Isekais Don't Exist, You're Just Trapped in a Social Experiment

1. Walking Fossils

Swipe.

Swipe.

Swipe.

...

You'd been laying in bed since you woke up at one thirty in the afternoon. It's now seven at night, and you were still trapped in the colors of your phone- reading isekai manhwas like you didn't skip two meals. Like you weren't on the verge of going ahead and skipping the last meal of the day.

It's not like you hadn't done it before. The satisfaction of the fantasy world you read about felt like all the sustenance you needed in comparison- a happy illusion to the dreary reality around you that spelt the end of your future. It was escapism in its finest form, and yet you would deign to relinquish your iron grasp around it.

It would mean having to address how to split the funds of your nine-to-five job again. It meant looking at your five hundred dollar weekly check and knowing it would slip through between your fingers like sand with all the piling credit card bills that couldn't keep you afloat. You had to pay your friend back first, even at the cost of the payment penalties, or they'd never let you borrow again.

Your credit score is definitely trash now. In the last month however, you've come to find peace with the realization that came with waking up on a mattress you threw on the floor of your room.

Maybe "peace" is the wrong word for it...

It's more like you gave up.

You could barely afford to rent a single small room in the cheapest area of the town, and you had to scrape for change just to get on the bus to work. A car? In your dreams. The car itself, the insurance to go with it, and all the maintenance fees to keep it in operation would be more costs sinking you down further.

No matter where you looked, no matter the angles you tried to look from, no matter how you attempted to budget, you would be in quicksand forever. You couldn't save money for anything. You owed student loans for the associates degree that didn't help you land a job.

With astronomy being your dream, you chased and chased your promised future like a child would chase a firefly.

Once you caught it, that light was killed immediately.

You had a degree no one would hire you with, one that you were warned every step of the way would not pay off. All the arguments you had gotten into to defend it since it was what you loved now felt so distant.

Hours of your life, years, poured down the drain.

I guess I should eat something.

You finally climb up to your feet, placing your phone face down on bed as you lazily knock your slippers in place to put them on. There was a roach here earlier that scurried off behind furniture, probably having crawled in from the bathtub pipe. Although most things didn't affect you these days, roach gunk all over your soles would make your day all the more troublesome.

If it weren't for your stomach complaining, you'd prefer to sleep all day and night. Sadly, that's not an option, so the next best thing is doom scrolling in bed.

Your foot hits a metal pet dish on the floor as you cross over to your mini fridge to grab a hot pocket, making you freeze and pause to peer down at it.

Galleta had passed away a few weeks ago. Having escaped the house when your landlord decided to come in and fix a leak without you present, he went missing for three days. Your landlord was unaffected by your distress, confident that cats were independent enough to survive outside despite the fact Galleta was an indoor cat.