Chapter 1: Awakening
Nathan Cole eyes slowly fluttered open, staring at the plain ceiling of his small apartment. No blaring alarms, no urgent messages from his boss demanding last-minute reports, and no pressing tasks waiting for him. Today was a day off.
He stretched lazily on his bed, relishing the rare luxury of waking up without obligations. With a half-hearted motion, he glanced at his phone—3:47 PM.
"It's already this late?" he muttered with a yawn.
But he felt no guilt. Being a corporate drone at a soul-sucking company had drained any motivation he once had. If anything, he deserved to waste his free time in the most unproductive way possible. And for Nathan, that meant endlessly scrolling through absurd internet videos.
With a tap on his screen, the short video app opened, instantly bombarding him with content tailored to his habits. The first video? A man raising rabbits on a small farm.
"Damn, they eat like crazy... kinda cute though," Nathan thought as he watched a fluffy white rabbit with red eyes devour a crisp lettuce leaf.
The next video showed a farmer building a wooden rabbit hutch, complete with a tiny fence and an automatic feeding station. Then another video. And another. Before he knew it, he had fallen into the rabbit hole—from watching rabbit farming, to raising chickens, to constructing sheep pens, and finally, to oddly satisfying videos of people cleaning gutters.
By the time he finally snapped out of his internet trance, his phone screen displayed the time: 7:52 PM.
"...Huh?" Nathan blinked. The sun had already set, and his dimly lit room was now illuminated only by the bluish glow of his phone screen.
His stomach grumbled.
"Crap, I haven't eaten all day."