#youwakeup

You’re a 32 year old man with rounded features, a rickety beard in need of shaving, and bed sheets that have turned into a light brown from 12 years of use. It’s no wonder to you that whenever a friend comes over, they never sit on your bed, you plan to give it a wash before heading off to work. You shuffle in your bed, a bit too short for comfort and a bit too wide to stay warm in one spot. After a few minutes of shuffling, looking for another minute of sleep that never comes, you toss your legs off the side of your bed and slowly stand up. You itch at your beard, your hand rising to your head as you keep scratching until you’re satisfied and walk off to the kitchen to make some instant coffee. After you start the gas, place a kettle on the stove, and get a cup of instant coffee powder ready on the counter, you lean your back onto the counter with your hands supporting your back, you reach into your pocket to retrieve your phone. The screen is cracked and the sides are covered in sharp points from small pieces of plastic and or iron breaking off. You scroll through some news articles about the newest discoveries of biology. You see a photo of a man in a white lab coat, clearly ecstatic about their new discovery but trying their best to keep a neutral face. That would be you if you weren’t a scared coward, in need of a clear road to even get out of the house and into your car. 

You zone out for a few seconds before you hear the start of a screeching kettle from the side. Turning the gas stove off, you pour the boiling water into your cup with instant coffee powder and stir before getting lazy and just chugging it with some undissolved instant coffee powder.

You wipe some excess coffee from your chin and lean into your sink as you release a long and tired sigh. You contemplate if you should just give up on going to work against not getting fired but you somehow keep going. You always keep going, even if you don’t want to. 

Reaching for a t-shirt and your construction uniform, you grab your keys and head outside. Locking your door, you start your walk to the car, the cold sending shivers down your spine . On the way however, you have this urge, like the need to go somewhere else. It’s not like you want to, you don’t desire the idea of going where you are being led by… something that’s tugging at your head. It’s strange and new, so you hate it. You panic. You don’t like the feeling of new, you try to focus and go to your car, but the forest behind it seems to be forcing you closer. You remember a sign somewhere near warning you of dangers in the forest, one in particular which you weren’t so sure of but after searching the internet, informed you about entities disappearing without a trace of where they went. You’re scared, you don’t like this, you want to go back, to home,  not to the place you currently live at, no, that’s not home, it’s your current location of where you survive. No, you want to go back home, back to when your father brought you fishing, back to when your parents read stories to you in bed, when everything seemed bright and colorful. You want to go back home.