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It is dark.

Jano is in a dark room. Security seems poor, barricaded to a minimum. Walls are about to crumble. There are no windows. There are no objects, other than a lone chair. Graffiti is spread everywhere, uncleaned.

Jano’s body is heavy. His mind is unfocused. He hears voices, distant tones, echoes with uncertain pronunciation. Jano doesn’t understand the language at all.

The young man is stitched to the chair by multiple ropes attached to his torso, his chin, and his two wrists. He’s too stunned to sense how uncomfortable his body feels. It’s too dark.

Suddenly, what seems to be the door of this room opens.

The intense light from outside filters through and illuminates the entire room. Jano is dazzled by the gargantuan heat that pours onto his skin.

“I think you should hear them better now, Jano,” says a mysterious, unidentifiable entity that governs all the noise. It’s forcing itself into Jano’s subconscious.

“…Perhaps it is too much.”

A migraine begins to intensify in the young man as the voice keeps babbling on inside his skull. Jano grimaces, clearly in pain.

“Well… what are your thoughts on the sun?”

Jano is perplexed, but when he opens his mouth, hoping to voice his concern and express his need for this charade to stop, nothing comes out. No sound at all. Terror begins to consume him as he realizes the voices will continue to haunt him and worsen the migraine.

“I can give you an answer I know you will love. Your daddy told this type of spiel all the time. A certain… Mr. Fatch.”

Jano, with the migraines growing in intensity, is attacked by an overbearing fright at the mention of his father. He starts trying to break away from the chair, but his strength is broken by the migraines. Jano’s brain is about to explode.

“Fatch says that the sun is, for the people of this ‘brave land,’ a sign of progress. ‘We, Arnescians, have suffered decades of suffering and tyranny from neighbouring countries.’”

The walls around Jano begin to boil. Waves are perceptible in the air. The intense heat and migraine are one hell of a combo. The cryptic outside voice continues to berate Jano with the citation from this cuckoo philosopher his dad apparently adored.

“‘Despite this, we have persevered, thanks to a solid government, a science institute, education, immigration systems, a great economy, and advanced medicine. We are blessed to elect a prime minister in this nation rich in culture, foundations, and power.’”

Jano’s whole being is going through a bad trip. He feels like he’s cooking at high temperature. The floor burns his feet. It’s as if Jano is stuck inside an oven. The young man fails to express his distress, any excuse to open his mouth wide and talk, to explain the excruciating pain exuding from all his pores like vapor, expelled like hot bubbles of gas, as he melts with the earth itself. Every droplet of water and sweat evaporates. The air is fried, crisp, and toxic.

“Fatch then continues on about surviving wars with clans that turned the whole world into a battlefield. He’s not wrong. It’s all about perspectives. He also yaps about prosperity and ‘please vote for me,’ usual political jargon. Now, I have an actual question for you, Jano LeGrand,” explains the omniscient voice.

Blood leaks from Jano’s eyes. His brain is no longer functioning. He’s unable to scream his pain, muted by powers beyond comprehension. Everything concrete, from the walls to the chair and the door, has either melted or crumbled into dust-filled particles of rubble. He’s now in the middle of a desert, a wasteland of infertile soil.

Jano is about to die.

“Jano… do you sincerely think that Arnes escaped tyranny and oppression? Or is that yet another talking point from a politician your daddy loved a little too much?”

The sun then stares at Jano, a red dot at the center of the great ball of fire, as Jano’s whole body falls to the ground.

Friday, May 24th – 4:45 a.m.

Jano wakes up in a cold sweat, swinging at nothing like a lunatic going through a psychotic tantrum.

“GO FUCK YOURSELF!” he screams, powerless.

He breathes like he ran a 40 kilometer marathon. This nightmare was terrifying. These mysterious bad dreams spreading in his sleep are recent, only a month after Clark stepped in as an housemate. Ever since, they just pop up whenever they please, every single week.

That omniscient narrator keeps bringing politics, very dramatic topics and discourses that would be suit more Clark’s taste. Jano wants nothing to do with these.

It had to talk about his father this time. What a load of crap. Jano can only blame it on bad roommate luck.

In hopes to distract his mind, Jano looks around in the bedroom he sleeps in. All his meubiliers are intact. His collection of figurines from multiple superhero franchises is immaculate. He gets out of bed and opens his closet to be greeted by 3 foot 5 inches robot, fresh and cleaned, sitting on his tiny pedestal custom-made for the figurine. This fortune is left stranded in his room. He opens the lights in the room, exposing pink and green walls Jano refused to repaint for the sake of strategic timing decisions, which also explains the old desk and furniture, his hobbies and work equipment, a beautiful laptop kit and a 28 inches monitor attached to the wall facing his bed, being the only hi-tech compliments his bedroom could ever receive.

“If we don’t start moving now we’ll feel like absolute garbage. Alright Jano, time to ge up! Up up!” He hypes to himself.

The orangehead begins doing sit-ups surrounded by all these objects, a forced smile on his face.