I slump against the door, my body trembling with exhaustion and adrenaline. The floor is gritty concrete, the air cold enough to see my breath. The only light comes from a series of grimy, wire-reinforced windows high up on one wall, casting long, distorted shadows across the space. The silence here is different. Deeper. The hum is gone, replaced by a profound, echoing emptiness.
I'm in a large, abandoned industrial space. A factory, maybe. Rusting catwalks crisscross far above, disappearing into the gloom. On the ground floor, hulking shapes of silent machinery loom like dormant beasts. The smell is industrial rot—rust, stagnant water, and something vaguely chemical, like old cleaning fluid.
The silence is shattered by a sound from above.
A metallic scrape, then a series of thumps, like someone dropping tools. I look up, my heart lurching. A figure is on one of the catwalks, a lean silhouette against the grimy windows. Just looking down at me.
Stillness. The air feels heavy, charged.
Then, without warning, the figure leaps.
It's not a jump. It's a controlled fall, an impossible drop of at least thirty feet. He hits the ground with a solid thud, his knees bending to absorb the impact, and straightens up without a sound.
He's tall, clad in a labcoat of some sort, with wiry glasses. His hair is short, lightly ruffled like a man who always runs his fingers through his hair, and his face is youthful and slightly round. If he hadn't just done such an incredible jump, I'd think he was just...
A doctor. A normal person.
He reminds me -
He looks..
A lot like my husband.
"Hey, are you okay?" His voice is gentle and he leans forward slightly. "Guessing by that look in your eye you've met one of our friends?" He says the word 'friends' with a smirk.
I am speechless for a moment, staring at him. His resemblance is so uncanny it's like a punch to the gut. My grip tightens on the pipe. The ghost-pain in my chest flares, a hot, sharp agony.
"Don't come any closer," I manage, my voice a hoarse whisper.
He holds up his hands, palms out, a placating gesture. "Easy, easy. I'm not one of them." He takes a step closer anyway, his movements smooth and confident. "You're new. Very new. I can tell. You still have that... look. The one that says you think there's a way out."
He's right in front of me now, close enough that I can see the fine, spidery cracks in his glasses. He smiles, a kind, gentle smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
"You need to be more careful," he says. "They're drawn to noise. And fear." He glances down at the pipe in my hand. "Good on you for finding something to defend yourself with, though. Most people just scream."
I don't respond. I can't. My throat is tight, my entire being screaming wrong at me. This is a trick. A trap. The memory of the moonlight on the knife is so vivid I can almost feel the cold steel against my skin.
"What do you want?" I force the words out, my knuckles white on the pipe.
He tilts his head, studying me. "What do I want? That's the question, isn't it? We all want something. Honestly, it's a question I've been asking myself a lot. Since...I don't know."
He huffed and straightened, hand running through his hair exactly as the messy locks would indicate.
"I like this room because it feels like it's the outside. Helps a man think without that damn...buzzing." He says the word "buzzing" like it's a curse. "Anyway, I figure I'm probably a doctor. I just...can't remember. For sure. But it's what I've decided I am. And you," he gestures to me. "You're a patient."
I take a step back, my bare foot scraping on the concrete. "I'm not your patient."
"We're all patients here," he says, his smile widening slightly. "Shouldn't I be scared of you? You're the one with the weapon, you know." He points with one finger at my pipe. "But you're not going to use it. Not against me. I can tell."
"Why are you here?" I ask again, my voice gaining a sliver of steel. I force the image of my husband's face from my mind, replacing it with the cold, hard weight of the metal in my hand.
"I told you, I'm thinking. The higher floors get... complicated. Down here, it's simple. Survive. Get stronger. I've decided my purpose is to help people. Like a doctor would. Even if I can't remember the oath." He takes another step forward, and I swing the pipe up instinctively, a clumsy, defensive arc. He doesn't even flinch. He just watches it, a faint look of curiosity on his face.
"You're very angry," he observes, matter-of-factly. "That's good. Anger is better than despair. Despair is a sickness here. It rots you from the inside out." He taps his own temple. "Makes you... fuzzy. I've seen it. People who get sad just lay down and stop, until they die. Or until they melt, I suppose."
He shrugs at that.
"I think they all die. I don't know. I can't bear to watch, but they won't let me help them, see." He says, gesturing vaguely at the dark corners of the factory floor. "They always tell me to leave them alone. I'm David, by the way."
I don't acknowledge his introduction.
I'm certainly not telling him my name.
I keep the pipe raised, but my arms are starting to ache. I can't hold this defensive posture forever. The resemblance to my husband is still there, a ghost overlaying this stranger's face, but it's fading, replaced by the unsettling reality of him. The way he moves, too fluid, too calm. The vacant intelligence in his eyes.
"What do you mean, 'get stronger'?" I ask, my eyes darting around the factory floor. This space feels too open, too full of hiding places. "The... message. It said something about levels."
"Ah, the message!" David claps his hands together, a sudden, startling burst of noise in the silence. "Yes! The system. It's a game, you see. A terrible, wonderful game. You get experience for... things. For surviving. For fighting. For solving puzzles, I think." He waves a hand. "I'm level 5. I think that's how I got it. Puzzles. Has to be, because I'm not violent." He leans in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "The monsters... they give a lot. I've seen people do it. Hunt them. For the points. But that's too dangerous for me. Easy to die that way."
"...We're already dead." I say the words, and they feel foreign on my tongue.
David smiles, a slow, sad expression. "Yes. Yes, we are. But you don't...come back here. If you die down here. I don't know where you go, but it's not here." He taps my pipe. "And I'm not a fighter."
I lower the pipe slightly, the ache in my arms a dull throb. "You survive on puzzles."
"Exactly! The rooms, the floors... they're tests. Logic, memory, will. That's my specialty." He taps his temple. "The mind. You solve the test, you get points. You level up. You get... stronger. Faster. Tougher." He flexes a bicep, which is admittedly impressive. "Doesn't look like much, I know. But it helps. I once fell from the top of those catwalks." He points up. "Before I was a doctor. Just... landed. Broke my legs, but they healed. Fast. That's what leveling up does."
"Healing?"
"And strength. And speed. You need it for the upper floors." He looks toward the door I came through. "The thing in the hall... you don't want to fight those things at Level 1. You'll lose."
"Is that what happened to the person who screamed?" I ask, my gaze drifting to the dark corners of the factory.
David's expression shifts. The gentle, doctorly facade cracks, just for a second. "What person?" he asks, and for the first time, there's a flicker of something else in his eyes. A cold emptiness. He genuinely doesn't remember. The scream, the wet tearing sound—it's already gone, filed away or discarded.
I stare at him, a new kind of dread seeping into my bones. It's not the monster in the hallway that's terrifying me now. It's him. The placid, gentle man in front of me, who can hear someone die and forget it within a minute. Who has replaced his past with a self-appointed role, a character to play in this horror show.
"You don't remember."
"Remember what?" he asks, genuinely bewildered. He looks down at my pipe, then back at my face. "You're still holding that. You really don't trust me, do you?" He seems more curious than offended. "It's the face. People always say I look... familiar. Unsettling, sometimes." He shrugs. "I can't help it."
"You said...before you were a doctor?"
I don't really want to spend any time with this man. But he's not a monster - even if he reminds me of one - and he knows things.
And talking about his past means not talking about his face. Or my past.
"I decided. Here, you get to decide who you are." He turns away from me and walks a few steps toward the center of the room. "We're dead anyway, so our life before doesn't matter." He turns back. "What matters is now, don't you think? We need something to hold on to. A purpose. Mine is to help people."
He points to the other end of the factory, where a series of large concrete pillars support the ceiling.
"Like I helped him." David says, and I follow his gaze. Tucked between two of the pillars, in the deep shadows, is a huddled shape. I hadn't seen it before. It's a person, curled up on the floor, motionless.