I tried to stop the chair, but it wouldn't stand still.
I tried to open the door, but it wouldn't yield.
I asked my phone to connect me to someone for help, but the phone refused.
"I tried to stop a thing that shouldn't have been moving on its own."
I tried to open the thing that always obeyed the command of my thumb.
And I tried to speak to something that has no voice of its own.
"I tried to stop an object that is incapable of moving on its own."
I was trapped inside the room, but this wasn't the first time.
When I was twenty, my roommate locked me in the room and went off to college. He didn't know I was there.
That day, the hostel was completely deserted because there was a festival at the college, so there was no one left in the hostel."
I pounded on the door all day long, but no one came. I was hungry and thirsty.
Anyway, that day passed, just as this day will pass too.
Anger was rising in me, but exhaustion was greater.
My eyes were heavy and closing from sleep.
"This is just a dream. Wake up!" I told myself, and I slapped my own face—not once or twice, but three or four times.
Then the phone's voice rang out, "Hit harder! Only then will you wake up from this dream."
I rought my fist down hard against my own face.
But the phone merely laughed and said, "Looks like he's going mad."
The chair was still doing its job (moving erratically).
The door was still failing to do its job (staying locked), and the phone—well, it seemed its job wasn't to help me, but simply to mock me.
I slammed my head hard against the table.
A bright red mark appeared on my head, as if blood had clotted right beneath the skin.
Now, even I was beginning to think I had gone mad.
I don't know why, but I started screaming at the objects that weren't real. Still, this bad dream hadn't ended.
"Wake up! Just wake up!" I pleaded with myself.
In a frantic effort to pull myself out, I rushed to the bathroom and tried to submerge my head in the sink.
The intensely cold water hit my eyes, but I still didn't wake up.
Gasping for air, I stumbled out of the washroom.
When I stumbled out, the chair had been badly damaged; its cushioning seat was torn off, but its spirits—it was still refusing to stop moving.
I then retrieved a toolbox from a cupboard. Inside were essential tools like pliers, a spanner, a screwdriver, and a hammer. And for some reason, a knife was lying among them.
I set the knife down on the table and retrieved the hammer from the rest of the tools.
I shoved the chair aside, and it finally stopped moving.
"STOP!" the phone shrieked in protest.
I brought the hammer down hard on the thumb scanner. I was about to deliver a second blow when the door suddenly flew open, shoving me backward. The chair immediately bolted toward the exit, but the door slammed shut just as quickly, and the chair smashed violently against it.
Blood began to flow from the spot where I had injured my head. I was gasping for breath, groaning in pain, my eyes fixed on the ceiling.
It was the same question I, and surely everyone, was asking: Why wouldn't this door open?
There were only 8 minutes left before lunch was over.
Just then, the sound of the door unlocking—a loud beep, beep—rang out.
The hammer blow I had delivered must have scrambled its electrical signals, and now the door was open!
Immediately, the chair bolted outside.
The phone shrieked at me, "Idiot! Grab it! It's getting away forever!"