The air was thick, suffocating. Silence pressed in from all sides, a cold, biting emptiness that gnawed at the edges of awareness. A dull, aching throb pulsed in his temples, a sensation Shenglu was all too familiar with. His thoughts were hazy at first, jumbled in a tangle of regret and confusion.
"Am I hungover?" he groaned. "Damn, I knew I shouldn't have downed those bottles like water last night. Peer pressure is crazy."
He tried to move, lifting an arm to rub the tension out of his forehead, but his hand hit something solid just inches above his face. His brow furrowed. It was dark, so dark that not even a sliver of light filtered in. He blinked once, twice, but the blackness persisted. His eyes were wide open, yet he couldn't see anything.
"What the hell?" he muttered, frustration creeping into his voice. The cramped space allowed him little room to maneuver, and every time he shifted, something solid pressed against him from all sides. His breath quickened as he wriggled around, his hands scraping against smooth, cool material. Panic slowly started to creep in, and his fingers traced the contours of the thing holding him in.
It felt like...glass?
"No, not glass," Shenglu muttered as he ran his palms across it, trying to understand where the hell he was. His hands fumbled, feeling along the edges of the space—smooth, polished, unnervingly cold. After a moment, a horrifying realization dawned on him. The shape. The corners. The limited space.
He was in a coffin. A fancy, damn-near luxurious coffin.
"Fucking hell," he hissed, his voice cracking as he yelled "Is this some kind of prank!?"
He slammed his palms against the lid, desperate for any response. The sound echoed back, hollow and taunting. He gritted his teeth, trying to shove the lid off, but it was impossibly heavy. His mind raced, flipping between thoughts—between panic and disbelief. "This has to be a prank... right? Guys? Hello? Anyone?"
No answer.
"Come on... come on!" he grunted, straining every muscle in his body. He planted his feet against the surface and pushed with all his strength. Nothing. He twisted his body, trying to wedge his fingers into any small cracks or gaps in the material. Still nothing. He tried again and again, but no matter how much force he applied, the lid didn't move an inch!
Several fruitless attempts later, exhaustion took over as he fell back against the smooth surface below him. "Fine then," he muttered, almost bitterly. "I'll just die here. No big deal."
Resigned, Shenglu let out a long sigh, sinking into an odd sense of calm that only comes from utter helplessness and acceptance. He shut his eyes, the weight of impending doom settling over him like a blanket. Maybe suffocating wouldn't be the worst way to go, he thought. At least he was going out in style, entombed in a crystal coffin.
Time passed in silence. But despite his attempt to surrender to his fate, something felt... wrong. The silence was too deep, too unnerving. Slowly, he became aware of an odd sensation, a strange kind of awareness prickling at the edge of his mind.
With a jolt, his eyes snapped open once again. The same suffocating darkness greeted him, but something was different this time. Somehow... it felt like he could "see" now. No, not see, exactly—but sense. Not with his eyes, but with something else.
"What the fuck?" he muttered, trying to concentrate on the feeling.
He couldn't explain it but there was an undeniable feeling that he could sense his surroundings without using his eyes. Like a mental image slowly forming in his head, taking shape the longer he concentrated.
Slowly, he could make out the detailed lines of the coffin. It was almost crystalline but undoubtedly solid, with strange carvings he could barely recognize but felt expensive as hell. He could see it in his mind's eye, even though his physical vision was still locked in darkness.
He concentrated harder, pushing this newfound sense outward, and the room surrounding him came into focus in his mind. It wasn't the room he remembered from last night—his cramped apartment filled with his prized collections of he's not willing to disclose and various snacks he used to munch on. No, this was something entirely different. Something old. Ancient, even.
Massive pillars carved with intricate designs lined the walls. The floor beneath his coffin seemed to shimmer, made of polished stone so pristine it reflected the golden glow of hanging lanterns. Every detail screamed wealth and history, the kind of place where centuries of power and status must've accumulated. Like some kind of forgotten temple from an ancient civilization.
Shenglu's heart raced as the image in his mind expanded further. The interior of the room came into sharper clarity—every corner, every piece of decoration. It felt unreal. The air in here wasn't stale and oppressive like he'd expect inside a sealed room. It was fresh, clean, and eerily still.
"This can't be right..." he whispered, his voice barely audible. Where the hell was he?
Then, one last push of focus, and his senses expanded beyond the room itself. In his mind, his surroundings shifted, revealing something far more overwhelming. What he "saw" next nearly knocked the breath out of him. He wasn't in a house, a building, or anything remotely normal. He was on a small, floating island, anchored by nothing, suspended in midair by forces he couldn't begin to comprehend.
Shenglu trembled as the image took shape in his head. It was as if his mind had zoomed out, showing him a bird's-eye view of his situation. The building, he assumed a pavilion, sat atop a floating island, surrounded by swirling clouds and diverse mystical feel lifeforms.
His throat went dry.
Panic returned, gripping his chest. "Where the fuck... am I?" The words barely left his mouth, trembling as his mind tried to comprehend the sheer impossibility of what he was sensing. This wasn't some elaborate prank anymore. This wasn't something his friends could've cooked up.
He was... somewhere else.
But then, almost without thinking, his brain offered him an easy escape: "Ah, I see," he said, a nervous laugh escaping his lips. "I'm dreaming. That makes more sense."
It was easier to believe this was all just some crazy hallucination. Because what else made sense? One moment, he was drinking, hanging out with his friends. The next, he was trapped inside a fancy crystal coffin on a floating island in the middle of goddamn nowhere. None of this made sense.
"Yeah, definitely dreaming," he muttered, gaslighting himself into calm. "Next thing you know, I'll be sprouting wings and flying off this island like some third-rate anime protagonist."
Everything about this situation was insane, but there wasn't much else he could do. His mind was trying really hard to make sense of everything, yet every explanation felt more absurd than the last.
"Okay, let's break it down," he sighed. "I'm trapped in a coffin. It's fancy—probably worth more than my whole life back home. The room looks like some ancient emperor's palace. And apparently, I'm on a floating rock. Great. Just... fantastic."
He lay there for a moment, half-expecting something else that's strange to happen. Maybe some mysterious voice would start narrating his fate or a group of cultists would appear, chanting ominously as if he's the demon god's reincarnation. But there was nothing. Just eerie silence.
"So, what now?" he asked himself, drumming his fingers on the coffin's smooth surface. "Lie here forever and hope I wake up in my bed? Maybe the flying monkeys will come get me next."
He sighed once again, then smirked. "You know what? I'll just sleep it off. Yeah, that sounds good."
With a resigned shrug, Shenglu closed his eyes, sinking back into the strange peace that only comes when you've completely given up on understanding reality. "If I wake up tomorrow and I'm still here... I'll panic again. But for now..."
A smile tugged at his lips.
"I used my brain too much, need a break."