Lucas woke up in a hotel room he didn’t remember checking in to. The room was horribly outdated. There was a tube TV on the wall, locked into its bracket. The busy-patterned wallpaper was something he remembered from his childhood. A rotary phone sat on the nightstand. There was a faint smell of cigarette smoke, and he looked for his pack. Gone…and so was his wallet, his phone, and his keys. He looked around the room for them but found nothing.

            He had been out drinking the night before, at one of the new hipster gastropub places—what was it? It was named after animals—a bar that specialized in cutesy appetizers—a place more for foodies than drunks. Not his kind of place, but he was meeting old friends there. He must have blacked out. But yet, he didn’t feel as completely horrible as he usually did when he drank too much. He just didn’t remember anything past getting in the front door of the bar. 

He went to the window, thinking he might recognize where he was, but when he pulled the curtains open, the glass only looked out onto bricks. A building right next door? It didn’t make any sense. None of it did.

            His mouth was unbearably dry. He went in the bathroom and turned the handles—nothing. He tried the tub and shower—nothing.  That’s when he noticed the toilet was also empty. All the water was gone.

            He stumbled to the phone. He picked it up, expecting the line to be dead. It was. Why should the phone work when nothing else did? Something was horribly wrong with this room.

            He tried to remember checking in but came up with nothing. He must have checked in.  They gave him a room with no ID or money. Even a crappy, outdated hotel with no water wants money. Someone at the front desk would have an answer.

            He tied his shoes, tried to tame his hair in the mirror, and straightened the rumpled clothes he had slept in. He walked out the door, and it quickly clicked shut behind him. He turned and checked—locked. He slapped the door in anger, but let it go. There was nothing in that room for him, anyway.

            He got to the elevator in the hallway. Across was an empty ice machine, a water-stained carpet underneath. He checked it for a few cubes. No luck. Then turned back to the elevator and pushed the down button. Nothing. Of course it didn’t work either. He waited for a moment, just in case, then headed for the stairs.

            The staircase lights gave a low hum as he went down a flight. And another. And another. He looked over the side but there wasn’t enough space to see how far up he was, and there were no labels on the doors. He went down. And down. And down. And down. He turned and walked down until he got dizzy. Last night’s booze was catching up with him. When his legs became shaky and tired, he was at the bottom, facing a door that said “Lobby.” Finally.

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

            He opened the door and stepped through. He was in the lobby, he could see the front desk, but it was empty. The furniture and the brochure rack and the other items one sees in a lobby were gone.

            Beyond the glass of the front door was a corrugated metal security door. This hotel had been closed for some time. He looked around the front desk for any kind of clue of the name of the hotel or an address. A piece of old mail would tell him where he was.

            Somehow he had gotten in the night before. He had gotten to this place and gotten up the stairs or maybe the elevator worked then, but somehow he had gotten up to whatever floor he was on and got in the room and passed out on the bed. He had a room key or someone else let him in to the room. At some point, he should have remembered something, but there was nothing—just entering the bar, then the bed.

            In one drawer, he found a pad of paper and a pencil. The pad of paper said “The Hightower” on it. It didn’t help him. The Hightower. It meant nothing to him. The name of the gastropub came to him: “The Cattle & Piglet.” He jotted that down then drew an arrow. He waited a moment to remember anything else about the night but gave up. He drew a question mark, then jammed the pad into his back pocket, the pencil into his front pocket, and continued exploring.

            Every door was locked, save for one that said MAINTENANCE in stenciled lettering that looked spray painted on. When the door opened, it shocked him but gave him a bit of hope—not everything here was useless! Eventually something would work.

            Behind the door was a long hallway with pipes along the ceiling. There was water on the floor in spots. He strode down the hall, keeping the door in the distance in focus. It was the height of a postage stamp in his view, but even from this far away, there was light escaping it.

            After walking a while, he regretted not counting his steps. How long was this hallway? The door didn’t seem any closer. He thought about returning to the main hotel and looking for another unlocked door, but when he turned around, the door behind him looked as small as the door in front of him. He turned back around and got a horrible feeling—he had to be careful not to turn around, walk, and then turn around again, if he lost track of what he was doing, he could be stuck in this tunnel for hours. He marched on, with a little quickness in his step.

            He thought about the night before. A phone call. Not a text, a call, from Clayton. Clayton and his wife…Hailey, were in town, last minute, wanted to know if Lucas would come down and join him. There was something about another girl, too. Someone he wanted Lucas to meet. But he couldn’t remember exactly what. Didn’t take much promise to get Lucas out of the house. It was one of those dry dating spells, where he was just swiping and swiping, sending the occasional message and not getting any responses. The idea of the old-fashioned meeting a friend-of-a-friend sounded great to him.

            The door stayed tiny, until it seemed it was rushing at him—he put one hand on the cold metal door to stop himself. Had he been running? Sprinting? He wasn’t out of breath but his heart was racing. He pumped the panic bar on the left side of the door. Nothing. He pumped the right. It opened to a brightly lit room, the size of an airplane hangar.

            Lucas looked out on an Olympic-sized swimming pool, empty of water.