There was a calm before a storm, dark after light, and Zephyr's eyes, which felt as heavy as if they were dragging a box of books.
"How long have I been out?" Zephyr asked himself. The air around him hung heavy with the scent of rusty metal. The room had nothing in it to see; everything was completely dark. The only light came from a passage that glowed where a door should have been.
A sudden, writhing sensation of coldness flashed through Zephyr's body. As he tried to get up from the cold floor, he felt that his body was heavy. Zephyr was not new to this feeling. He had often fainted in his childhood because of bullying, while as an adult, he had grown weak due to an unhealthy lifestyle, with a lack of sleep being the biggest contributor.
Looking around his face changes and his pupil dilated as everything is dark except one tiny light that shine ahead.
"This doesn't look like a hospital at all," he thought. "No hospital would be this dark, except in one place."
A bad, lingering feeling arose in Zephyr. As he kept walking, his weak body barely held on, but he was near the glowing passage. His footsteps became faster as he slowly regained some strength, which also brought a new clanking sound. Zephyr, who was familiar with such noises from his past jobs, knew it was metal.
Every step felt like eternity, no light that guide the way only a direction to see.
After a long walk, Zephyr finally arrived at the exit. Looking back, he could see nothing in the darkness. Due to the prolonged dark, Zephyr covered his eyes with his left hand as he slowly exited the passage. However, there was no mechanism that could be called a doorknob and no door that could be pulled or pushed; it was only a passage leading from where he came.
As he passed the door the sudden brightness of light almost blind zephyr as he covered himself with his eyes with his own hands.
The light revealed everything. The first thing Zephyr noticed was the handcuff hanging from his left wrist. Zephyr had a clue what it was in the first place, but he still believed that seeing is believing and that evidence was a must.
"Huh? Why am I wearing this?" he questioned himself, completely taken aback. The things revealed to him now made it clear that he was in an unfamiliar place. The bad feeling he had wasn't because he was somewhere strange, but because he couldn't find Yssa.
As he examined himself, Zephyr saw that he was also wearing the classic orange T-shirt that prisoners wore. It was called classic because the orange T-shirt is what prisoners wore in movies. The only difference was that his number seemed a little out of place, as it was zero. There should be no number zero in a prison, no matter how many inmates there were. No matter how hard he tried to remember, he couldn't even explain it to himself.
One thing that also puzzled him was the metal smell and noise he heard. Surely the handcuffs couldn't make such a…
Swoosh.
A sound and a black shadow just passed by Zephyr, completely stopping his train of thought. He was petrified, his body becoming stiff, but he slowly tried to calm himself.
The unfamiliar place and the surprise had completely stunned Zephyr, but he soon regained his footing and tried to inspect his surroundings. The passage opened into a nice corridor with a long hallway. Even though there was light that illuminated everything, Zephyr still couldn't see the end of it.
A few seconds passed, but for Zephyr, it felt like an eternity. Then a few minutes passed, but nothing happened.
"Since you don't want to show yourself, so be it."
With this remark, Zephyr didn't linger any longer and followed the hallway. If not for the design of the place, which looked exactly like a high-end apartment building, Zephyr would have completely believed that he was in prison. With this thought, he considered that someone must be pranking him.
After walking for a few minutes, Zephyr finally found something: a door leading to a tiny space. Looking around, he didn't think much of it but stepped inside. Standing in the elevator, he couldn't find any buttons. If he didn't know what an elevator looked like, he would have thought it was a scam.
"It must have high-tech sensors," Zephyr thought to himself, which was why he had stepped inside in the first place.
Swoosh.
The door slid open into two parts, blowing a cold wind as if it hadn't been opened in decades. Without reacting much, Zephyr could only think he was right about it being sensor-activated or automatic.
Just as he expected from his bad feeling, the inside also didn't have any buttons to press. No matter how frustrated he felt, Zephyr didn't show much emotion—a skill he had learned in his childhood.
"You can't control what will happen, only your reaction to it."
Zephyr could only sigh as the door closed completely, followed by the elevator beginning to move. A few seconds passed before it stopped. Seeing the door slowly open, Zephyr prepared himself for anything that could happen. Even though some things are completely unstoppable, there is no harm in preparing.
Stepping outside felt like being in a completely different place as the cold from the floor passed through his feet. The area was completely similar to where he had come from; it was also a hallway leading to a door, but this time it was much closer.
Since Zephyr wanted to find people and ask where he was, he could only try to search as much as possible. It was possible to enter the elevator again, but since this was a room, he could only pray that someone was inside.
His walking soon stopped as Zephyr finally arrived. Taking a huge breath to relax himself, he entered. What he saw completely stunned him, dealing him a metaphorical blow. There was indeed a person inside, but the place was somehow different.