At 3:00 A.M., his phone screen lit up in the darkness, like an eye suddenly opening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arthur jolted awake from a light sleep, his heart thudding heavily in his chest. The caller ID showed an unfamiliar number, with the location listed as \u201cUnknown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He hesitated for a few seconds, his finger hovering over the red hang-up button. But an inexplicable intuition drove him to press the green answer button and turn on video at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The screen lit up, revealing nothing but pitch blackness\u2014only the faint outline of curtains fluttering in the breeze was visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHello?\u201d Arthur\u2019s voice was hoarse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a few seconds of dead silence, a faint rustling sound came through the video, as if fabric were brushing against the microphone. Immediately afterward, a face moved closer to the camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arthur\u2019s blood ran cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be precise, the \u201cArthur\u201d in the video was lying on the very bed he was currently in, with his back to the camera, breathing steadily, seemingly fast asleep. And the camera angle was, surprisingly, a bird\u2019s-eye view from the corner of his bedroom ceiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arthur sat up abruptly in bed and looked up at that corner\u2014it was completely empty, with nothing there at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stared tremblingly at his phone screen. The \u201cArthur\u201d in the video was still lying with his back to the camera, motionless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWho are you?\u201d Arthur growled into the phone, his voice cracking with fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The image on the screen suddenly shook slightly, as if someone had picked up the phone. The camera flipped, focusing on the room\u2019s window. Arthur recognized that window; it looked directly out onto the 24-hour convenience store on the street corner, where the neon sign was now flickering with a faint blue light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The perspective shifted again, and the camera focused on the mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reflected in the mirror was not Arthur\u2019s current face\u2014twisted with terror\u2014but a man in pajamas, his expression calm. That man was smiling at the camera, his eyes revealing a weariness and sense of relief that Arthur had never felt before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re finally awake,\u201d the man in the mirror said. His voice sounded exactly like Arthur\u2019s, but his tone was unusually calm. \u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for you for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arthur felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. He tried to hang up the phone, but his fingers were stiff and wouldn\u2019t obey him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLook out the window,\u201d the man in the mirror said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arthur instinctively turned his head toward the bedroom window. Outside, it was pitch black\u2014no neon lights from the convenience store, just the dead silence of the building across the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not right\u2026\u201d Arthur muttered to himself. \u201cThere should be lights outside my window\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat was you three years ago,\u201d the man in the mirror said softly, \u201cThe you who was still anxious about the project, sleeping only four hours a day, and surviving on coffee and antidepressants. That version of you died at 3 a.m. three years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arthur froze. Memories flooded back like a burst dam. He remembered that 48th consecutive hour of overtime, the excruciating pain in his chest, and the moment he collapsed at his desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThen I am\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou are the part that was left behind,\u201d the man said, pointing at the ceiling. \u201cI am your subconscious\u2014I\u2019ve been hiding in this rift in time all along, bearing the pain you were too afraid to face. But now, it\u2019s time for you to wake up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The video call suddenly cut off. The screen went black, revealing Arthur\u2019s pale face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The room was deathly silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arthur sat stiffly on the bed, his back soaked in cold sweat. He gasped for breath, trying to calm his frantic heartbeat. Was it a dream? It had to be a dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With trembling hands, he turned on the bedside lamp; the warm yellow light instantly dispelled the darkness. He got up and walked to the window, pulling back the curtains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Outside, the convenience store on the corner was still lit, its neon sign flashing a familiar blue glow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arthur let out a long sigh and smiled wryly. It was indeed a hallucination caused by exhaustion from working overtime. He turned to go back to bed, but his gaze inadvertently fell on the digital calendar on the nightstand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The red numbers stood out starkly against the darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
November 14, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arthur froze in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He clearly remembered that today was 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He snatched up his phone; the screen lit up, showing 3:05 a.m. And in the corner of the notification bar, a single line of unread system text lay quietly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTime remaining until your \u2018Memory Reset\u2019 service expires: 10 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arthur stared at those words and suddenly felt a sense of calm he\u2019d never experienced before. He put down his phone, lay back down in bed, and closed his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It turned out that some dreams don\u2019t require waking up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Video Call at 3:00 A.M.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[18,22],"class_list":["post-767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-suspense","tag-story","tag-suspense"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":769,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions\/769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}