Years after a life-time ago, K woke up in the morning and drove to work. It was just another daily grind of meaningless work and dumbfounding actions by K’s coworkers. It’s not fun living life like this but it pays the bills and keep life running. By now, K is fully integrated into this mundane world of everyday monotony. While on a business trip, K discovered a tabletop book that was placed on a random counter in a country far away from where K lives. The book contained a comprehensive list of old buildings accompanied by various black and white photographs from centuries earlier of K’s homeland. One of these buildings resembled a house K had been to but could never whether it was in a dream or in real-life nor when, where and why. This particular house, located near an enigmatic wharf and sealed-off from the general public for decades. The wharf seems so minuscule in front of the vast ocean that it camouflaged into the environment like it never existed. The house and its extensive network of nearby buildings were built centuries ago earlier in a world that was once full of conflicts and opportunities. Now they are mostly abandoned due to decades of grand gentrification projects around them yet for some reason they were able to withstand the turmoils of history and become timeless edifices that traveled to the modern world.
K couldn’t help but to reminisce the childhood days when almost everyday was an adventure of some sort. Back then life was much simpler when the only objective people had was to survive and strive, everything else were just ephemeral. Unfortunately for K, life still need to go on so K quickly read through the book and went on his day. A few months went by and life went on as usually. One day one of K’s close family members became terminally ill. K was able to get two weeks of PTO approved to fly home to see his family member. The trip was hectic but smooth, a life of traveling K had already gotten use to. After arriving home and visiting the hospital where K’s family member is staying, K went back to the hotel, was so exhausted and fell asleep soon after.
The next morning, K noticed the same book that K had read months early appeared in front of him again, this time in the hotel room K was staying. When K opened the window of the hotel room, it then dawned on K that the group of old buildings were only yards away from the hotel room that could literally see through the windows. Though no recollections of when nor why K was there, that building had been part of K’s psyche for most of K’s life. K decided then and there it was absolutely necessary to locate that house and explore its mysterious once and for all even if it was a foggy day. After going through a maze of houses for which most of them remain locked, K could see through the door crack that none of them resembled the house K was searching for. As K traversed deeper and deeper into the narrow alleyways of the old buildings network and sunlight, the only source of emitting light became more and more dim as the streets became very quiet.
With no human beings anywhere in sight, the only sounds K could hear were the crashing waves of the ocean and crows cawing. At that moment, K was completely disoriented by the seemingly ever growing sprawl complex. Out of the blue, K’s cellphone rang. It was just the alarm K had set earlier in the day to keep track of time. It was already in the afternoon, the phone’s battery was only at 30% and no phone signal. K was thirsty, hungry, exhausted and a little rattled, with no restaurants nor shops anywhere in sight, K took out the prepackaged snacks bought near the hotel and water out the backpack then gulped the water from the bottle while consuming the snacks. At this point, K badly wanted to leave the place but there was a small part of K that wanted to explore everything in the complex as K knows there won’t be a second visit. Just when K wanted to give up, K saw a shadow from the periphery of his eyes that went into one of the abandoned buildings. When K turned to the other direction to look, K felt a light tap on the left shoulder…..
The Legend of Ocekay novel series is based on a true, original story written by The Permanent Contrarian. The Legend of Ocekay novel series will be updated weekly on this site until the conclusion of the first part of the multi-part series. I live in America which means I have the rights to exercise reasonable free speech as permitted by the law. All posted content(s) on this website are my opinions only which means they should not be taken as advice of any kind. I am a non-celebrity, non-public figure posting anonymously for my own entertainment on a website that is not affiliated with any individual(s), organization(s) and/or any entity/entities.