“Let’s hope you don’t regret anything.” 

That was the last thing I could remember hearing before everything turned into a blur.  Just then, everything started coming back to me.  

It was like I had just woken up from drinking too much at a party. And it was a damned feeling, too— dazed, fatigued, dehydrated, feeling like the biggest idiot in the world for taking one too many shots.

But this was a slightly different feeling— I didn’t feel the need to throw up, nor was I stumbling around like a drunken mess. I certainly don’t recount any drinking. 

And why was I in this house that I had never seen before in my life? 

The fact that I had no recollection of the last few hours was very off-putting. Most people can remember when and where they’re sleeping, and I had none of that info. All I knew was that I had woken up in a cold sweat, feeling like shit, in a room that I had never seen before. 

There was no time to panic— I had to find my phone and call someone. Maybe I could check my own location to see where the hell I was, then I could find my car keys and escape this random house I found myself in.

What was with this house, anyways? For starters, it was very luxurious from what I had seen so far. I must have been sleeping in the master bedroom, as the room featured a huge glass window that spanned the entire wall facing outward into…the pitch black sky? 

            Peculiar. 

I had no time to uncover mysteries, though. It was time to start figuring stuff out, as I started to get a feeling that I could be in danger. Did someone put something in my drink? Was I robbed? Whatever it was, I eventually started to feel better as the ailments slowly wore off. Things were still far from ideal, though— my phone wasn’t anywhere in the bedroom, and I still couldn’t figure out who’s damn house I was in. 

I eventually gave up on rummaging through the room, and carefully made my way out to the main hallway. 

“Alright, time to find anything that can help me get out of here,” I thought to myself. I hastily made my way down four flights of stairs to get to the living room on the second floor, admiring the beautiful minimalist decor along the way. Most of the walls seemed to feature the same design as the initial bedroom— huge pane glass windows that stretched across one wall to the other, presumably for lots of natural light to accent the tasteful white interior that the house featured. 

But it was pitch black outside. How could that be?

Even if it was 3:00 in the morning, there still would have been the stars in the sky-- the moon-lit surroundings; headlights driving down any neighboring roads. 

Yet, it was total darkness. It was almost as if a giant black cloth was draped over the exterior of the house, allowing nothing to get in or out. And to make matters worse, neither my phone nor my wallet were anywhere in sight. I had no communication, no money, and no identity. I might as well have disappeared off the face of the Earth. I quickly made my way to the front door of the house to make my escape, but the door knob wouldn’t budge an inch. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Locked? From the inside? What kind of place was this? 

This process repeated over and over again, as every possible exit I tried in the house was locked up. Now was the time to panic; I felt as if I was in a horror movie, locked away in a random house in the middle of nowhere, only to encounter some madman with a knife waiting to filet me like a fish. It was all too surreal for me— it felt like a nightmare come to life.