"This isn't possible," he thought, his breathing quickening. He felt a knot in his stomach, a sensation of falling, but there was nowhere to go. Everything around him was a reflection of his past life, but distorted, trapped in a time that no longer existed.
He tried to run, but when he opened the door, he found himself back inside the restaurant. Terror gripped him. Something was deeply wrong with this place. Like an endless cycle, each time he crossed the threshold, he reappeared at the same point, as if reality itself was broken.
"Excuse me… can you tell me how to get out of here? I have a job interview and… well… I'm late," Martín's voice trembled as he spoke to the bartender.
The man behind the counter slowly turned, and when he did, Martín felt his blood turn to ice. The bartender was him. It wasn't just a resemblance—it was like looking into a distorted mirror, a dark, twisted version of himself, with an expression that filled him with dread. That figure exuded a dense, unsettling aura, as if it were made of all the emotions Martín had tried to suppress over the years. It was a reflection of himself, saturated with sadness, resentment, and emptiness.
"You can't leave," the bartender's voice was deep, laden with something that wasn't anger or pity but a terrifying certainty. "And no one can come for you."
"W-why?" Martín swallowed, feeling the rising tide of despair take hold of him. "What… what is this?"
"You're trapped," the other Martín said, and at that moment, his smile twisted in a way that made Martín take a step back, as if there was something deeply sinister in those words.
"What do you mean, trapped?" Martín, growing increasingly nervous, started searching for his phone, but couldn't find it. His trembling fingers fumbled through his jacket pockets. Without thinking, he stammered, "I'll call the police, emergency services… This is illegal! You'll get fined, they'll shut down this piece of trash place!"
The bartender let out a bitter, dry laugh, and with chilling coldness, he delivered the truth that froze Martín to his core:
"You're trapped in your own mind, Martín."
Those words pierced him like a dagger. The ground beneath him seemed to vanish, and he felt the air escape his lungs. Trapped in his mind? A wave of panic surged through his chest, tightening his throat. He tried to breathe, but the air grew thicker, heavier. What did that mean? What was he telling him?
"No… no…" he muttered, taking another step back. "This can't be real…"
The bartender, his own dark reflection, never stopped watching him. His gaze was filled with a cruel, almost mocking certainty.
"You brought this on yourself," he said calmly. "Ever since you were fired, you've stopped living. You've given up on everything. You've shut yourself off in your bitterness. You don't even talk to people anymore. Your wife left because she couldn't stand the silence you'd locked yourself in. Your son… he doesn't even want to see you because he knows you'll fill his head with your complaints."
Each word landed like a hammer blow on Martín's mind, crushing him. He tried to remember how he'd gotten there, how to escape, but his memory was a mess. The walls of the restaurant seemed to be closing in, warping around him. The memory of trying to leave flashed in his mind: he'd crossed the door, but instead of getting out, he ended up right back inside, as if the world itself had collapsed around him.
"No… This isn't possible!" he shouted, his voice cracking with desperation. Panic completely overtook him. What kind of place was this? What did it mean to be trapped in his own mind? He looked around frantically, searching for an exit, any exit.
But all he saw were the shelves, the photos—everything was falling apart. The things that had once brought him comfort were now just ghosts. Darkness crept closer, swallowing the restaurant, consuming the memories of his life.
"All you do is live in the past, Martín," the bartender's voice echoed deeper and deeper, wrapping around him. "Your memories… they're all you have left. But they're no longer enough. Remember your bike? It wasn't the bike that made you happy, it was the freedom of those days. Now there are no roads to ride on. And your friends? They're just pictures, shadows of something that no longer exists."
Martín felt the panic morph into something darker, more oppressive. There was no way out. No escape. The bartender was right: he was trapped. And worse, the feeling that it was his own fault was eating him alive. He had given up on living. He had let everything slip through his fingers, and now he was locked in a prison without walls, without doors, without windows. A prison made of his own despair.
He sat on the floor, hugging himself, feeling the world collapse around him. "This isn't real," he whispered over and over, eyes closed, trembling.
"No…" he murmured, his voice barely a whisper. "I have to get out of here. I have to wake up!"
But the bartender, his own shadow, didn't respond. He only watched him, as if he knew something Martín couldn't accept.
"There's no way out," was the last thing Martín heard before the restaurant's lights began to flicker out, one by one, plunging him into total, suffocating darkness. Despair consumed him from within, and in the blackness, he could only hear his own breathing—faster, more broken.
But no one was listening.
In a cold room, in the real world, Martín lay in a hospital bed, murmuring the same words: "I have to get out of here. I have to wake up." A doctor observed him in silence, his expression impassive. "He's been like this since they found him in his apartment," he explained to the students accompanying him. "He just repeats the same thing: 'I need to live my life. I have to get out of here.'"
But Martín, trapped in his own mind, kept fighting to wake up from a nightmare that never seemed to end.