That Day, the Fog Was Thick

The boundless, dense fog rolled outside the window, so thick it felt as if the entire world had vanished beyond its reach. Only the dim, undefined light of dawn pierced through the mist, casting a semi-lit gloom over the quiet room.

Inside the slightly messy bachelor apartment, Zhou Ming was hunched over his desk. Clutter had been roughly shoved aside, and the haggard-looking man was writing furiously:

"Day seven. Nothing has changed. The dense fog covers everything outside the window, and the window is sealed by some unknown force... The entire room feels as if it's been 'cast' into some abnormal space...

"There's no way to contact the outside world, no water or electricity, yet the lights are still on, and the computer can be turned on—even though I've unplugged its power cord..."

As if a faint breeze suddenly rustled from the window's direction, Zhou Ming, engrossed in his diary, abruptly raised his head. A flicker of light appeared in his weary eyes. However, in the next second, he realized it was just his imagination. Outside the window, only the persistent, pale fog remained, a dead world coldly enveloping his small, cramped living space.

His gaze swept across the windowsill, spotting a carelessly discarded wrench and hammer—the remnants of his attempts to leave the room over the past few days. Now, these heavy, crude tools lay there quietly, as if mocking his desperate situation.

A few seconds later, Zhou Ming's expression returned to a state of calm—an abnormal calm—and he lowered his head again, resuming his writing:

"I'm trapped, utterly clueless. In the past few days, I've even tried to dismantle the ceiling, walls, and floor, but even with all my strength, I couldn't leave the slightest mark on the walls. This room has become like... like a box 'cast' together with space itself, with no way out...

"Except for that door.

"But the situation beyond that door... is even more unsettling."

Zhou Ming paused again. He slowly examined the words he had just written, then casually flipped through the diary, looking at what he'd recorded over the past few days—suppressed emotions, nonsensical ramblings, agitated doodles, and forced jokes written in an attempt to relax his mind.

He didn't know the point of writing all this, or who would ever read these jumbled thoughts. In fact, he wasn't even someone who habitually kept a diary. As a middle school teacher with very limited free time, he hardly had the energy for such a thing.

But now, whether he liked it or not, he had plenty of leisure time.

After waking up one morning, he found himself trapped in his own room.

Outside the window was the unyielding fog, so dense that nothing else could be seen. The world seemed to have lost its day-night cycle, with a constant, dim light filling the room for twenty-four hours. The windows were locked, utilities cut off, and his phone had no signal. No matter how much noise he made in the room, no outside help would come.

It was like an absurd nightmare, where everything operated against the laws of nature. But Zhou Ming had exhausted all his methods to confirm one thing: this was no hallucination, no dream. It was simply a world that had ceased to be normal, and a temporarily still-normal self.

He took a deep breath, his gaze finally settling on the single door at the end of the room.

It was an ordinary, cheap white wooden door, still bearing the calendar he'd forgotten to replace last year, which had remained there until today. The doorknob was polished to a shine, and the doormat at the entrance was slightly askew.

That door could be opened.

If this sealed, distorted room was a cage, then its most malicious aspect was that it retained a door that could be pushed open at any moment, constantly luring the prisoner inside to leave—but on the other side of that door was not the "outside" Zhou Ming desired.

There was no familiar, albeit old, hallway. No sunlit streets filled with vibrant people. Nothing he recognized.

Instead, there was a strange and unsettling foreign land, and "that side" was also an inescapable predicament.

But Zhou Ming knew his time for hesitation was running out, and the so-called "choice" had never existed from the beginning.

His food supplies were limited, and his few barrels of mineral water were down to the last quarter. He had tried every means of escape and rescue within the confines of this room. Now, the only path before him was to prepare himself and seek a sliver of hope on the other side of the door.

Perhaps, there would still be a chance to investigate the reason behind this bizarre and dire supernatural situation.

Zhou Ming took a light breath and lowered his head to write the final few lines in his diary: "...But no matter what, the only choice now is to go to the other side of the door. At least on that strange ship, I can find something to eat, and my explorations and preparations over the past few days should be enough for me to survive on that ship... although the preparations I could make there were indeed quite limited.

"Lastly, to whoever finds this later, if I don't return, and someday rescue personnel open this room and see this diary, please don't treat everything I've written as an absurd story—it really happened. Although it's chilling, there truly was a person named Zhou Ming, trapped in a bizarre temporal anomaly.

"I've done my best to describe all the abnormal phenomena I've witnessed in this diary and recorded all my efforts to escape. If there is indeed a 'later,' please at least remember my name, at least remember that all of this once happened."

Zhou Ming closed the diary, tossed the pen into the nearby pen holder, and slowly stood up from behind the desk.

It was time to leave, before he was completely overwhelmed and driven into a corner.

However, after a brief moment of thought, he didn't head directly for the only door leading to the "outside." Instead, he walked straight to his bed.

He had to face the "foreign land" on the other side of the door in a state of complete readiness—and his current condition, especially his mental state, was not good enough.

Zhou Ming didn't know if he could fall asleep, but even forcing himself to lie on the bed and clear his mind was better than going to the "other side" in a state of extreme mental fatigue.

Eight hours later, Zhou Ming opened his eyes.

Outside the window, it was still a chaotic mist, the day-night unclear, the light casting a suffocating gloom.

Zhou Ming directly ignored the situation outside the window. He took food from his dwindling reserves and ate until he was eight-tenths full. Then, he went to the dressing mirror in the corner of the room.

The man in the mirror still had messy hair, looking quite disheveled and lacking any particular demeanor. But Zhou Ming stared intently at his reflection, as if to permanently imprint this image in his mind.

He gazed at the mirror for several minutes before murmuring to himself, as if speaking to the person within: "Your name is Zhou Ming. At least on 'this side,' your name is Zhou Ming. Always remember that."

After that, he turned and left.

He approached the familiar door, took a deep breath, and placed his hand on the doorknob.

He wore only his clothes and carried nothing extra—no food, no defensive equipment. This was a lesson learned from previous "explorations"—besides himself, he couldn't bring anything through this door.

In fact, he even doubted if "himself" could pass through, because...

Zhou Ming turned the handle and pushed the door open. A mass of pulsating, gray-black mist appeared before him like a curtain. Within the shifting mist, he seemed to hear the sound of waves.

Stepping through the mist, a slightly salty sea breeze hit his face. The illusory sound of waves became real, and a slight rocking sensation came from beneath his feet. Zhou Ming opened his eyes after a brief moment of dizziness. What met his gaze was a vast, open wooden deck, towering masts standing under dark, cloudy skies, and beyond the ship's railing, the boundless, gently undulating sea.

Zhou Ming looked down and saw a body slightly stronger than he remembered, dressed in a finely crafted, expensive-looking but completely unfamiliar captain's uniform. His hands were thick-boned, and in his grasp was an antique, exquisitely designed black flintlock pistol.

Yes, even "himself" was questionable.

(Oh my god! I'm back!)