"If I am killed just for existing, let death be kinder than man." — Anon, 202x
1
'How much did I drink?'
That was the first thought Dice had when he found himself inside an unfamiliar bedroom with a crazy headache. The pounding inside his head ought to be the worst he had experienced since birth.
'No, the better question is: What the hell did I drink?'
Headache aside, the sight outside the wall made entirely of glass made no sense to him. Dice even had to squint to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.
The sky? It was bright blue, with thin strips of white clouds, a typical summer morning sight…if not for the cracks and fissures that made the sky look like a broken mirror.
How could the sky be broken? That's utterly ridiculous.
Dice rubbed his eyes in doubt.
'So which hotel am I in?'
Looking around, the bedroom was extremely spacious with minimalistic design, the kind that one sees in luxury magazines targeted for bachelors—high ceiling with concealed lighting, gray-themed walls and black furniture that didn't have even a speck of dust.
Even the king-sized bed where he's lying in was a mix of white, gray and black colors.
Heck, his whole body was sinking on a mattress of the softest clouds. It was so comfortable he was tempted to forget the world and return to sleep.
If he was not hungry, he might have done exactly that.
Dice was half-naked in bed, wearing nothing but a pair of black sweatpants, instead of his usual ratty shirt and boxer shorts.
With a yawn, he pulled one of the dozens of pillows surrounding his head and rubbed his face against it. The scent of the pillowcase was heavenly, clean and fresh as if it was newly laundered.
'I don't think I should continue sleeping?'
His body shot up as he fumbled out of the bed. Now was not the time to sleep. Normal people would panic, right? He should be panicking…
Eh, it's the weekend. What gives?
'Where am I? I don't think I crawled here on my own, given how little pay I received from last month's paycheck. Who brought me to a place like this?'
'How much did I drink to blackout—Wait, no, I couldn't afford to party for years now. I don't even recall leaving the house in the first place.'
'Hmm, I don't recall drinking last night either?'
It was possible for people to forget things they did while drinking, but they should be at least able to recall going for drinks in the first place.
But Dice never went out to a bar or club, and neither did he buy soju or beer from the convenience store.
He took a sniff at himself.
'I don't smell like alcohol.'
The fact that his head was sporting a massive headache was the only counter evidence of him not drinking.
Too bad Dice had no one to ask. He had neither memory of going out, nor of the people he went out with.
Maybe one of his classmates?
Like any normal modern young man, he searched for his cellphone first.
Not on the nightstand. Not on the bed. Not under the pillows. He also did not find it on the floor.
Five seconds of searching the floor, he went on to lay on it like a lazy dog.
'Huu, so soft. Can I not leave? This place is way too comfy.'
The floor was covered in a white fur carpet so soft and fluffy, he swore he would probably have no problems sleeping on it.
'This looks more like a bachelor's pad.'
It did not look like a hotel room.
'Is this place Lloyd's? Jin's?'
Scratching the back of his head, Dice mentally listed out the list of possible friends he thought could own a place this nice.
He was a recent returnee to university, freshly released from compulsory military service, a part-time worker of a friend's small sports business.
As a nice 'hyung', or older brother, to his classmates, he had made a decent number of friends and acquaintances from his course program. It was possible he was pitied by one of his juniors and dragged to their place.
'I wonder if the junior is a girl…'
'The likelihood is slim…but, what if? What if I drank last night and hooked up with a rich girl?'
It was nice to daydream. Sadly, for Dice, it was nothing more than a dream. He was a really, really ordinary young man.
The only thing that might be slightly different about him was his love of dares and bets. That was how he earned his nickname 'Dice' back when he was in high school, and it stuck even now he had returned to university.
"Have I been kidnapped?" he blurted out, only to laugh at himself.
There was no way any sane kidnapper would imprison an ordinary person in a place that smelled of thousands of dollars. His father was no politician or mafia that would need a son as bait for revenge, and his mother was no runaway daughter of an arrogant clan with scary family members scheming against each other for wealth.
"Or was I so piss drunk last night, did I book a hotel's penthouse myself? No way. You gotta be bullshitting me."
As he padded out barefoot from the room, he decided it must be Jin's apartment. He remembered Jin mentioning he lived on his own. They must have had a drinking session last night that Dice forgot for some reason.
Dice glanced outside the window again on his way to the door. The sky still looked like a glass on the verge of shattering. Strange. However, he paid it no mind.
The moment he stepped out of the bedroom, he could see the city's beautiful morning skyline from the glass wall on one side and expensive voice-operated gadgets on the other.
Oh, how did he discover they're voice-operated?
Apparently, the AI controlling the system heard him curse.
[Good morning, Master]
[Now searching 'bullshitting me']
[I'm sorry. I don't know how to respond to that]
'Are you Jarvis?' He blinked.
Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call the place a presidential suite.
'And the sky outside is normal! Ugh. I knew it. Something must be wrong with that bedroom window.'
'Seriously though, where am I? I don't think Jin is this rich from what he mentioned.'
Jin hailed from a wealthy family, but he shouldn't be a chaebol or a son of a chaebol.
A wide screen television monitor covering almost an entire wall. Home theater soundbar. Touch-sensitive wall lighting. A smart cooler coffee table. An array of weapons and car models on a shelf spanning an entire wall. Small robot models. Strange-looking gadgets.
Most of the items he could identify were those he saw on the internet or heard from his university peers.
It was probably because Dice had just woken up or because of his headache, that he didn't notice it at first. After a minute or two of checking out all the never-before-seen high-tech gadgets in the wide living room, something strange registered in his head.
'Wait…Did Jarvis-alike just call me Master?'