Autophagy

'Who uses this long of a password?' Song Lei thought after entering the password into the phone. Seeing that it was unlocked, he breathed a sigh of relief. He sat down on the bed and started looking through the phone.

After spending more than ten minutes looking, Song Lei was thoroughly surprised by the contents of the phone. Toda Anzai, from what he could figure out, was a really studious person. The gallery of his phone was filled with notes. Page after page, he seemed to be spending most of his time studying, as there were no different pictures in between.

Normally, there would at least be 5 images out of 100 that were unrelated to studying on a hard-working student's phone. However, Anzai's phone wasn't like that. After scrolling through more than 2000 study-related images, Song Lei sucked a deep breath in and exited the gallery. He went on to look into Anzai's messages and e-mails. Those, too, were mostly filled with study-related stuff. Although there were some messages he had with his family, that was it.

'Does this person not have any friends?' Song Lei thought while frowning. He had seen studious people back in the Old World but none of them were this separated from real life. 'Well... It doesn't matter. I must somehow understand what is going on and leave this place,' he thought. Song Lei knew that the New World wasn't something to underestimate. This so-called remnant world could easily turn into hell at any moment. At least that was what Song Lei thought.

After he finished looking through the phone, Song Lei turned the laptop back on and unlocked it. Fortunately, Anzai was using the same password for everything. Song Lei started searching through the laptop to see if there was useful information in it. While doing so, he discovered an image. This image was the timetable of Anzai's university. And according to what Song Lei was seeing, he was about to be late for class.

'Umm...'

He was contemplating whether he should try to go to the class or not. Considering the fact that Anzai was such an introvert, it wouldn't be much of a trouble for Song Lei to imitate him. However, he wasn't sure if it was a smart idea to wander so far off the apartment.

'Let's just take a look at the close vicinity of the apartment.'

Song Lei looked at himself in the mirror. Anzai seemed to have already gotten ready for class. So Song Lei didn't have to change. He just took the things that he thought would be useful to him and put them in his backpack.

"I'll get going..." Song Lei muttered. He left the house and locked the door behind him. 'Let's see.'

The hallway was incredibly different than normal. The morning sun's gentle light was illuminating it with a tinge of blue by entering through the windows that were located at the two ends of the hallway. Seeing this made Song Lei a bit emotional as his life in the New World didn't contain any sunlight. He remembered the days he would play with Ai under the warm sun. These memories made him smile widely.

After he finished his nostalgia session, he took out the mirror piece he had picked up from the bathroom and used it to look around the hallway. The hallway that was reflected in the mirror wasn't the cheerful and bright one. Rather, it was filled with eerie darkness that would pierce into one's soul with time. The mirror was reflecting the hallway in the New World.

Song Lei took a deep breath and put the mirror piece back into his pocket. While doing so, he heard a door clicking sound. He turned his head towards the opposite room. Room 1408. There was a little girl with a middle-aged man using a walking stick. He was wearing sunglasses.

Seeing the little girl, Song Lei's heart ached a little. A bittersweet smile appeared on his face.

"Good morning uncle!" The little girl said with a wide smile on her face.

"Good morning," Song Lei answered back. The little girl helped her father out and they went to the elevator together. This elevator didn't exist in the New World for some reason.

Song Lei took out the mirror piece from his pocket. Although this got him some weird looks from the little girl, he tried to see where this place corresponded to in the New World. However, the reflection was completely black, indicating that either this place was in the wall or there wasn't any light source.

When they reached the lowest floor, all three of them left the elevator. The little girl waved goodbye to Song Lei and went her own way with her father.

Song Lei stared dazedly at the hallway for some time. Although this place had almost the exact same layout as the hallway in the New World, it felt much more different than its counterpart in the New World. 

Song Lei stepped towards the exit and left the apartment. He had to protect his eyes from the sunlight with his hands for some time. When his sight got used to the light, he slowly lowered his hand to look at the surroundings.

"Wow..."

Right now, Song Lei looked like a caveman seeing a train for the first time. There was awe, excitement, and a bit of nervousness in his eyes. The gentle morning breeze, occasional sounds made by the cars passing by, chirping of the morning birds. These all perfectly formed up to create a perfectly normal city morning.

It was the city's waking hours so there weren't that many people around. Using this chance, Song Lei took in the scenery and the fresh air into his lungs. He didn't know when he would have the chance to do so again, if ever.

After he was done, Song Lei took a pen and a notebook out of his backpack. He started walking around the apartment and drew a map of the surrounding area. Before doing so, he tried to use the mirror to look into the New World. But no matter how hard he tried, he would only get a black image.

Although he wasn't sure, he was hoping that the surroundings were the exact copy of the New World. Having the map of the surrounding would be tremendously helpful if he ever managed to get out of the apartment alive and safe.

It took Song Lei more than eight hours to finish drawing a proper map of the surroundings. By the time he was done, the sky had already started getting darker.

'Although I'm just guessing, the nights here are probably, very VERY dangerous,' Song Lei thought. He had read a good amount of novels in the Old World. If he knew something about these kinds of situations, it was the fact that the nights were the time the dangerous stuff would come out. 'Well... No matter what I do, I'll be in danger.'

He could always lock himself into his room. But what would happen if the ghost or the monster appeared inside his house? He didn't have the cursed knife with him and his stats were lowered to a quarter. He truly was in a disadvantageous situation.

"Whatever..." He muttered to himself. He had already been running circles around the apartment for a long time. His body and mind were tired. He didn't have any clues on how to get out of the remnant world. Hell, he didn't even know what exactly a remnant world was.

After entering the Heaven and Hell apartment again, Song Lei got on the elevator. The place seemed to be desolate as he hadn't seen any residents other than the blind man and her daughter.

He reached the 14th floor without any problems and went to his house. While he was unlocking his door, he felt someone was watching him from somewhere. He looked around to spot who was watching him.

*Click

While he was looking around, he saw that someone was peeking at him from room 1409 by opening the door slightly. Realizing that Song Lei had seen them, the peeker closed the door quickly. This made Song Lei incredibly alarmed as he quickly entered his house and locked the door behind him.

Room 1409 was on the left side of his room. He went to the left side of his house and put his ear on the wall to listen to his neighbor. It would be great if he could get any information about that person. Unfortunately, all he could hear were some rustling noises.

Seeing that he wasn't getting anywhere, Song Lei stopped listening and turned the laptop on. He wanted to get a proper understanding of what kind of place this remnant world was. After searching for more than an hour, he came to the conclusion that this world was almost a replica of the Old World. The internet culture and the celebrities were all the same.

As the night was nearing, the sunlight had turned into a hue of orange. The sun was about to set, after that, Song Lei would have to pass the night somehow. With his leftover time, he quickly blocked the window with whatever he could and cut off any kind of sightline that would let others peek into his room. He did the same to the bathroom door and the entrance door. He didn't block the entrance thought. Doing that would doom him in the case he had to leave the room quickly. He just made do with blocking the peephole.

As the sun finally set, weird noises started coming from the outside.

"This will be a long night...."