It’s very awkward when you don’t have anything to talk about. Neither of us remember our names, our past memories, only just basic human instinct. My lack of vocals is also not helping the atmosphere. Because of this, these long and aimless walks are most often in silence, the only sound heard being Gin’s boots behind me hitting the ground and our breathing.

Nonetheless, we make it to the wall with the doors. Despite the fact the doors were unlocked when I first found them, they all had keyholes on them. I take the key and ready it to be inserted into the keyhole. I look behind me to find Gin, cleared out of the way of the door and covering behind a crate. I don’t blame her to be honest, I’d be really suspicious too.

Inserting the key in the door and turning it, I hear a click. The euphoric rush of finally progressing causes me to swing the door open extremely fast. That feeling quickly dissipates. It was still walled off with concrete.

Gin starts to speak, ‘Well, this is very peculiar.” She sounds a bit disappointed. She starts to look around and down the line of doors.

“There are numerous doors besides this one, let’s just explore our options.” Gin is right, we can’t give up just yet. So we continued looking for the right door. The key fit all of the keyholes for some reason. Each door gave that satisfying click as I turned the key. Unfortunately though, that’s the only redeeming thing about this, because they were all dead ends. All of them were covered with the same solid concrete wall.

Gin was very obviously annoyed by this. She was probably growing impatient, as was I. After a long while of searching doors, we started finding doors already opened. The doors were all covered by the same walls. It was almost as if someone was telling us that it wasn’t going to happen. That’s when I heard a long sigh from my ally.

Gin was looking at a crate on the shelf for a bit. I’m not sure what was so interesting about it, it just looked like all the others. After a bit of staring, she turns to me.

“I’m afraid this area is not as big as we hoped.” I was confused by this remark, but she continued. “The crate over there is moved, it is no longer straight. Someone moved it, and this mystery person was me.” I felt a pit in my stomach open. We were in a loop. The room was infinitely looping. This place cannot be real. An infinitely looping room, how fantastical. Given the events that have happened, it’s not like it is impossible to be the reality though. While this indeed narrowed down our search to a smaller area, it also meant that where we were was much more inhuman than we thought.

I’m not sure how to process this revelation. Gin is lost in thought.

“Let’s not let this grim scenario deter us. We must escape one way or another.” I suppose we shall continue our search for the way out.

Obviously, the doors were not the way. The looping room has cut that out of the equation. The key must be for something else.There is no way the only hint we have found so far is a red herring, I refuse to believe so. I look around to scout out any other ideas.

The floors are tiled, with no sight of any secret compartments or anything of the sort. The ceiling is no different, solid concrete with no clues. Our ticket out of here was being obfuscated. Seems like we would have to be meticulous to get out of here.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Gin’s first idea was the crates again, it's a lot of crates, but if we go through all of them there may be more hidden. We go on the shelves closest to us to start looking. I immediately hear a loud bang from behind. Damn it she fell again. I look behind me to find Gin on the floor once again. The crate she had crumbled had nothing in it.

“Maybe I should leave the crate opening to you…” She was clearly winded from the fall. I nodded in confirmation. The situation seemed almost comical, but it is what it is. I helped her up. I started walking towards the next crate as she followed.

This was definitely a tedious process, especially since we were not so sure there would be anything else here. Crate after crate, still hadn’t found anything useful inside the boxes. Eventually, we reached the loop point once again. The space we were in had about 20 shelves; this was going to take a long while. Gin and I sat on one of the shelves to brainstorm.

What are we to do? It’s not like we have anything better to do so we are going to have all the time in the world to explore this place, but it isn’t much help if we don’t know what we are looking for. The concrete covered doors were a no go, there has been nothing in the crates so far, both vertical sides of the room were plain. Our leads are sparse.

My period of being lost in thought was interrupted by a loud bang. Oh gods she’s done it again. I look in front of me, there’s a crate on the floor and another bang. I look at the bang again to find Gin pushing the next crate over. It appears some drastic measures are being taken. It’s not like I can say anything about it. I get up and follow her, looking at the bottoms of the destroyed crates for clues.

The room was filled with the deafening sound of wood crashing to the floor. It was barbaric, but it seems we have run out of options. The two of us slowly made our way through the numerous shelves, knocking over the crates. The destruction of the crates was strangely relieving. It felt like it was a way to take out our frustration against our unfortunate situation.

The ground is littered with the mess we were causing. Shelf after shelf, I followed behind Gin, looking at the bottoms of the wood for any sorts. Our efforts have so far proven to be a waste of time. It looks like we needed to think outside of the box. The area is not limitless, so there has to be something. Neither of us would be sent here for no reason, especially due to some strange circumstances.

Gin’s first thought was to go up. There was a spacing between the ceiling, big enough for her to fit on. She pointed to my shoulders, she most likely couldn’t climb up it herself. I was embarrassed to say the least, and I am not really sure why. I guess someone you just met only a short while ago using you as a human ladder is something to be ashamed of. I get down on my knees so she can climb on. Her weight is… feather light. Perhaps I have more strength than what I would think based on my physique, but Gin was incredibly light. I wouldn’t say inhumanly so, just lighter than what I expected.

The shelves were not too difficult to traverse for her. She seemed relatively agile, plus the shelves were not exceedingly tall. Just me standing straight while she stood on my shoulders was enough for a little jump to grab hold of the very top. She turns herself around and sits on the top.

“It doesn’t seem much different than what I expected. The horizon is still covered by the same darkness as down there” Gin’s voice echoes through the void.

The ceiling unfortunately doesn’t lead us anywhere. Solid concrete, not any sort of tile that would be able to be pushed through or broken. I really don’t think there was much help in doing this. Gin appeared to share my train of thought, as she started to wiggle herself off the top.

“Catch me, will you?” And that’s when Gin stops, and looks ahead. Her pupils widen, showing an emotion hard to describe.

“I hear something.” I look in her general direction in a split second. Something was making a sound, the first sound made that was not of our own accord. The sound?

A low rumbling moan.