I stand silently listening for any noises from beyond the room, but I do not hear anything other than the humming sound of the fluorescent lights and what sounds like water dripping. I look for the light switch; there is none. I look around the room to see if there is anything I didn’t notice on my initial assessment. The only new things I take note of are sprinkler heads in the ceiling in case of fire, a smoke detector, and a vent in the center of the room. To the right and left are just yellow wallpapered walls so I go through the opening to the next room. There is no light switch here either. This room is nearly identical to the first, except there is an adjoining room to my left and another room straight ahead. I keep going into the next room and it has doorways to the right and left into more yellow rooms, but none way to continue directly ahead. Each room has a smoke detector and sprinkler heads like the first and as I walk under the vents in the center of each room, I shiver as I’m blasted with cold air. One sprinkler head is leaking, which must be the source of the damp carpets. I am tempted to take a drink from the dripping water but reach for the water bottle on my belt instead and take a sip. I can see that the room on my left only opens into the room that can also be entered from room two. I look back at the entrance to the yellow rooms still wedged shut and then turn right to go to the next room.

  This room has openings on all four walls but is otherwise identical with the same rectangular ceiling tiles and buzzing fluorescent lights, the same smoke detectors and sprinkler heads, the same alternating gray bamboo and fleur-de-lis patterns on light yellow wallpaper, the same outlets in each wall, and the same damp darker yellow carpet. I decide I should number the rooms as I enter them and keep track of my turns since everything looks so similar. I don’t number those two side rooms to the left I passed previously and instead just number the rooms on my path. This is room four. I walk straight ahead to rooms five, six, seven, and then eight where there is another leaking sprinkler. I am able to continue to nine, ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen before I reach a wall forcing me to change direction or go back.

  I have seen this warehouse from outside as I ran past many times, and I don’t recall thinking it would be this big. I feel like I should be outside now. Could these rooms be going underground into the hillside? I turn right into room fourteen, and continue into fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one, where I hit another wall. I turn right and pass through twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, and into twenty-eight.

  All of the rooms are the same size, so based upon the distance I’ve walked, I should be somewhere in the room with the glass walls, not in yet another yellow room by now. Am I somehow above or below where I came in? There didn’t seem to be a slope. Why are there all of these identical empty rooms here, illuminated, and apparently with a water supply? I should backtrack the way I came to see if I am missing anything. I go back seven rooms, turn left and go eight rooms, turn left again and go ten rooms, then turn left a final time, which gives me a view of the first yellow room I entered.

  I freeze. My heart starts racing and I feel cold and clammy and sweaty. A large black bear is pawing at two office chairs, each missing two wheels, but there are no double doors. Beyond the bear is just another yellow room, and another, and another, and another.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The bear looks up and notices me. Maybe it is as confused by this place as I am or maybe it can just see that I am a human now that there’s light, not a normal prey animal for a black bear. I slowly start moving back to the room to my left and then quickly follow my previous course to room twenty-eight since I know this course is safe with no dead ends to get trapped in. Thinking about the geography of my position, I go through the opening into room twenty-nine, continuing on to thirty, and, hugging the right wall, thirty-one. At the right opening, I peer around to my right. Six rooms distant, I see two chairs lying on the ground, one ripped apart, and a bear walking away and turning to its right following the way I went. In disbelief, I whisper, “WTF....”

  It doesn’t make any sense. Those are the chairs I brought from the warehouse, but where I am standing now should probably be in the large open warehouse space based on how far I am from the chairs. Where am I? I quietly make my way back to where the chairs are. These are definitely the same chairs, each with two wheels removed. I examine the entry to this room where previously there had been a pair of double doors. Except for the presence of the chairs, this room now looks like every other one I’ve passed through.

  What now?

  I have to do something. My first concern is the bear. Maybe it was just taking shelter from the storm like me and didn’t realize what I was when I suddenly appeared on the other side of the warehouse door. Then it suddenly found itself trapped in a dark unfamiliar space and that’s why it charged and pursued me like it did in the warehouse. It probably isn’t hunting me yet, because it was just looking at me curiously when I saw it the second time. However, it will get hungry, and I’ve seen nothing here to eat for either of us. Also it was following my path. Could it be stalking me?

  I can’t just stand here waiting for the bear to return. I start walking in the direction where the warehouse should have been. Keeping the room with the chairs as room one, I restart my count going straight for ten rooms, then turn right, I go ten more rooms, then left ten, and continue the process of zig zagging every ten rooms.

  Maybe the zigzagging won’t throw off the bear, but it’s all that I have. We are trapped in this place together and I cannot get out the way I got in, at least not now. The entrance is gone. I need to put distance between me and the bear; however, I don’t want to lose track of the chair room. It may be the only location to enter or exit this place even if the way is only open some of the time.

  As I settle into the routine of walking I take another drink of water and try to think what to do next.

  My second problem is temperature. It’s cold and damp here; it’s not freezing, somewhere in the sixties, but cold enough to be uncomfortable. I still have wet hair, socks and shoes, although my clothes have pretty much dried out. I’ll probably be okay if I keep moving, but I’m dressed for a summer run, not air-conditioned rooms. My clothing is designed to keep me cool, not warm. I take my hair out of its pigtails and put the hairbands around my wrists. It will dry faster loose. For now I’ll keep my wet shoes on in case I need to run.

  I may be okay for water if the dripping sprinklers are safe to drink from, but I’ll need food at some point if I can’t get out of this place soon. Even before that I’ll need to sleep.

  After walking briskly through a hundred rooms, I feel some of the stress draining from my body. I’m hopefully making myself safer with each step and the physical activity has warmed me up to where I feel semi-comfortable again. It occurs to me that I haven’t tried my cell phone. I pull it out and predictably, there’s no carrier. I shut it down to conserve battery life and keep walking.