“The Elevator”
It was after hours when Janine, the office cleaner, stepped into the lobby elevator. She pressed the button for the top floor. ]The building was quiet that night—too quiet.
The elevator began to rise, but the panel lights began to flicker, and then froze on floor 11. The doors slid open—not to the 25th floor, but to a hallway that couldn’t exist—old dingy wallpaper, no windows, and all the lights flickering overhead.
She leaned out, confused. The carpet smelled of mildew. –Somewhere down the hall, a phone rang once, sharp and metallic.
Janine hit “close door” again and again, her heart was pounding. Finally the doors creaked shut, the elevator jerked, and when it opened again, she was back in the lobby.
The security guard swore she never left the building. But she had—because on the sole of her shoe was damp, rotting carpet fiber from a hallway that wasn’t supposed to be there, from a floor no blueprint ever showed.
Janine never worked another night shift. And no one ever found that hallway again.