Where did I wake up?

I was born and live in Kaliningrad on a small street called Soldatskaya. This street existed during the German occupation and was named after their agricultural chemist, Liebig. A canning factory, now a fish canning plant, has stood there since then. It's visible from the windows of my house, where I've lived since 1985. It's also an old German three-story building with a tiled roof (incidentally, it's on a map from 1929).

I'm 49 years old. I'm not a drug addict, I don't drink alcohol (except maybe mulled wine on New Year's), and I don't even smoke. I rarely take medications, and I certainly haven't tried any that affect the psyche or nervous system. I've never experienced auditory or visual hallucinations. Even when I experienced clinical death at 19, I didn't see the tunnel, the light, or even myself—I simply fell into darkness, and I don't remember how the doctors brought me out of that state. Generally speaking, I'm a practical, reasonable person, and far from mystical. What I'm describing here is the only mysterious incident that has happened in my life.

It happened in the winter of 1997. It was a very difficult winter in terms of living conditions, especially February, when this story happened. Our house was heated by the boiler room of a fish cannery. At the time, it ran on fuel oil and produced very poor heat. They said they were simply getting low-quality fuel. I lived alone at the time; I even adopted a kitten later that year, in September.

I usually slept in sweatpants, a sweater, and wool socks in the winter—the radiators barely warmed the room. The apartment's windows were boarded up, and the front door was securely locked with a strong chain. It was never dark in my apartment, as my two windows overlooked the factory's façade, which not only sparkled with its windows (work there was done in three shifts) but was also illuminated by street lamps and a floodlight.

One night, I woke up for some reason and was struck by the almost complete darkness and silence that surrounded me. Still half-asleep, I couldn't figure out what was wrong, so I went to the light switch and pressed it—but the light didn't come on. Thinking the bulb must have burned out, I went into the hallway. The light didn't come on there either. The same thing awaited me in the kitchen.

And then I suddenly realized I was standing barefoot on the floor, wearing not a tracksuit, but a long, lightweight dress. I ran my hand over it—it felt like a soft, knitted, and clearly natural material. It was blue, though perhaps it was the dim light from the streetlight filtering through the window that had "painted" it that way.

I looked around and was stunned. My apartment, always crammed with old furniture, clothes, books, and newspapers, was completely empty. Although I had no doubt it was my apartment—the size, layout, and floor plan matched. As it turned out, I had woken up not on my bulky oak sofa, but on a simple ottoman. The kitchen was also empty—no sink, no stove, only a low drawer by the window. I couldn't quite see it, and couldn't tell if it was a cabinet or a seat.

But what struck me most was when I looked out the kitchen window. The factory building, recognizable in shape and size, was not only unlit by floodlights and streetlights, it didn't even have windows! It looked like a monolith, as if a huge, dark, shiny box had been placed over the building. The snow had disappeared from the street, as had the fir trees that always grew in front of the plant.

In the courtyard, in its usual place across from the entrance, a single streetlight was burning. It glowed a strange blue light, something I'd never seen in all these years (the streetlight was usually white, lilac, or orange, never blue). But what scared me most was the astonishing silence, somehow abnormal, sepulchral. I felt as if there was no one else in the world but me.

I was literally shaking with terror. Where had I ended up?! Another world? The worst nightmare? The past? The future? And what would I do here, all alone?

As if on autopilot, I walked to the front door, checked the locks and chain—everything was in order. But then, what order could there possibly be? Then I returned to the bedroom, lay down on the cot, and pulled a rough, stiff blanket over my head. I lay there for a long time, trying to stop the shaking. I don't remember how I fell asleep.

In the morning, I woke up in my usual apartment. The furniture was still there, the lights were on everywhere, and the factory building's windows were visible through the fir trees outside. The world was exactly the same as before...

...except for one detail, which, in my joy, I didn't even immediately realize. I was wrapped in a rough canvas blanket, one I'd never owned. My blanket, the one I'd used to cover myself with that evening, was lying on the floor.

When I told my friends about it, they just twirled their fingers at their temples and said it was probably just a deep sleep. But it wasn't—the blanket (which, admittedly, I threw in the trash that same day in fear) convinces me of that. I did wake up. The only question is—where exactly?