The Confined

1. Ego

2302. 04. One day

I was swallowed by the earth. Plummetting down an endless pit of darkness and hollowness, when I looked down, there was nothing.

"Someone help me. Please," I whispered. I couldn't even hear myself from the rush of wind deafening my ears. Thankfully, I couldn't hear my screaming and crying either. I didn't want to know that I was weak.

Just then I recognized something that I had seen before. It was the same rock jutting out from the side I saw five minutes ago. And I saw it again five minutes later.

And again, and again.

I was trapped,

in a paradox.

I shot up from my bed, panting. The pumping of adrenaline in my veins made it hard to breathe. The clock pointed three A.M. as the bunker was dark with the eerie dim red light glowing murderously in the center of ceiling. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and laid back down to find my bed soaked of it. I rolled furthest toward the edge I could get without falling off.

I couldn't fall back asleep. Everytime I closed my eyes, I felt the sensation of falling down the pit. So vulnerable and weak.

My name is Ego, short for Egorbis. Every day is the same for me. It's like a sieve frame. Everything goes on and on like there is no end. Joys, devastations, fears, my whole life returns and goes when the sun rises and sets. And the thing is, no matter how hard I try to change, proceed, and achieve, nothing ever gets better.

Paradox.

I am trapped,

in a real one.

So I cried myself to sleep.

✡

When the sun rose as always, someone yanked off the smelly blankets that were giving me the warmth to get through the night without getting frostbite. It was Finn. Finn Jennings. My so-called best friend.

"Five more minutes," I pleaded as the cold washed over me like a wave.

My hand roamed down the sheets of my bed to find my covers but with no luck I sat up, grunted, and pulled the covers on myself again. I noticed the vivid fragrance of the sweetness of apples.

"God, what did you shower in, apple juice? You have enough to shower in it and not enough to give some to your thirsty friend?" I mumbled while still swimming in my drowsiness.

Finn smiled. "I got this from my last job. It's apple soap. I'll let you use it, one time offer! Limited edition! Finn soap! Purchase now! Stop sulking and get up." He started shaking my arm.

"I don't mind smelling like a day old loaf of bread." I shrugged and shut my eyes again from squinting when I saw the twinkle in Finn's eyes.

I don't remember how I came to be friends with him. He was here from the start and I was here too, that's all. We share the same bunker, 65281. He's much taller and stronger than me. He's a lot more popular too. Finn is handsome with his naturally brown hair, hazel eyes, tan and lean body, and I have to admit that he does work out more than me. Exercise and I are secret arch enemies.

Probably you're wondering whether we even have friends, have relationships, get married, give birth to children and other stuff that normal people do up there in the RL (standing for Reality Lives). Yes, even in these dirty bottoms there is friendship, love, and family. The road people walk on doesn't change fundamentally, the asphalt does.