Songs:

¬ Lions In Cages

¬ Give It Up Until It Hurts

The day was cold, dry and quiet, and the walls seemed to get closer with every second. Siyeon spent most of the night staring at them, thinking, wishing they had at least a small window so she could see the movement of the sun, or a full moon. 

“I found a way out.”

The message was displayed on Siyeon’s phone screen as she finished tying Gahyeon’s shoelaces. The latter was still sleeping after several alarm snoozes and the older girl didn’t want her to get in trouble again for not being ready on time. She grabbed the phone and chuckled; it was a message she expected every morning. It had become a tradition for her friend Yoohyeon to wake them up with that every day, they thought it was silly.

“Gahyeon please, get up, we have work to do before breakfast.” She sat on the edge of the bed and started poking Gahyeon’s side. Her eyes wandered around the white room in need of at least minimum amount of visual stimulation, which was hardly found inside this whole edifice. Everything was colorless, tasteless, odorless… few things had color, like the food, the humans, and electronic screens. Eyes closed, though, an explosion of colors; calm onyx and aqua dots, green lines with terracotta dents, silver streaks and ebony , the brilliant yellow and passionate red, a big palette. A smile appeared as she played with the abstraction of a new virtual painting in the opaque space of her mind, until several rushed steps were heard throughout the hallways. The contrast of the silence inside the room and the repetitive boot stomps outside the door made her heart pick up an arrhythmical pace and raise the severity of the pokes. Finally, the younger one woke up wide eyed, exasperated.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“Shh! Not now...” They both stood up and waited for the door to open and reveal the inspectors and their lists. Security and supervising had tightened the past weeks in response to people going missing, more than usual. Normally, every week someone, usually one of the eldest or the people that have been there the longest, would go missing and no one would hear about them ever again. At the same time, a new person would get introduced; a cycle. Last week, four people went missing. The one before that, five. It sparked uneasiness amongst the community, but the authorities insisted there was nothing to worry about; that they would take the necessary measures and ensure everyone’s safety. The House was strict with schedules, work, and order, but they’ve done everything but harm to every single person there and always put their needs first.

    After the inspection was done, they both headed outside to find their shovels to start working.

    “Ugh, I’m so hungry.” Gahyeon whined as she dug unenthusiastically, not tossing the dirt away and making it fall back into the hole. The day was so cold that she was aware of every muscle and bone in her body, and they weren’t up for working this early, this frozen, and with an empty stomach on top of it. Siyeon huffed in response focused on her work, hoping no one else could hear her own stomach growls. “Thirty more minutes and we can eat.” She got no response from the other one, who just kept digging. Thinking, looking around, she watched everyone else doing the same thing that they were doing and got confused for a second. “Where do we come from?”

    “We don’t come from anywhere, we just exist.”

    The response didn’t satisfy Gahyeon’s curiosity. She let go of her shovel’s handle and it clashed with the dry dirt. “Why are we here? I could be sleeping right now, or eating, I don’t know. Anything but this.”

    “But you’re working now. Come on now, you’re spending too much time with Yoohyeon.”

    “Oh don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.” Siyeon stopped digging and looked to nowhere, searching for a distraction. “Siyeon please, and this.” Her fingers passed through a scar on the left side of her head, above the ear. “What the hell is this? You have it, everyone has it, but the inspectors don’t.”

    “Good lord, okay, look... I have no idea. I don’t have the answers to any of those questions. You know what I do know? That this conversation is stressing me out, and you and I being the only people slacking is stressing me out, everything is stressing me out, because yes I’m hungry and I don’t know who the hell I am so I’d rather keep digging this stupid hole and forget that we’re here and stay mindless because my thoughts are too loud!” She talked too fast while staring at the hole. Some people were staring at them, but after a while they resumed their activities. Gahyeon didn’t, though; her eyes lingered for a minute. After taking the outburst as a defeat, she picked the dropped shovel and began to dig again. Properly this time.

It was true, what she said. It had become a consensus that they just existed out of nowhere, somehow spawned in The House one of the weeks of the years of the decades, but to some it didn’t make sense. These questionings were rather new in Gahyeon’s mind, considering she arrived somewhere close to six weeks away from this moment. Siyeon could’ve been there for seventeen weeks approximately, giving her time to learn to suppress her constant identity and existential crises. 

Dissimilar to them was Yoohyeon, the legendary twenty two year old who had been living in the house for years. No one knew why she had lasted that long, since people usually disappeared after a year or so. She was popular amongst her peers, but not only because of that; she was known for getting admonitions from the authorities all the time, for creating and disseminating the most bizzare conspirations about the “real world” and why they were there. Siyeon and Gahyeon always joked that she would get taken away if she kept disrupting the order like this, but she was a self-proclaimed inmortal. Years had passed and that hasn’t happened, after all.

Those thirty minutes passed in silence before they were called to the cafeteria for breakfast. A group was seen going out and picking up the tools to continue the work of the ones that were leaving. Siyeon grabbed Gahyeon’s hand and dragged her to make her walk faster. “Ok I admit I’m hungry as hell so let’s try to get to the front of the line.” That made Gahyeon crack a smile. When they entered the cafeteria, the first thing they saw was Yoohyeon cleaning spilled food. They stood right in front of her until she looked up and smiled wide. Then, they laughed.

🝰🝰🝰

“Alright so, hear me out. What if we wrote a song or something?” The younger one asked after drinking orange juice that was a little bitter.

“Oh I’d like that!” Yoohyeon pointed at her while nodding. “Okay, okay, in the night we can meet up in my room and do that. We gotta be discreet though if we don't want to get in trouble like last time... I have important stuff to tell you guys too. Kinda urgent.”

“If it’s urgent you can tell us now.” Siyeon put down her cutlery and crossed her arms on her chest as she looked at Yoohyeon, expectant. She couldn’t help but make a face of disgust in response to the intrusive taste lingering in . “Damn, the food is horrible today…” She got up with her tray and dumped the food remains in a nearby trash bin. When she sat with the other two again, she gestured Yoohyeon to continue talking.

“I agree, the food is horrible, and no, the thing can wait. Tonight, 8pm, in my room.”

“Don’t tell me it’s about getting out again ‘cause if it is that… Yoohyeon I’m concerned.” Siyeon’s words dripped with honesty and genuine worry. “I still want you here by morning, you know. Tonight’s week reset.”

“Ah no! You know what’s up. Calm down. Chill. I will not be the one disappearing tonight, neither the next week reset. And no, you’ll see what I need to tell you soon. No getting out thing this time. It’s a happy thing.” Her vibrant and reassuring smile had the ability to vanish any type of concern.

“Okay I trust you. You must be onto something good for once in your life ‘cause damn...”

“Hey!” Yoohyeon smacked Siyeon’s arm as the three of them laughed, laughed until their cheeks hurt, and thanked whatever thing put them in The House because they had the opportunity to meet each other.

    After a while, Yoohyeon had to go back to work and left the other two alone in the cafeteria. Gahyeon went back to the buffet to see if there was anything edible left since her hunger didn’t really cease. Siyeon, on the other hand, sat still as her hands wandered on the top of the cold table. She closed her eyes and her fingers mindlessly moved in traces, calming her frail state of mind. The traces formed a big orange and black octopus with big eyes and Siyeon audibly giggled at how absurd it looked. It looked like lava. Gahyeon came back empty handed and furrowed her eyebrows when she saw the other’s actions.

    “What are you doing?”

    “Thinking. I’m more amused when I have my eyes closed.” 

Gahyeon still looked at her in confusion but decided to brush it off immediately, remembering the outcome of their talk when they were outside digging. Her eyes landed on a clock; 8:47am, almost time to go back to work. She sat beside Siyeon and wondered what would she see if she got inside that woman’s brain. Even though ever since she met her she has seen her as a low energy individual, there were times like this that made her think her mind was way more saturated than she made it seem. 8:52am now, she stood up. “We should get going.” Siyeon let out an almost inaudible frustrated mutter in response. “At least it’s not the shovels this time!” And, finally, she got a chuckle out of her.

The rest of the day went by quite fast and prosaic. Before they could look at the time it was nearing eight in the afternoon, so they went to their room to prepare to visit Yoohyeon’s. As they walked, there was a mellow but uncanny atmosphere leaking through the halls’ walls, depicting the feelings of uncertainty the week reset brought. Everyone knew someone was going to disappear tonight and they all hoped it wasn’t themselves. The two headed towards their friend’s room in silence and with the familiar stomach knot for which fear was responsible. Walking, walking, reading the small squares next to the doors that named the person that lived there. Suddenly, the name streak was broken by a blank space. Siyeon panicked, forcefully grabbed the door handle and nearly knocked the door down for opening it by hitting it with her shoulder. She came in breathing harshly, with Gahyeon trailing behind her, only to find Yoohyeon eating ice cream in bed.

“Are you trying to break my door or what?”

“I thought you were taken away idiot!!” Siyeon’s voice was a mixture of relief, anger and shock. Gahyeon grabbed a notebook and a pen from a nightstand and sat on the floor.

“Come on, if I’m not in this place it will fall apart.” Yoohyeon laughed but the other was not amused, so her smile faded. “It was my roommate this time… it’s a shame, she was the best one I had in all the years I’ve been here.” Siyeon said nothing. She just sat beside her and hugged her tightly.

“I wanna join the hug!” Gahyeon stood up and hugged them, making them all fall on the bed. They stayed like that for a while, until Yoohyeon broke away and headed towards the drawer.

“Alright this is a gift for you guys, from me, but you can’t open them until tomorrow night.” She gave the other two a big paper rolled in a tube and an envelope. “And the urgent thing that I wanted to tell you is that it’s officially my birthday today! Or anniversary of existence, if it fits better. Four years and counting!”

All of them celebrated, with more hugs, writing songs, talking and sharing smiles. Siyeon loved this little pocket of joy, and she couldn’t help but wish she could experience at least one anniversary of existence before inevitably disappearing, and celebrate Gahyeon’s too.

🝰🝰🝰

It was morning again and a notification sound was heard. This time, that was what woke Siyeon because she did sleep in the night. The expected message still made her smile before getting up and starting to get ready for work. She decided to reply with “you sure?”, to which Yoohyeon replied, “of course!” with a laughing face emoji.

The day was basically a repetition of the last one, as if it were stuck in a time loop. The only thing that was different was that they were instructed to go dig to another place, and the holes from yesterday were all filled up. When they finished all their activities, they went to their room and Gahyeon brought back the tube folded paper and envelope Yoohyeon gave them. When she opened the paper, her eyes scanned all the lines and squares drawn into it but she didn’t understand a thing. “Is this a blueprint?” There was another paper behind, one that revealed some kind of map with arrows. Siyeon came closer and examined the two papers, getting confused as well.

“I believe so. I don’t understand anything though, we can go ask Yoohyeon what the hell is this.” Siyeon suggested and the younger one agreed. Leaving the envelope on their bed, they headed towards their friend’s room.

The path was the same. Their eyes scanned the name squares like last time, expecting the blank space on the right side of the door to indicate it was their friend’s room. When they found it, Siyeon grabbed the door handle calmly, but didn’t open the door before her eyes noticed another blank square to her left. For a millisecond it didn’t really make sense, until she finally opened the door and it revealed a completely empty room; tidy beds, no shoes on the floor, no notebooks, no ice cream, and no Yoohyeon.