If the world doesn't make sense, make your own sense of it. That single thought steadied me as I faced the door for the second time.

This time, I came prepared.


I'd snagged a heavy-duty headlamp from the maintenance closet—maximum lumens. My pockets bulged with spare batteries. I'd grabbed a fresh roll of bright red duct tape—the industrial-strength stuff that could survive a nuclear blast—to mark my path. My backpack held water and energy bars. No idea how long I'd be in there, but I wouldn't be forced back by basic needs.

With a deep breath, I pushed the door open.

That hungry darkness surged toward me like a living thing. I switched on my headlamp, its powerful beam slicing through the blackness—exponentially stronger than my phone's weak light. This time I could clearly see the corridor floor: solid cement, no pitfalls or traps.


First things first—I laid down a massive X of red tape on the floor just inside the doorway. My starting point. My lifeline. My "coordinate zero." No matter how far I ventured, finding this marker meant finding my way home.

I started down the corridor, my headlamp beam sweeping across rough concrete walls. That same dust-and-ozone smell hung in the air. I moved deliberately, pushing aside thoughts about how wrong this all was, pretending I was just an engineer conducting a routine inspection of an unfamiliar area.


About a hundred meters in, the corridor forked—one path left, one right, both swallowed by darkness ahead. The place was beginning to resemble some massive ant colony.

I took the left path. At each junction, I slapped tape on the wall with an arrow pointing back toward my entry point. The red markers stood out vividly against the gray concrete. Basic navigation technique I'd learned in the Army—foolproof.

I continued for another half hour, passing through at least six more junctions, each marked with my bright red arrows. My headlamp beam remained strong, my markers clearly visible. I had this under control.

Then, at yet another intersection, after placing my latest arrow, I glanced back out of habit.

The wall behind me was bare.

The red arrow I'd just placed—gone.

My stomach dropped. I spun around, frantically scanning the wall with my light. Nothing. The concrete remained rough but unmarked, without even the sticky residue tape leaves behind.

Panic hit me like a truck. I sprinted back the way I came, checking every junction where I'd left markers. All empty. Every single bright red lifeline—vanished.

I raced back to my entry point. The massive X I'd created—gone too. The floor pristine, as though I'd never touched it.

This place was "cleaning up" after me. Erasing any evidence of my presence.

I was utterly, hopelessly lost.

Terror washed over me like ice water. I slumped against the wall, chest heaving, my headlamp beam dancing wildly with each gasping breath. I forced myself to calm down and pulled out my phone.

I opened my mapping app.

The familiar Google Maps interface never loaded. Instead, a crude display I'd never seen before filled my screen. Black background with glowing green lines, like something from an 80s sci-fi movie. A blinking dot at the center—clearly representing me.

I shifted my weight, and the dot moved correspondingly. The green lines—the "paths"—were constantly changing. The corridors I'd already walked vanished seconds after I passed through them. And ahead of me, new passages randomly generated, extended, and folded in on themselves.

This place was alive. An ever-shifting labyrinth that had somehow assimilated my phone, turning it into a real-time display of its own evolving architecture.

As I stared at the screen in mounting despair, I heard footsteps.

The sound came from around the corner ahead—steady, unhurried. Terrified, I killed my headlamp and pressed myself into the shadows, not daring to breathe.

A figure emerged from around the bend. They wore a headlamp too, its beam sweeping across the opposite wall. Blue janitor uniform identical to mine. Same model backpack.

A colleague? Another maintenance worker trapped in here?

I nearly called out, but something stopped me. The figure's silhouette, their walking posture—that slight hunch, the way they favored their left foot—it was all too familiar.

That was exactly how I walked.

He passed by without noticing me, continuing toward another junction. I followed on instinct, mind reeling. I switched my headlamp to its dimmest setting and trailed at a safe distance.

He rounded a corner and vanished.

I rushed after him, reaching the corner seconds later. The passage ahead stood empty—the figure gone.

But there on the ground where he'd just been walking was something.

An ID badge.

I approached cautiously and picked it up. The plastic holder was coated with dust. I wiped it clean and held it under my light.

In that moment, my blood turned to ice.

The face in the photo was mine.

But not me. The face was mine, but aged at least a decade. Deep lines carved into the corners of his eyes and across his forehead. Gray hair. But what chilled me most was the expression—a hollow, dead-eyed stare utterly devoid of hope.

With shaking fingers, I patted the breast pocket of my uniform. My own ID badge was still there.

I pulled it out and held it beside the one I'd found.

Two badges. Two faces. Both mine. One from the present, one from some impossible future.