7:59 PM.
Macon read the last line of his report, hit save, and let out a long sigh. Not the kind that comes from exhaustion - the kind that comes from someone who'd been waiting for this exact moment since the morning.
He wasn't particularly stressed about the results. A little, maybe. Client feedback, numbers, all that. But honestly, that thought was already leaving his brain because another one had taken up all the space for a while now.
Tonight, he was going out.
He grabbed his jacket, turned off his screen and stood up. No way he was staying a second longer. Unpaid overtime was, to him, one of the most unbearable things that could exist in an office worker's life. If it was paid, fine. But working for free past the hour? Absolutely not. He had a life.
His phone buzzed in his pocket just as he pushed the door open.
Group - Amine: Bar Chixx tonight? We doing something?
Macon replied without even thinking.
Macon: Yeah definitely.
The admin said yes. Chérif said yes. Everyone said yes — well, almost. One person was missing, but from what everyone gathered, he was either sleeping or still working. Either way the poor guy had his reasons and nobody pushed it.
Outside it was already past 6 PM. He opened the bus schedule app and grimaced slightly. The times were so random he had to check them every single day. Every day. It genuinely annoyed him, but well - that's just how it was. /
There was almost nobody on the bus. The driver, Macon, and a teenager in the back - fifteen or sixteen maybe, brown hair hidden under a beanie, a hoodie pulled over everything, eyes somewhere far away. The kind of kid who looked like he was trying to disappear into his clothes. Macon noticed him for a second and moved on.
He opened the news. Not because he liked it - he didn't really - but out of habit. Just in case. He didn't want to be the last one to know if something serious happened.
These days, what was happening was disappearances.
Again.
He scrolled through the articles. The profiles were always more or less the same. Young people, mostly loners, often shut inside their rooms. No traces, no theft, no messages. Gone, period. Authorities putting out calls for witnesses. Parents giving interviews with red eyes. And nobody finding anything.
Macon stopped on a photo for a second. A sixteen-year-old kid, awkward smile, bedroom wall covered in anime posters.
He sighed inwardly.
Probably guys who think they're about to get isekaid.
The thought was harsh, he knew. But honestly - the profiles, the introvert thing, the anime-filled bedrooms - he couldn't help it. He obviously hoped not, hoped they were fine somewhere, that they'd turn up. But still.
He liked anime. Genuinely. He never understood people who hated it for no real reason. Every anime is unique, every anime has something to say - the good ones, at least. Because the bad ones, he knew exactly what he was talking about. The guy summoned into another world, overpowered from the start, magic everywhere, everyone loves him for nothing. He couldn't do it. That was the thing that annoyed him most about the genre. As if falling into another world was automatically a good thing. As if that was just normal.
He closed the article and thought about the anime whose second season was finally coming out. Over a month with no news. The community had lost it, him a little too. But from what he'd seen, the quality was there. So he wasn't going to complain for too long.
6:15 PM. His stop.
He got off, looked at the restaurant right across the street and thought for the hundredth time in his life if I had a car. A thought that disappeared as fast as it came because a car meant a loan and a loan meant debt and debt meant no.
The restaurant was small, not well known, but Macon would swear it was one of the best in the whole neighborhood. The old lady at the front recognized him and gave him a nod. The old man in the kitchen shouted something from the back. Macon smiled back, took his usual table - the corner one, facing the door - and settled in.
He didn't wait long.
Amine walked in first.
Macon stared at him for a second.
- Seriously? You're on time?
- I genuinely don't know how that happened, Amine said, sitting down like it was nothing.
This was the kind of thing that statistically should not occur. Amine being early was an event. Macon took out his phone and took a photo.
- Keeping this for history.
- Go ahead, idiot.
Chérif showed up a few minutes later, followed by the rest of the group. The table filled up. Orders went out - Macon got a non-alcoholic drink, as usual. He'd always been a little curious about trying something else, but well. He'd been putting that off for years. It was fine.
The evening was exactly what he needed it to be. Nothing special. Nothing extraordinary. Just noise, laughter, conversations going in every direction. They talked about everything and nothing - jobs nobody really liked, a movie that just came out, something stupid a mutual friend had done last week. Macon didn't talk that much. He didn't need to. He was there, and that was enough.
That's what he loved about these moments. The fact that he stopped thinking.
He walked home. The restaurant was ten minutes away, the night air was fine, and he didn't feel like waiting for the bus. He walked slowly, hands in his pockets, looking vaguely at the streets around him without really seeing them.
He pushed his front door open, put his keys down, took off his shoes.
He fell asleep without realizing it, still dressed, on the couch.
6:07 PM.
Macon opened his eyes and looked at his phone.
He blinked. Looked again.
6:07 PM. Same date.
He sat up slowly. Outside the window, it still looked like day - or almost. A strange light, somewhere in between. He got up, walked to the front door, opened it to check.
The light hit him all at once, white and total, and he stepped back - but the floor wasn't there anymore.
He fell.
Not long. Two seconds maybe, three. And then something under his feet - hard, cold, smooth like water but not water. Black. Deeply black, like a lake that reflected nothing at all.
He stayed on his knees for a second, palms flat against the surface, and lifted his head.
Around him there was light - large sources of it, far away, very far, like stars or lamps suspended in the void. But between him and them, there was nothing. No walls. No floor continuing. No sky. Just this black lake under his knees and an immense darkness in every direction.
Macon didn't move.
His brain refused to process what he was seeing.
And then, in the silence, he opened his mouth.
- Is anyone there?
His voice disappeared before it even finished existing.