself to take the first step to try something new.
And therein lied her problem. The core root of her issues began with the fact that she couldn't find a purpose for any of it. The lack of emotional depth within all her attempts at forming romantic relationships with others ultimately stemmed from the fact that she couldn't find simple comfort in anything. The warm embrace of a person without the emotional depth behind it was all she could handle because at the end of the day nothing could help the fact that she couldn't see a point to it at all. Forget the past, the future was so all encompassing that it eclipsed her present. The finite nature of it all robbed her of her ability to see beyond her own selfish desires. Because satiating those selfish desires was the only thing that brought her something akin to joy anymore. It was hard to bring herself to care about the feelings of the other person when her emptiness was all encompassing without a person there to help take on some of the burden. Without someone else to turn her mind to.
At last, she reached the end. She hit the bottom with a thud. And when she stood, she realized she was on top of a door. It was the most ordinary door she'd ever seen. It was the type of door you pictured when someone asked you to describe what a door looked like. Painted white and sporting a golden knob, she stared at it intently. Did she really want to know what was behind it? All this falling to get to this point, but what if it was all a waste of time? What if the door just took her back to the same reality she'd been trying to escape from? Then what was the point of even falling at all? Hours wasted just to find she'd ended up exactly where she'd started. But what if the door took her to somewhere beyond magical? A fantasy that one could only dream of. Somewhere where there were two moons, or no one felt pain, or mermaids truly existed. She deliberated for what felt like hours, weighing the pros and cons. She considered trying to jump up off the door in an attempt to return to the real world. So many thoughts ran through her brain, yet she remained unable to make a decision.
Perhaps it was ultimately impulse that made the decision for her. The tug of curiosity greatly outweighed the need for the comfort of something already known. Regardless of the reasoning, she knew the decision was the right one as soon as she made it. Because no matter what happened, she hadn't come all this way for nothing.
She took a deep breath, and she opened the door. And then-
Nothing.
