Labyrinth

Recording in three… two… one…

The camera opened to a view of Dr. Edgar's head. He waved at the camera with the hand not holding the camera, a smile forced onto his lips.

“Hello, my name is Dr. Stephen Edgar. Recently a wave of patients have entered my mental hospital with rapidly deteriorating sanity. All of them share a nightmare that begins right here.”

The camera spun around to show a red door standing in the middle of a field of grass, bathed quietly in the light of a crescent moon.

“As their doctor, I'm here to investigate the cause of their illness. To be honest,” he said as the camera moved closer to the door, a slight bounce matching his steps, “I'm shocked this place actually exists. Everything about it defies the very laws of nature.”

His hand reached out to turn the cold, golden knob. The door creaked open to reveal a dusty hallway, lit by a couple dim bars of light hooked to the ceiling. On the end was a large elevator door of solid steel.

“As you can see,” the camera swung to the backside of the door, where only grass and dirt existed, “this hallway doesn't seem to exist in our reality. I can't say if the door functions as a portal or if this place is a pocket dimension of sorts. Anyway, let's explore this thing.”

The screen flickered as it passed through the doorway into the hall. Grey walls basked in the sickly yellow light that blinked on occasion.

Ding! As Dr. Edgar approached, the elevator opened its doors in eager invitation. Inside was a panel with fifteen buttons, split into three columns of five.

“Let's start with the second floor.” Dr. Edgar pressed the second button, and the doors closed in response. After a slight jerk, it started its descent.

“I have several cameras and motion detectors in my bag that I plan to set up around this place. Fifteen floors might be too much space to cover, though…” He trailed off in thought.

The elevator opened its doors to a hallway similar to the one he had just come from, except there were two doors to the left and two to the right, and none on the end.

“Let’s check these rooms before we set anything up,” he said to the camera as his feet stepped onto the cement floor.

On his left, the door groaned, revealing the space behind it to the camera. A black leather chair had its back turned to the newcomer. Its wheels stood on a diluted blue rug that wrinkled with use. In front of the chair was a table of black plastic holding a lamp that pointed its flickering light at the tabletop beneath it.

“Not much here,” Dr. Edgar muttered to himself. He took a step back and investigated the other rooms. Each one was significantly different from the next. In one of the rooms was a swimming pool full of thick, murky water. In another, numerous dusty bookcases full of worn-and-torn books. There was only empty space behind the last door.

Dr. Edgar set the camera on the table in the first room and disappeared into the hall to set up a camera and motion detector.

A couple minutes passed without a sound. Then the camera screen glitched for a second, just before Dr. Edgar returned for the device.

“This floor is now being monitored,” he said. “Time for the next one.”

He returned to the elevator, camera in hand, and charted a course for the third floor. Doors closed, and the metal box began to move.

The third floor was identical to the floor above, with two doors on either side of the singular hallway.

As with the previous rooms, each one was uniquely different from each other, as if this place was an odd gallery of human culture. One room in particular caught Dr. Edgar’s attention–it was a disorganized construction zone. Wooden beams and metal sheets came into focus as the camera swept across the room inch by inch.

“This reminds me of Jeremiah,” Dr. Edgar commented. “He's a construction worker that was admitted to our hospital a few days ago. Our most recent dream patient.”

The camera panned back to the door. On this side, it was made of heavy steel, painted a deep sea blue. “If every floor is this small, it'll be easy to set up enough cameras to monitor the place.”

He slipped through the open door and set the camera on the ground, pointed at the elevator. Metal clicked behind the camera as he fixed another camera and motion detector to the corner of the ceiling.

Ding! A green light flashed on above the elevator, and a second later the doors rolled open.

Inside of the elevator was a black mist that crawled out like a hunter creeping toward its unassuming prey.

“There we go,” Dr. Edgar breathed. “Onto the next room.” The camera shook as he picked it up and walked toward the encroaching mist as if it wasn't there.

“Hmm, when did the elevator open…?” He paused. “I should be careful from here on. I have a bad feeling about this place…”

As he entered the dark elevator, the mist vanished into the air. Gears turned somewhere above to lower the steel box to the fourth floor.

When the doors opened, it revealed a different scene from the previous floors. Cracks were etched into the wall here and there. The light was fuller than before and had a constant flicker that threatened to burn the light out completely. No doors were in sight. Instead, the hallway split at the end.

No later than Dr. Edgar stepped out of the elevator, something snapped. He spun around in time for the camera to catch the elevator disappear beneath the floor.

Dr. Edgar lunged to the edge to watch it plunge several stories to crash with a loud BANG.

“Well that's… inconvenient,” he said. “How am I going to get out now?”

Turning back to the hall, he sighed. “Maybe there's another elevator around here somewhere that somehow returns to the first floor.”

His footsteps echoed off the walls while he explored the floor. Each hall ended with a curve to the right until it completed a full square. On the opposite side of the floor from the fallen elevator was a narrow flight of stairs that twisted downward.

There were only a few rooms on this floor, all of them following the pattern of being seemingly random. In a couple rooms, he mentioned they reminded him of some of the other patients that hadn't been at the hospital for long.

Once again, the camera was placed gently on the dusty floor to enable Dr. Edgar to set up more surveillance. It was pointed down a long hallway with a clear shot of the corner.

Every time the light flashed, the camera would glitch. At the same time, what looked like a human figure would briefly flash on screen, though it could have been part of the static produced by the glitch.

When Dr. Edgar finished, he picked the camera back up and headed to the opposite corner of the square floor to repeat the process. As soon as he had finished, he lifted the main camera off the ground and started for the stairwell. With each echoed step down the concrete stairs, the camera shook.

At last, his feet touched the ground of the lower floor. “Interesting layout we have here…”

The camera glitched as it zoomed in on what was in front of it–an old wooden door only a few paces away, discolored grey from age.

It opened with a loud creak to a rectangular sky blue room. In the corner, beside a white door, was a large bed with sheets the same shade as the walls and three pillows lined up against the head that appeared untouched. Several posters lined the walls for various video games and anime. Bookcases full of manga stood proud opposite the bed. Next to the bed was an old white desk holding up two monitors. Blue light flashed from the black computer underneath in an attempt to show it was still running.

“There’s electricity here? This place gets weirder and weirder,” Dr. Edgar stepped forward, keeping the camera focused on the desk.

Static ran through the camera’s output, its intensity increasing the closer it got to the computer. Dr. Edgar reached out to touch the power button on the corner of one of the monitors. As the screen turned on, the camera glitched.

Displayed on the monitor was black-and-white footage of a small room with a staircase in the back. Mist rose from the descending stairs to obscure the floor. In the top right corner, bony feet stood on the highest visible step. On the top left was a time mark that read the current date.

“Is that…?” Dr. Edgar ran to the door he had walked through only a few seconds ago. The camera caught black mist crawling its way into the bedroom, curling around the doctor’s feet and expanding to cover every inch of the floor.

“...Must be on another floor,” Dr. Edgar let out a shaky breath. “There’s nothing–” The camera glitched again. “What the… The camera is seeing things that I can’t,” he commented. “I’ve got to keep my gun handy.”

He closed the door and returned to the monitor. The strange mist and the feet were gone, but words were written on the side wall in big, bold letters.

I'M HERE.

“This can’t be real…” Dr. Edgar hurried for the door by the bed and shut it behind him with no delay. Another glitch shook the camera. The black fog hadn’t penetrated through the door yet.

Purple painted the walls, and toys were scattered throughout the room. Various stuffed animals and dolls were thrown across the floor like a tornado had gone through, yet others were organized on shelves. A squad of stuffed animals lined the tip of a twin sized bed, sitting atop the red sheets.

“This reminds me of Caroline,” he chuckled to himself. Then he paused. “Now that I think about it, several of these rooms remind me of the dream patients.”

Static attacked the camera with the frequency of a machine gun, causing the screen to flash like a strobe light until sparks shot out of the device and it fell from Dr. Edgar’s hands. It hit the floor with a crash and went unresponsive.