Deep Sea Ember

The boundless fog rolled outside the window, so dense that it seemed the entire world had disappeared beyond the fog. Only the hazy, unlit light of dawn pierced through the fog and shone into the room, maintaining a dim, half-lit atmosphere in the quiet room. In the slightly messy studio apartment, Zhou Ming was hunched over his desk, the clutter on it roughly pushed aside. Looking haggard, he was writing furiously: "Seventh day, nothing has changed. Thick fog shrouds everything outside the window, which is sealed shut by an unknown force… The entire room seems to have been 'cast' into some kind of abnormal space…" "No contact with the outside world, no water or electricity, but the lights are always on, and the computer can be turned on—even though I've unplugged it..." A slight gust of wind seemed to come from the direction of the window. Zhou Ming, engrossed in writing in his diary, abruptly looked up, a faint light appearing in his weary eyes. But the next second, he realized it was just a hallucination. Outside the window, only a lingering, pale fog remained, a deathly silence coldly enveloping his small, cramped dwelling. His gaze swept across the windowsill, where he saw a wrench and a hammer carelessly discarded—traces of his attempts to leave the room over the past few days. Now, these hard, crude tools lay there silently, as if mocking his predicament. A few seconds later, Zhou Ming's expression returned to calm—with this unusual calm, he lowered his head again, returning to his writing: "I'm trapped, completely lost. In the past few days, I've even tried to tear down the roof, walls, and floor, but I couldn't leave a single mark on the walls, no matter how hard I tried. This room feels like… like a box 'cast' into the space, with no way out… "Except for that door. " "But the situation outside that door… is even more strange." Zhou Ming stopped again, slowly examining the words he had just left behind, then casually flipping through his diary, looking at what he had left behind in the past few days—suppressed words, meaningless musings, irritable scribbles, and lame jokes he wrote while forcing himself to relax. He didn't know the meaning of writing these things, didn't know who would see these ramblings in the future. In fact, he wasn't even a habitual diary writer—as a middle school teacher with very limited free time, he didn't have much energy to spend on it. But now, whether he liked it or not, he had plenty of free time. After waking up, he was trapped in his room. Outside the window was a thick fog that wouldn't dissipate, so thick that it was almost impossible to see anything outside. He couldn't see anything but fog. The world seemed devoid of day and night, a constant, dim light filling the room 24/7. The windows were locked, the water and electricity were cut off, and there was no cell phone signal. No matter how much noise he made inside, it wouldn't attract any outside help. It was like an absurd nightmare, where everything operated against the laws of nature. But Zhou Ming had exhausted all methods to confirm one thing: there were no hallucinations, no dreams, only an abnormal world and a temporarily normal version of himself. He took a deep breath, his gaze finally settling on the only door at the far end of the room. It was an ordinary, cheap white wooden door, with a calendar he had forgotten to change since last year still nailed to it. His hands were gleaming from being worn, and the doormat was slightly askew. The door could be opened. If this closed, alienated room was like a cage, then the most insidious aspect of this cage was that it actually retained a door that could be pushed open at any time, constantly tempting the prisoner inside to push the door open and leave—but the other side of that door was not the "outside" Zhou Ming wanted. There were no old but familiar corridors, no sunny streets and vibrant crowds, nothing he was familiar with. There was only a strange and unsettling foreign land, and "over there" was also an inescapable predicament. But Zhou Ming knew that he didn't have much time left to hesitate, and the so-called "choice" had never existed in the first place. His food reserves were... Limited supplies were scarce; only a quarter of the bottles of mineral water remained. He had already tried every means to escape and call for help in this confined room. Now, only one path lay before him: prepare himself and seek a glimmer of hope on the other side of the "door." Perhaps, there would still be a chance to investigate what had caused this bizarre and predicament—a supernatural situation. Zhou Ming took a deep breath and lowered his head to write the last few paragraphs in his diary: "...But no matter what, the only option now is to go to the other side of the door. At least on that strange ship, I can find some food, and my exploration and preparation over the past few days should be enough to allow me to survive on that ship...although the preparations I can make there are actually quite limited." "Finally, to those who come after me: If I don't return, and someday some rescue workers or someone else opens this room and finds this diary, please don't dismiss what I've written as a farcical story—it really happened. Though it's chilling, there really was a man named Zhou Ming trapped in a bizarre and insane spatial anomaly. I've done my best to describe the strange phenomena I witnessed in this diary, and I've recorded all my efforts to escape. If there are any 'those who come after me,' please at least remember my name, at least remember that all of this happened." Zhou Ming closed his diary, tossed his pen into the pen holder beside him, and slowly stood up from behind the desk. It was time to leave, before he was completely trapped in a passive and desperate situation. But after a brief moment of thought, he didn't head directly for the only door that led to the "outside world," but instead went straight to his bed. He had to be fully prepared to face the "foreign land" across the door—and his current state, especially his mental state, wasn't good enough. Zhou Ming didn't know if he could fall asleep, but even forcing himself to lie in bed and clear his mind was better than going to the "other side" in a mentally exhausted state. Eight hours later, Zhou Ming opened his eyes. Outside the window, it was still a hazy fog, the dim light of day and night carrying a depressing gloom. Zhou Ming ignored the situation outside the window, took out some food from his meager reserves, ate until he was about 80% full, and then went to the dressing mirror in the corner of the room. The man in the mirror still had messy hair, looking rather disheveled and lacking any distinguishing features, but Zhou Ming stared intently at his reflection, as if trying to permanently imprint that image in his mind. He stared at the mirror for several minutes, then muttered to himself, as if speaking to the person in the mirror: "Your name is Zhou Ming, at least 'this way,' your name is Zhou Ming, always remember that." Only then did he turn and leave. Reaching the all-too-familiar door, Zhou Ming took a deep breath and placed his hand on the handle. Aside from his clothes, he carried nothing else—no food, no defensive equipment. This was a lesson learned from his previous "explorations"—he couldn't bring anything through this door except himself. In fact, he even questioned the very concept of "himself," because... Zhou Ming turned the handle and pushed open the door. A swirling, grayish-black mist appeared before him like a curtain, and within the fluctuating mist, he seemed to hear the sound of ocean waves. Stepping across the mist, a slightly salty sea breeze greeted him, the illusory sound of the waves became real, and he felt a slight swaying under his feet. After a brief moment of dizziness, Zhou Ming opened his eyes. Before him stretched a wide, empty wooden deck, towering masts standing beneath dark clouds, and the endless, gently rippling sea beyond the ship's railing. Zhou Ming looked down and saw a body stronger than he remembered, a captain's uniform that looked exquisitely crafted and expensive but completely unfamiliar in style, a pair of large, bony hands, and a classic, beautifully designed black flintlock pistol held in his own hand. Yes, even "himself" was questionable.