Button

Having dropped  my keys between the couch and the wall, I reached into the gap to retrieve them. While I was feeling around, I found what felt like a button. It was round, made of cold metal, and set in a cold metal base on the floor. Without thinking, I pressed the button because that’s what you do with buttons.

The floor started to shift. Each floorboard pulled in the opposite direction of its neighbors, parting the ground like two combs separating. Beneath, there was no discernable thing, just an intense dark blue glow. Eventually, the floor opened up past the confines of the room and I realized that the floor wasn’t separating, but reality was. The walls, the couch, and my keys all slowly vanished as if they were sounds that were getting further and further away. Soon, there was nothing. There wasn’t even me, at least not a physical me.

I wanted to close my eyes, but I had no eyes. It dawned on me that I wasn’t seeing anything, so closing my eyes would be useless anyway. This was a new kind of perception, one that I had no escape from. I would just be and endure endless nothing with no distraction for the rest of time.