Chapter 1: The Non-existent Door
Mina was one of those people who really didn't like elevators.
Of course, not the ones which are well maintained and that simply work and don't beep in an annoying way.
in fact, she really hated the kind that were malfunctioning. Among those that decided to stop between floors as if they needed to think. As if they were trying to decide whether to drop you.
Out of all she had seen, this one was on top of her list.
There was no floor display. No numbers. Just a scratched strip of metal where the lights should have been. The building manager smiled and called it "vintage".
Mina called it a coffin on the move.
She kept looking at the closing doors and wished she would manage to calm down.
You are exaggerating, she said to herself. It is just a building.
The smell inside the elevator didn't make it any easier.
Old paper. Damp dust. And something faintly sweet underneath, like rotten fruit sealed in a drawer too long.
The doors closed with a soft sigh.
The elevator made a quiet noise. and then it moved.
Not up.
Sideways.
Mina was snapped by the feeling of the cable sliding presumably when her stomach was shifting and trying to get used to a motion which supposedly doesn't exist in a vertical shaft. It was as if the cable was moving along a rail rather than being lifted.
She snapped her eyes to the panel.
There was only one button.
B.
The next moment, Minas throat was a ball.
There shouldn't have been any basement.
She repeated reading the advertisement twice.
No basement., No storage., Simple., Quiet.
She didn't make any move.
The elevator made the choice for her.
A tiny click sounded. Polite. Like a courteous knock.
Then the elevator began to descend.
She tried to open the door by pressing the button but the elevator players were deaf to her command.
She used the emergency switch which just stirred weakly like a loose tooth.
Her phone signal was totally off.
It was normal.
The elevator didnt shake. It didnt stutter.
It went down smoothly, confidently, as if it hadalways known that was the only way.
Unexpectedly, it stopped.
There was no warning, no ding.
The doors opened.
Outside, a corridor awaited.
It was narrow, pale, and very clean, clean in such a way that it seemed fake, like a hospital corridor after visiting hours.
The walls were covered with wallpaper that at first glance looked like lace until Mina looked long enough to really see what was going on.
It was not lace.
It was newspaper.
Letter after letter, layer upon layer, they were like human skin that is pressed into the walls.
And the same sentence ran along the length of the corridor, repeating endlessly:
DO NOT READ THIS OUT LOUD.
Mina remained in the elevator, immobilized.
She was not aware of the reason, but her body had a clue long before her brain:
Stepping out means that you have agreed.
a sound came from the end of the corridor.
Not words.
Not breathing.
The faint rubbing of paper against paper.
Pages being turned slowly, deliberatelyjust like someone who is reading in the dark.
Mina swallowed. Her mouth was so dry that it was unbelievable, given how damp the air was.
Behind her, the elevator doors started to close.
Out of instinct, Mina pushed her hand through the small opening.
The doors came into contact with her fingers and stopped.
They didn't squeeze her fingers.
They didn't open again.
They just leaned against her hand, gently and inquisitivelylike something putting its weight on her to see if she would move.
Then the elevator made a sound.
A low chuckle.
Mina pulled her hand back so quickly that her knuckles rubbed the metal.
The doors closed entirely.
Mina turned to hit the button again But the elevator had gone.
Not closed.
Gone.
The spot where it was supposed to be was just the wall.
Nice wallpaper. Newspaper text.
DO NOT READ THIS OUT LOUD.
Mina pressed both her hands to the wall and was thoroughly examining the spots for the seams, for little cracks, for any clue that would tell her where the door is.
Nothing!
Her chest has started to pump rapidly since the sort of panic where your brain just runs faster and your body is left behind like it is mere dead weight.
Okay, Okay.... Think. This must be a prank. Maintenance hall. Service corridor. Maybe something.
The building was a real bargain. The landlord was smiling too much. The neighbors never raised their eyes from the floor.
Maybe!
No.
When she stood still, the whispering became louder.
So Mina resumed walking.
The light in the hallway didnt look yellow. It didn't look white.
It was gray.
A gentle gray light that seemed not to come from any bulb she could spot.
Every ten steps a door was placed on the right, hand side. The same height. The same handle. The same peephole.
However, the doors weren't wooden.
They looked like cardboard, like thick book covers pressed into one single slab. Black tape was used to make the numbers: 02. 03.
Mina walked past them without even touching.
Then, she saw something and her spine got really tight.
The peepholes werent in the middle.
They were way too low.
As if whoever was supposed to look through them, was shorter than Mina. Or they were crawling.
The sound of page turning was getting louder in front of her.
Door 07 had scratch marks at the bottom, as if an animal had tried to claw its way out.
Door 09 showed signs of moisture streaks dripping down from the peephole.
Door 12 was left open just a little bit. Mina stopped her pace.
There was something different about the scent of that door.
Less paper. More ... breath.
Warm. Used. Alive.
The gap between the door and the frame was just enough to let two fingers in, but it was enough to see that it was dark inside.
She had no intention of leaning in, but she did.
There was a movement inside of the room.
Not footsteps. A drag.
Like a body being dragged and repositioned on the floor.
Mina suddenly pulled away.
The door didnt change position.
But the peephole did.
It was not glass.
It was an eye.
From inside, it was pressed into the circle of the hole like a fish eye behind a net. The iris was light in color, almost white. The pupil was too big, too hungry.
It fixed its gaze on her.
Mina felt sick to her stomach.
She took a step backward.
The eye followed her.
Then there was a voicesoft and dead, as if the person didnt understand the line they were reading.
Are you new?
Mina was unable to respond. Her mouth opened but nothing came out.
The eye blinked in slow motion. It was sticky.
Dont, the voice whispered. Dont tell them your name.
The door moved wider on its own.
Not pulled. Not pushed.
It was as if it had been holding its breath and finally just let go.
Mina spun and took off.
The soles of her shoes slapped on the wet concrete. The passageway seemed too long, too skinny, and like it had more space than the building above could have.
She didnt glance over her shoulder.
She didnt want to find out whether the voice was coming after her.
She ran past 13, 14, 15, her lungs burning, the rain, smelling air scratching her throat.
At the hallways end, over an archway, a sign hung:
ADMINISTRATION
The characters were on a sheet of paper and plastic, wrapped, crinkled as if handled with wet hands over and over again.
Mina barely kept her balance as she went through the arch.
The room she saw was larger than what it should be.
Filing cabinets in rows occupied the roomtall and slim, like a wood of metal trunks.
Each cabinet had a sticker on it:
MISSING PETSUNPAID DEBTSFORGOTTEN CHILDRENNAMES SAID TWICENAMES SAID OUT LOUD
Mina registered in her mind the last one for a while.
Names said out loud.
The whispering here was not pages turning anymore.
It was pens scratching.
Writing.
Somewhere beyond the cabinets, a person was making notes, a person with whom Mina would not like to cross paths.
Mina solicited permission from the universe as she made her way one step at a time. The ground was covered with paper corners torn, sentences ripped, half a headline, photographs with faces rubbed out.
Then she spotted it.
A flyer like a missing person poster.
Only the photo was totally blank.
There was no face.
No name.
Just a white rectangle where the human would be.
The date at the bottom said:
TODAY
Minas hands shook as she picked it up.
Last Seen: ENTERED THE BUILDING.
If Found: DO NOT SPEAK TO THEM. DO NOT ANSWER QUESTIONS.
The pen scratching stopped.
Pressure in her ears, that's how silence hit her.
Mina put the flyer down very slowly.
Then she caught the sound.
A chair being moved.
Soft.
Quiet.
Right behind her.
Mina looked around.
A desk was in the center of the room like it had been there forever, neatly tucked between cabinets. The lamp was giving that same gray light.
There was a person behind the desk.
Or something vaguely human, shaped.
It was wearing a suit of paper layers, folded into sharp origami creases. Its hands were long and narrow, fingertips blackened as if ink had never been taken off them.
Where the face should have been, was a smooth sheet of paper.
Nothing.
Only one polite sentence written across it:
PLEASE STATE YOUR FULL NAME.
Mina stepped away.
The chair gave a creak when it leaned in.
The paper face tilted, as if listening.
A pen floated up in its hand.
Waiting.
Mina's heartbeat was so loud she was afraid she would vomit.
"I... I am lost, " she said weakly.
The pen moved a little barely, as if getting annoyed.
The paper face turned.
Words showed up like a printer warming up, ink bleeding into paper skin:
PLEASE STATE YOUR FULL NAME.
Mina shook her head.
"No."
The room seemed to breathe out.
The filing cabinets made a slight noise, like a thousand drawers moving around in their sleep.
The figure was not very quick.
It didnt have to be.
It put down the pen and pulled out a drawer.
There were name tags in the drawer.
Lots and lots of them.
Each name tag had a lovely handwritten name on it.
Mina didnt want to, but she nevertheless leaned in.
Near the top was: MINA KIM.
Her heart sank.
She hadn't given her full name to anyone in this building.
She hadn't even changed her address at the post office yet.
The paper suit figure pushed the tag to her slowly, Carefully.
Like giving her a receipt.
The pen scratching started again except no pen moved.
The writing sound came from inside the cabinets now.
From everywhere.
Mina stepped back, shaking her head more forcefully.
Where did you get that? she asked, voice breaking.
The paper face stayed polite.
The paper change words:
WE HEARD IT.
Minas blood froze.
Heard it when?
The elevator? Her lease? The mailbox? Her phone?
No.
She thought of the warning on the walls.
DO NOT READ THIS OUT LOUD.
She refelcted the voice at Door 12.
Don't say your name.
The paper figure kept standing.
It didnt scrape its chair. It just lifted it, as if the chair didnt want to touch the figure.
Then the cabinets came to life and started to open one by one.
The drawers sliding out one after another, in a slow wave.
Like mouths.
There were not files inside.
They were photographs.
Hundreds maybe thousandsof blurry pictures.
All of them showing the same moment:
A person standing in the hallway outside the elevator.
Smiling as if they were not scared yet.
In each picture, the person is wearing a paper name tag.
In each picture, their face is fadingframe by frame like someone is erasing them with a thumb.
Mina tripped over and fell back after she bumped her head on a cabinet, Mina heard it again—
pages turning.
Faster, Excited.
Mina opened her mouth to scream —
And the lights went out…