2026
Yucheng Tao
1
"Where am I?...Where
am I?...Where am I?"
Mark shouted three times in a row, but there was no reply.
Before him stood a simple black door, ominous and unmarked. He didn’t know
where it was. A sense of insufferable fear gripped his spirit, threatening to
swallow him whole.
“Come on in.”
The words echoed from
beyond the door, but the voice wasn’t human. Mark
turned to run, but the door creaked open on its own. Hesitantly—unavoidably—he
stepped inside.
The air was thick with
sulfur. Before him stretched a grotesque, fiery
lake, its surface writhing with flames. Figures writhed within the blaze—people
of all colors, their screams lost in the crackling inferno.
Mark staggered back, his body trembling. The pain of seeing comrades die on the
battlefield flashed through his mind, vivid as the burning lake before him.
Beside the lake stood
a carousel of horrors: rusty iron blades spinning
atop its frame, interspersed with torturous devices so grotesque that their
purpose seemed beyond comprehension.
They distressed.
They contorted.
They alarmed.
“Have I entered
hell?” Mark whispered, his voice trembling.
“It’s not hell,” replied a grim, disembodied voice. “It’s more functional than
hell. This place is called Yamo.”
From the shadows emerged
a figure cloaked entirely in red, eyeless, and
inhuman.
"Why am I here?"
“You’ve
been here the whole time,” the voice replied, cold and direct.
“Lost in your PTSD.”
Mark shook his head
violently. “No! I was in Chicago! Just two days ago!”
The creature's tone
sharpened. “Impossible. You lost your life forever.
This is a game—my game room. As a reward for protecting your comrades on the
battlefield, I’m giving you a chance to see what life would have been like if
you weren’t dead.”
Mark’s chest
tightened. “No… no! This can’t be true!”
“If you doubt
me,” the creature said, its voice dripping with menace,
“look at this.”
From the folds of its
cloak, the figure revealed a blood-stained piece of
paper. Mark’s handwriting was unmistakable:
Everyone survived.
Only I died.
They were enjoying life.
They sang, they danced, they forgot.
Only I was stranded on it.
The place of sand was stained red with blood.
“These notes…”
Mark whispered, his face pale. “They’re mine.”
Reality fractured like glass. His surroundings spun as memories clawed at
him—the battlefield, the cries of comrades, the endless fields of corpses.
Before he could comprehend
it, an absurd voice interrupted.
“Hurry up! Contact
Chinese Emperor Yang of Sui, my new friend. We just
learned to play Texas Hold ’em!”
Mark blinked in disbelief.
A man with a toothbrush
mustache stood before him—Hitler. Behind him stood
Schutzstaffel guards.
The absurdity deepened
as the doors to a grand living room opened,
revealing a palace. There, lounging luxuriously, was Emperor Yang of Sui,
nibbling on a Hun-style McDonald’s meal. He read aloud a poem:
“The sun set,
look
upon.
Her beauty overpowered me.
I can’t help it.”
Mark’s mind twisted.
The grotesque absurdity of it all made him want to
scream.
“Let me go home!”
Mark demanded. “I’m not dead! It’s not fair that these
sinners enjoy life while I suffer!”
“Fairness here
is absolute,” the leader of Yamo intoned solemnly. “Fairer
than your world—a world of senseless wars and endless revenge.”
A stone slab appeared,
black letters etched into its surface:
The Ten Rules
of Yamo.
Mark’s disbelief hardened. Before he could react, the sinner beside him coughed
violently, spewing bright red blood.
Memories clawed at Mark’s brain—gas, corpses, screams. His nightmare
resurfaced, and he vomited blood violently.
“Ahhh…
Ahhh… Ahhh!”
He fell to his knees,
screaming as his mind spiraled deeper—deeper than
even Yamo itself.
2
Everyone died.
8.15.2026.
Mark was saved.
The rebel army occupied
Carl University.
Some ran.
Some shouted.
Some prayed.
People saw colors:
Wine was claret-red.
Vermilion was French-red.
The carnation was light pink-red.
But Mark saw only one
color—
Blood red. Blood red. Blood red.
Mark awoke suddenly,
jolted by the barking of a dog outside.
“May I come in?”
Jenny, his sister,
stood at the door. She smiled warmly. “Welcome home,
Mark.”
Mark opened his tired
eyes and glanced at his best friend—his prized
Equilibrium-brand guitar, handcrafted by a generous Boston luthier.
“I’m back,
old friend. We’re gonna have a chat tonight.”
Jenny smiled. “Don’t forget—you have a date with Melinda today.”
3
When Mark met Melinda,
her short hair and Portland’s style was unchanged
after four years.
“You’re
lucky to be back,” she said, smiling.
“Lucky? Is that
true?”
Overwhelmed, he excused
himself, stormed out of the restaurant, and was
struck by a passing Chevrolet.
Mark’s brain
tumbled and a sea of chaotic sounds in it: Everyone died.
8.15.2026. And blood spattered on the ground, but Mark couldn’t feel the pain.
And only one color. Red, just red, red, and the red in his mind was full of
images of screaming.
He tried to lift his
hand, but his limbs felt detached, like puppets
without strings. The pavement beneath him blurred into a desert of crimson.
Time unraveled. He
wasn’t sure if he was dying, dreaming, or reliving the
same collapse over and over.
A flicker of movement—he
saw a child crouching by the roadside, wearing a
soldier’s red helmet far too large for her head. She held a melting popsicle
and stared at Mark, unspeaking. Her mouth opened slightly. A whisper passed
from her lips:
“Red is memory. Red is what remains when the world forgets.”
Mark tried to answer,
but a cough of blood stifled his voice. The child
was gone.
And then he saw a vision
of the carousel from Yamo—its rusted blades spinning
in a slow, mocking circle. The shrieks of the damned echoed faintly behind his
ears. Was he still alive? Or had the illusion folded into reality?
His heart pounded not
from fear, but from recognition: he was slipping
again, being pulled back to the realm that promised clarity through madness. A
drop of blood rolled across his cheek like a tear. He closed his eyes,
whispering—“I never left. That's
all.”
