Lance slid the door to his cylindrical shower piece open and stepped out. He shook out his hair and rubbed himself down thoroughly with the towel. Running his fingers through his hair, water drizzled down to the floor. He looked up at the mirror ahead unable to make out more than a blur of his own reflection through the mist. His clothes were neatly folded and awaited him on a stand by the shower doorway. A pair of track pants and a plain white tee-shirt. Wandering out of the bathroom now, Lance sat in front of his window 20 stories above the ground. He stared blankly forward and sipped the coffee that he prepared in advance. "Drip" A singular drop of water fell from a lock of his hair to the floor. "Drip" The air was still humid from the shower he had just taken coating the glass pane in front of him with condensed water. "Drip" He observed the world below through fogged glass. The picturesque lake view on the other side of the glass persisted in silence as it had when he first moved here. "Drip" Lance pulled the towel from his shoulders and draped it over his head. His mind was entirely blank... He missed this feeling of bliss and nothingness. With the game he recently started playing, he found himself occupied more often than not. Slow days like today were at one point in time a usual occurrence. Today he wanted to go back to those days, deep within Lance missed this way of life. Though he had vast admiration for the hum and buzz of his exciting online life as "Ortix", Lance believed a quaint and quiet day was a necessity every once in a while. A faint rumbling could be felt from inside of Lance, this could only mean one thing. He spun his stool away from the table top and hopped off of it, making his way to the kitchen. Lance took a cooking class in high school to improve his life in a time where there was no one to cook for him. Over time, he had boundless time to practice and picked up on more skills and techniques related to the craft until he could match your average chef at a four star establishment. He had never cooked for more than himself before, but Lance found himself unknowingly cooking vast amounts of food while thoughts of his newfound friends glossed over his mind. He now had his breakfast lunch and dinner laid out before him on the stove. A one foot tall stack of pancakes, an eight egg omelette, and half a pigs-worth of bacon and sausage laid before him. Lance smiled to himself as he packed the extras in plastic containers and hand-washed the dishes. He then made his way back to the stool and table in front of window and sat down to eat as if on a date with the view he so cherished. Nothing existed to interrupt this for him. While his acquaintances online seemed temporary, his apartment with the lakeside view was his castle, it made him feel blissfully at ease. Lance's silent, peaceful world of atop the tower.
