The raindrops fell like the fingernails of dead gods, slamming down from the sky and shattering across Ethan's shoulders. Outside the office's floor-to-ceiling windows, the neon lights of the city blazed so brightly they pierced the eyes, but even they couldn't mask the stench of rot that lingered in the air. Ethan stared at the coffee on his desk—the surface carried a greasy sheen, like the pupil of some diseased creature.
He thought it was just another ordinary day—until he appeared.
More precisely, his future self.
The man wore a torn suit, as if he had crawled straight out of a garbage incinerator. His face carried a bizarre smile, the corners of his mouth splitting all the way to his ears—kind, yet twitching like a corpse in rigor.
"Don't open that door," his future self said. The voice sounded like it had been shredded in a blender and stitched back together again, broken and buzzing with static.
Ethan blinked, then smirked mockingly. "What are you, some insurance salesman? Since when did scam artists start cosplaying?"
The future self wasn't offended. He only stared at Ethan, eyes glowing with a rotten light. "Listen carefully. The Void Gate is not glory. It's not an answer. It's a receipt. Once you open it, the debt collector comes. And your curiosity will send the whole multiverse the bill."
Ethan chuckled and lit a cigarette. Smoke rose like a suicidal ghost. "The multiverse collapsing? Sounds fun. At least it beats dying at my desk from overwork."
"Dying? You won't die." The future self's voice turned cold as a scalpel. "You'll be trapped in a time loop, reliving every second of agony. Each nerve stretched into violin strings until they play the universe's punchline."
Ethan hesitated, then burst out laughing. "So, the future me turned into a stage actor? Trying to scare me, or selling me a soul-transfer contract?"
His future self slowly raised a hand. In his palm was a crumpled work badge, Ethan's name printed clearly on it. The photo, however, was a burned, grotesque face smiling with fury.
"You think the Bureau's investigations are for truth? Wrong. That's just a waiting ticket at the door. Reaching this point was the Gate's arrangement. Don't open it, or everything becomes one giant black joke."
Ethan stared at the badge. Suddenly, the office lights warped. The walls oozed pus. His coworkers' typing sounded like nails hammered into a coffin lid.
He swallowed down his dread, forcing calm. "If that's true, then why don't you stop me? Why just drop this bargain-bin 'future warning'?"
His future self grinned. Teeth dropped one by one, like fragments falling out of time's gears.
"Because I've stopped you countless times," he rasped. "Every time, I stand here. I tell you not to open the door. And every time, you laugh and walk right in. And the result is me—"
He pointed at his fractured face. "—this ruin."
Silence filled the air.
Ethan's grin stiffened. For the first time, he wondered if this "future self" wasn't just a hallucination.
And yet, deep inside, an absurd urge flickered: If I'm doomed to enter anyway, then why not sooner? Why not see the punchline of the universe with my own eyes?
His future self seemed to read his mind. Suddenly, he lunged forward, gripping Ethan's hand with a desperate strength. His voice cracked like shattering glass:
"Don't let the world become a rotten joke! Don't—"
The office door swung open. A few coworkers peeked in, wearing standardized smiles.
"Who are you talking to?"
Ethan turned.
The future self was gone. Only the charred badge lay on his desk.
He inhaled smoke deeply, then grinned—wide and puppet-like, as if split by a chainsaw.
"Just chatting with my future self about life advice."
His coworkers laughed in unison, their voices like canned background laughter.
And at the end of the hallway, the Void Gate floated into view—darkness like a silent mouth, waiting for someone to open it again.