Fiction Fantastic 2026 Winning Story: “Autopilot” by Isaac Chou

“Autopilot,” by Isaac Chou, South Eugene High School

Second Place, High School Level, 2026

Autopilot

by Isaac Chou

South Eugene High School

It was a day like any other. I remember it clearly, like it happened recently. It did happen recently, but it also happened decades ago. I was driving to work. I worked in customer service at a regional tech company called LineGen. Everyone in the area always had products from LineGen in their homes, so there were always calls coming in. Something had broken, or they couldn’t figure out how it functioned. That was my job there. People would call in, and I would tell them what to do, how to fix their problem. Then I would move on to the next call. It was simple. It was dull. An endless cycle without complexity.

I don’t know what happened to LineGen. I look around the room and see nothing from them. I no longer work for them. I no longer work. I only sit. I sit and I watch the world around me. It changes but I do not see it change. I blink and the world I knew is gone. It is replaced by something new, something different, something without LineGen. I am also replaced. I am no longer myself.

I was driving to work, as I said. The road was slightly busy. The radio was playing an advertisement for Cameron Dental, the only dentist in town. At least, it was back then. I am told that it no longer exists. I am told that there are two dentists here now, but neither is Cameron Dental. I must have gone to one of them at some point. I do not know them though. I only know Cameron Dental. I turned the radio knob to change the channel.

I am now driving down an empty road. It is a dark night. I am happy and free, not a care in the world. I am young. I don’t know how I know it, I just am. There is a world of opportunity ahead of me. I can do whatever I want, be whoever I want. I can travel out of my small town that only has one dentist and see the world. I can’t wait to see the person I will be. I know who I will be, though. I will be driving down a slightly busy road to my job at LineGen. I will not leave my small town. There will still be time, though. I will still be young. I still can now because I am young. I haven’t started working at LineGen yet. I don’t have to. I stop the car and try to leave it. Leave the car so I can stay here.

When I opened the door it was afternoon. It was the end of the workday at LineGen. I did not understand what was happening. I closed the door again and looked at the radio. It was now playing smooth jazz. I turned the radio knob. I turned the knob further this time.

There is now a raucous energy in the car. I just got my driver’s license. My friends and I are rocketing down an empty road in the used car my parents gave me. To travel, they said. To go to college and live somewhere new. I look around at my friends. We have known each other our whole lives. We think we will be friends forever. I know that is not true. I know that they will leave and I will stay. I know that I will no longer know them. I do not believe that, though, right now. I believe we can stay like this. Right now, I believe that I can have everything. One of them changes the station.

I was parked outside of my apartment. The apartment I lived in when I wasn’t working at LineGen. I left the car and went to bed, despite not being tired. I tried to show a coworker the radio the next day, but I only found myself young, no coworker in sight. When the song ended, I was back at home, and the next day, the coworker told me that nothing had happened.

I continued using the radio. I did not like my job at LineGen. I did not want to work there, so I went back. I lived where I did not work there. I lived where I could do anything. I lived where I had friends. I lived where I had dreams. It only ever lasted for a short while, though. Eventually I would remember that I knew what would happen. Eventually I would realize that I couldn’t just stay there. That if I attempted to live outside of what happened, then I would be returned back to the path that I had already lived. Every time I used the radio, more time would pass. Sometimes days, sometimes weeks, perhaps more, all within what felt like minutes or hours. I lost track of when I was, how much time was passing, so I stopped paying attention. In that time that passed, I know that I did nothing. I continued my routine on autopilot, not diverting from the path I was already on.

One day, I came back and found a woman living in my apartment. I did not know her. I still do not know her. She said that we were dating. I did not deny that. She slept with me. I slept with her. Whenever we would go on dates, I would use the radio. I avoided the dates as they would always feel uncomfortable because I did not know her. Sometime later, I found a ring on my finger. The woman who slept with me was my wife. Another time I found myself at a new house. A house in a suburban neighborhood. I was told by the woman who slept with me that it was ours. One in a sea of identical houses. I would not have known that I slept there unless I had found myself parked there.

I continued using the radio. I was doing customer service at a different company in the same town. It was a company that was new to me. I do not know if LineGen was still around then. Their products were littered around the new house that I slept in, but they were slowly replaced as time passed. Replaced with new products from a brand I did not recognize.

I did not live there, though. I still lived in my youth. Even as the realizations made me feel more and more hopeless near each car ride’s end, I still continued to go back. Back to that empty dark night filled with stars. Back to that car filled with laughter and cheering as it sped down the road. Time continued to pass in the time that I did not live. Eventually there were children in the house. I did not know them. They looked similar to me and the woman who slept with me, but I would not have recognized them as my own. That is all I knew about them. Eventually the woman who slept with me stopped sleeping with me. I do not know why. Eventually the children who look similar to me and the woman that I used to sleep with grew older and left. Eventually I was alone once again in the house where I slept, except now it was bigger, more empty.

I continued on as I had before, sleeping in the time where I did not live, and living in the time when I was young. Every time I went back to the time I did not live, I recognized the body that I slept in less and less. He was an older man than I had ever been. He looked like me, to be certain, but he wasn’t me, and I wasn’t him. I had not lived the years that he had. I was still in the prime of my youth. I still am, as long as I can get back to it.

I can’t now, though. I’m stuck. Stuck in a large home full of old people and doctors who I do not recognize. The children who look similar to me and the woman that I used to sleep with were now adults and had put me there, I was told by a nurse. I cannot live here. I cannot bear it. There is so much pain from years that I have not lived. I must go back. I must try again. I find an unlocked car in the parking lot. I turn the radio and find myself again in that dark, starry night. Finally, I can live. Finally, I can do everything I dreamed of. I smile, open the car door, and step out into nothingness.