Chapter 10: Unnatural Disaster

I wandered out into a destroyed office space. The windows were blown out and a cold wind blew through the building. It was almost bare concrete with a few tattered walls still standing with debris scattered along the floor. Dead office plants and broken office equipment. Everything was wet.

I wandered over to the nearest window and was shocked by what I was looking at. It looked like an ocean, with a building sporadically placed here and there in the distance. The water was muddy and murky, it looked almost blue, but mostly brown.

This was going to be a rough floor to try and get through. I was probably going to need to find or make a raft of some kind to keep my stuff dry between the buildings, as there isn't a chance the exit was in the same building I started in.

Well, like every floor, I guess it was time to explore. I had to look around for a while, but I found stairs that went up. I wanted to be farther away from the water, just in case it was like an actual ocean, and the sea level changed or there were waves.

I noticed the floors and walls were slightly damp, more evidence in my favor for climbing higher being the better option. I went up roughly five floors before there was slightly less destruction, and I noticed the water level was already increasing.

I must have come in during low tide. I went up another five floors, just to be safe. There was almost nothing broken, but the office itself was still messy. Paper and desks everywhere, as if a stampede of people passed through here destroying everything.

I wonder if everything was just placed here like this… or is this place a perfect collection of the worst of the worst from alternate realities. The only problem with that theory is the randomization when looking away. I normally wouldn't think too hard about it, but it had started to bother me.

Randomization as a concept is unnatural, in the truest form. Things should not change whether they are observed or not. Trying to wrap my head around the concept made my head hurt. This floor was particularly bad for randomization, as when I looked out a window, I would see an office tower in the distance, but turning around would cause it to move or disappear.

Actually, I remember watching a science video a long time ago about how certain things on the quantum scale changed when you weren't looking at them, but this wasn't the microscopic scale, it was macroscopic. Entire buildings are moving around me at rates that should be completely impossible.

Whatever made these floors work was well beyond reality. I was starting to believe less and less that this place was naturally created. This place has been made with a purpose, and my curiosity was tingling with the anticipation of finding out things. I would have to get to The Hub to learn more.

This was the last floor before the one I was warned about. I was nervous, the man who had returned to floor five had come through here and had given up. I was worried, was I ready? I had no way of knowing. The only thing I know is that there are voices I can't ignore and there are worms that are violent.

I had to prepare to ignore my own thoughts as I wandered the floor. A unique thing to me, as why would anyone ignore their own thoughts, they should be your own to control. I guess this place was worse than I could even comprehend, and who knew what else was lying in wait for me even lower.

I wasn't naïve enough to believe that there was only going to be a handful of floors here. I would have to have some form of mental damage to not see that I was going to be stuck delving in here for probably a very long time. I knew this, and I was ready.

I will escape.

That was a promise I made to myself once I escaped floor one, and I am going to keep that promise. Not even death can stop me, if there even is an afterlife, I will come back and completely escape from here. I was resolute.

The building shook, and I looked down out one of the windows. Through the murky water, I could see a massive creature lurking beneath the water. It was absolutely massive. It had the shape of a whale, but I could see the outline go off quite far into the distance.

I had to travel through water that had these things in it? I was definitely going to need a boat of some kind, and I don't think I was going to find one on a floor like this. I genuinely hope there is a lot of food and water in this place, as I was going to have to learn how to make a boat using only office supplies.

Not the most complex task, I would have to test it a few times before I made the decision to go to a new building. I would have to be very careful with randomization, making a mistake, then sinking meant death.

I found a floor that was mostly intact, and even had an office breakroom. I found a few snacks and some rotting food in a fridge, and a few suspect bottles of water that looked similar to what was in the sea below.

The bottles were sealed, which threw me off. I decided to check the label and was actually surprised at what I read. 'Muddy Water', are you kidding me? What happened to 'Clear Water'! Where is the brand loyalty!

I decided to open one of the bottles of muddy water and smelled it, it smelled unnaturally sweet. Like someone had mixed ten packets of sugar into the water. I decided against a taste test, I had a bad feeling about it, so I did an old test for things that seemed inedible.

An old, yet crude test. I poured a tiny amount of the water onto a desk, and waited to see if it would do anything to the desk. I waited around for a few minutes and it didn't do anything, so I poked a drop of the water with my finger and it felt kind of gritty. I guess there might be mud mixed into the water, but what kind of mud smells sweet?

Not thinking too hard on it, I wiped a bit of the gritty water on the back of my hand. It felt odd, it had the feel of sand on the back of my hand despite it being water. I waited for a few minutes, and wiped it off, there was a small rash forming on my skin. Irritation that couldn't be caused simply by rubbing a gritty substance on my hand.

This was not drinkable. If it caused irritation on normal skin, I could only imagine what it would do to my stomach. Nothing good, and in fact, the situation was not looking good. How was I going to get water if the bottles were probably all this 'Muddy Water' stuff.

I could try boiling it to see if that changes anything, it would be a hassle, but if it worked, I would have a reliable source of water, even if it was more work than I was used to. I would go back to rationing my current water then if that was the case. Which means that even if I don't get any water from this point on, I had two weeks of water, and roughly five of food, six if I pushed it.

I could find food, and the food was safe. I wasn't just sitting idly while I waited for my crude water test results. I also tested one of the granola bars I found despite it being the exact same brand, look and smell of the normal granola bars I already had.

I decided to climb all the way to the top of the building and see what I could see at the top. I was probably already halfway up, based on my leaning out a broken window and looking up. I was hesitant to climb to the top, just in case the building started to collapse, but I had some faith that this place wouldn't be cruel enough to let a building collapse on top of me without giving me fair warning.

Some floors of the building were easier to find the stairs than others. I kept an eye out for useful materials for building a boat, and some notable things caught my eyes. Round desks, or even one desk in a side office that had actual logs as legs. I could also use those for making good fires though, and the very top of the building wasn't a bad place to make a fire if the wind wasn't too much.

Eventually, I found the roof as the sky was beginning to get dark. The door at the top of the stairs was unlocked, so I just walked right out. The salty wind with a vaguely sweet smell was the first thing to greet me. I wonder what about the water was making it smell sweet despite it also being kind of salty like sea water.

The air was humid, I felt like my skin was getting wet just standing outside, so maybe this wasn't a good place to build a fire, or maybe this was just a unique weather pattern. I would be able to find out after I slept. If the only dangerous creature was the giant creatures in the water, sleeping on this floor might actually be good.

Like any good office I had also seen sleeping bags and other places to sleep in some side rooms. I wonder what kind of business ran out of a building like this, or if it was multiple businesses. Actually, it was more likely to be multiple businesses instead of just a single one in a building of this size.

I guess it doesn't matter that much at the end of the day who used to be here. I was here now, and nothing was going to stop me from stealing a mattress and someone's old sleeping bag. I no longer felt bad about taking the things left behind by people who were no longer here.

…

I had a nice sleep on the mattress and was only awoken by the sun shining in through the window. The mattress felt almost damp in the morning air, did I sweat a lot, or was the air seeping into the building's upper floors?

I did my morning stretches and walked to the roof to assess things. The creature that took up a large portion of the water last night had completely disappeared, probably just swimming along. I wonder how long a creature like that really is. It looked to be much bigger than some whales I have seen on the internet, but I don't know if it is that much bigger.

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It felt less humid today as I stood out under the morning sun, but that might change as the day goes on. The sweet smell was also lessened today, another mystery to add to the many that this floor has. This floor was more mysterious than dangerous so far. It didn't seem like there was anything actively hunting me.

I was a bit worried, so I had barricaded myself in a side room and stacked desks in front of the door until I was sure that nothing would get through without waking me up first. A healthy dose of paranoia was definitely going to keep me alive on these floors.

The real danger of this floor was the lack of clean water, so I would have to find some way to either filter or boil. I wonder if I could get a water distillation setup going. I would need a lot of things to make distillation even thinkable, and the setup might not even be worth it because depending on how I make the boat, I would struggle to bring it with me to the next building.

The boat was its whole own battle I would have to figure out. If I could find some sort of rope or cable strong enough, I might have an easier time with it. I wonder if the drop ceiling has any usable wires in it.

I went back inside the building and looked at the ceiling. There was a pretty good chance there would be some usable stuff hidden up here. I removed one of the panels after climbing on a desk and looked around with the limited light I had. I removed a few panels in different locations and eventually found some interesting stuff.

The light fixtures appeared to be some type of stainless steel, I could use that as a pot for boiling water over a fire. There were also water pipes in the ceiling, and when I tried to rip them out, the horrid brown water came leaking out of them. There were also plenty of cables in the ceiling, they were electrical and network cables, so they were strong enough to keep some basic things tied together.

There was a massive amount of cables hidden just above the drop ceiling, so I could get crazy with my projects and still have plenty of material to work with. In that vein, I was thinking on how I could get a distillation for the muddy water set up. I could jam the water pipe into the top of the recessed light fixture, but I would lose so much steam through various gaps in the system.

I didn't have anything to wrap it in, or seal the holes. Would I just have to deal with the inefficiency, or was there some sort of tinfoil stiff I could find. Some older buildings surrounded lights in it to dissipate heat so that the materials wouldn't catch fire from the older lights that produced more heat.

I wandered around a few floors until I found exactly what I was looking for. A floor with different lighting. Inside of the larger fixtures was a reflective layer of material that peeled away from the metal. I could only hope that it wasn't lead, otherwise I could get very sick, but it was enough.

I went to the roof and made probably the ugliest water distiller known to mankind. The wind was blowing, meaning the water pipe would stay nice and cool. It was long enough that any steam should condensate back into water, but it was bound to come out the end anyways.

I used my ax to create some supports from desks to hold up my wonderful creation. The actual boiling apparatus was placed higher than what was going to be my 'clean' water collection. So I dragged up a metal desk to place the raised part on so I didn't need to build a massive fire just to reach the thing.

Fire eventually started with the materials given to me, it was time to see if I could actually get any yield from this thing. I would probably let it run for a bit to clean out the water pipe, but after that, I should get some clean drinking water. Actually, if I run it hotter so more steam goes through, it should clean faster even if it will go through more water.

I had found a ton of the 'Muddy Water' bottles, so I wasn't worried about running short on them. The process was smooth, I would pour water in, let it boil, see steam come out the other side, and some water. After probably a few hours, the water coming out of the end of the pipe was clean.

I collected a decent amount of clean water and stocked up with a lot more water than I would normally carry. I was under the assumption that this distillation setup would be something I wouldn't be able to bring with me. I currently had the supplies to survive for a bit over a month without ever getting another drop of water.

The absolute bare amount of water would be consumed in the coming days along this floor. I was going to start learning how to make a boat using the supplies available. I was hoping I could use some base knowledge I had, but only actually trying things will show any results. If I leave the distillation setup here, I should be able to reuse it before I leave.

A few days quickly flew by while I was trying some boat building ideas. I struggled to get anything meaningful made as I realized all I had was desks and cable. I didn't know how to get something to float properly without just piling a bunch of desks on top of each other and hoping it would float. It obviously didn't.

I tried making something I had seen and made something that looked like cardboard in nature. I made planks out of the desks like spacers between larger sheets of wood. The test piece floated nicely, but it sank a decent amount once I stood on it, so I replicated it three more times and tied them all together, it floated, and even with the weight of two full desks and myself it barely even sank or tipped, it felt quite stable.

I was going to rest for one more night before I traveled to the next building. I was feeling a little dizzy, so some sleep might be good. I'll drink a bit more water than normal, see if that helps me, I might be slightly dehydrated. I could always distill some more later before I left.

…

I woke up and my vision was blurry and the light hurt my head. I put a hand to my head and felt it was incredibly hot, My heart rate increased rapidly as I fell into a panic. I was coated in sweat, unnaturally so. My limbs felt heavy and eyes felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets.

My worst fear had come true, and I was surprised it had taken so long. I was sick, very sick. There was no way to check my temperature, but I knew it was a nasty fever. It could have been caused by anything, but I suspect the muddy water I've been standing in and near for so long while trying to make this damned raft.

I tried to stand, but was wobbly on my feet. I made it over to my bag and took a few of the acetaminophen tablets that I had saved until now. I popped open the freshness seal with some difficulty and decided I needed to get a few floors higher, even if it hurt. I needed to get to a more enclosed space where I could hole myself up until this fever passed.

I felt miserable as I traveled up the stairs. It felt like my limbs had been filled with lead. My head was hurting so much that any sound I made was amplified by what felt like a few hundred times. The pain was almost unbearable.

I eventually found a nice room in the corner of the floor where I could close the door. There was only a single window that I eventually managed to cover with a couple desks. The room was dark and my headache was already starting to feel better when I laid down on a mattress.

I was worried about how long this would last and if I could sit it out without dying. Death was a huge fear right now. I was sick on my own with a fever, and I was forced to move around when I should have been resting.

So, I rested. I rested for what felt like a week before I felt good enough to move around at full strength again. Locked in a dark room wasn't good for my sanity, so I had gone out a couple of times to walk around and stretch my limbs.

I had almost fully recovered, but I still had headaches. Something I could just power through though. They weren't debilitating like when I had just gotten sick, god that was an awful week. Probably the worst thing I've ever had to recover from.

I went back to work on my boat immediately, I needed to check the other office buildings. I rigged up some oars to the sides so I could just work hard and not think too much like trying to paddle on floor five. I was also going to abuse randomization to get a building that was as close to me as possible.

I rigged up my boat out one of the windows when it was low tide. I loaded up all of my stuff. Which was just me and some key pieces from my distillation setup. The clean pipe and the boiling apparatus was going to be very tricky to make again with probably different things in the next building, so I was keeping it.

I was breathing heavily and paddling through the water after picking a close building to go to, when suddenly one of the large creatures slid beneath my raft. I was panicking slightly as it shifted me and my belongings around.

It was fine though, as the creature just kept going. I could only just barely see its outline through the dense water, but I could tell it was massive. Another thing I noticed was the sweet smell that got stronger as the creature was passing beneath me. Was it coming from these things?

I made it to the next building and climbed in quickly through the window. I brought my raft in and tied it to the stairs. So even if the tide changed, my raft would stay on this floor. It was probably nearing high tide already, so it might be troublesome to move my raft down the floor or two that low tide settled at.

It is what it is, so I'll move it once it comes to that. Unfortunately, it was the time where the floor just became a grind fest until I found the exit. I had everything I needed to survive, so I just needed to keep exploring.

Explore, and explore. I had been on this floor for almost a whole month, and I had yet to find the exit. I had explored roughly fifteen buildings from top to bottom and I should have found the exit by now. I didn't though, and I was getting worried. I was going about this the wrong way. I was avoiding the water because it had made me sick.

I was about to set up my raft which hadn't changed much over the weeks I'd been using it, as I'd replaced pieces as they wore out and broke, but I thought of something. What if the exit wasn't above water, what if this sadistic place hid it in the water that would make me sick.

I was probably building a decent resistance to it at this point, but I was hesitant to test that theory after the nasty fever I had gotten. I had gotten a few minor fevers since then, but nothing that floored me like the first one. It was also really hard to see under the water, so what if I got lost under there, or what if there was a drastic change in tides while I was down there.

Drowning, a fear that was natural to anything that had to breathe air to live. There was nothing to lose from having a quick look around down at least one floor while it was low tide. If the exit really was below the water, I would have some trouble getting my clothes and stuff through.

I took off my bag and just jumped in the water to the floor below. I wasn't expecting to see anything, but I saw the glow. That damned green glow was taunting me under the water. The exit that had eluded me for so long was just within reach.

Everything I had with me was going to get soaked with the brown water. There was nothing I could do about it. I hadn't found any way to waterproof anything while on this floor, no matter how much I looked around. And I sure as hell wasn't leaving this floor without my gear and supplies.

I put on my bag and went for the exit. I had been practicing holding my breath for a while on this floor now, in case I did get caught underwater. I was nervous, and I could feel my quickly beating heart as I went to the exit as fast as possible. I was worried about the door as my lungs were threatening to force me to breathe.

The door swung open as if there wasn't any water against it. The door had a straight handle, and was super easy to push open. None of the water flowed through the door, creating this wall of stationary water. I fell through the wall of water and hit the concrete of the stairwell with a wet flop.

It was time to see what was so difficult about floor eleven. But I was going to try and dry off first before I went down the stairs.