II

Ethan woke up to a room bathed in harsh, yellow light. Fluorescent bulbs hummed overhead, their flickering casting unsettling shadows. This was not part of the building he had entered. It was something else. Something...familiar. An odd sense of familiarity washed over Ethan, turning off the warning lights going off in his head. Had he been here before at some time in his life? Maybe as a kid? Ethan felt so secure here. It was as if he had gone back to his childhood home.

This false sense of security was short lived. Ethan reminded himself about what had just happened. He fell through the floor of the abandoned building, although he didn't see any debris under his feet. The ceiling above his head was completely intact as well. It's as if he literally fell through the floor.

The humming of the fluorescent lights was also something Ethan hadn't heard when he was opening the door from earlier. The lights were loud. He would have heard them through the floor. Just where was he, anyways? The house's basement was just comprised of a boiler room in its report. The walls were supposed to be black and the floor a bleak concrete grey. Ethan took a look around. All of walls were lined in an ugly late 80's yellow wallpaper with floral decor imprinted in brown, and the carpet was an uglier yellow. As Ethan looked up to see what the ceiling looked like, he squinted. It was like looking directly at the sun. As he stepped back, the carpet squished underneath his feet, and Ethan realized just how moist it was.

Panic set through Ethan's head as he started to walk around. This place was huge - much bigger than the cramped interior of that decaying house - and there wasn't any doors in sight. "What the fuck." Ethan whispered uncontrollably. His breathing sped up, and he turned around to get back to where he fell through. Still looking backwards, he began to sprint. As soon as he turned around, he hit a wall. A wall that wasn't there before.

Dazed and confused, Ethan gasped up at his new environment. He turned around in a full circle, and witnessed the horror of his new environment. Every time he turned around, his surroundings behind him changed. At this point, Ethan's urban survival instincts were starting to take over. Panic was subsided by curiosity, and Ethan wanted answers to where he was. His first step was to assess his surroundings.

Apart from the walls, floors, and ceilings, there was one thing that gave him a big hint to the place he was in: cubicles. The stark, unending rows of office cubicles that stretched before him were enough to make him feel nauseous trying to count them. He walked by them and looked, but each was identical to the last with a few exceptions. After a few hours of aimlessly walking through the everchanging surroundings, Ethan had figured out a few of the rules of this place:

1.) The unobserved area around you will always change, so it is very important which direction you are looking in.

2.) Although every office cubicle is similar to the last, the objects within it can change.

2a.) A few of these objects can include simple office supplies - such as scissors, staplers, keyboards, computer mice, and writing utensils - to what Ethan liked to call "special items", ones he had never heard of before. These included powerful flashlights that don't run out of power, aluminum cans that are filled with sweet water that helped with the stale air surrounding the environments, and a purple jelly that - out of desperation - Ethan took a bite of and was pleasantly surprised with a sweet taste that filled him up rather quickly.

3.) Blinking does not reset the environment in front of you, so you have to consciously decide not to observe a specific area.

...

Although these rules were short, it helped Ethan maintain a level of sanity and turn it more into an exploration. To Ethan, it sounded a lot more fun than a desperate cry to escape this maze. But as time passed, it seemed to Ethan that no matter how many goodies he found through the endless cubicles, he wasn't leaving any time soon. No matter how much he held out hope, every time he turned around his progress was practically reset. He was trapped in this twisted new environment, and he knew it. He just couldn't accept it.

3 days later, Ethan awoke from his "bed"1 with a good attitude. Today is the day I get the hell out of here! Ethan assured himself. As he ventured once again through the endless maze, something felt different - which, suffice to say, shouldn't be a feeling within this environment. The sudden feeling of being watched crept over his entire body. From the corner of his eye, he spotted a fleeting shadow. Turning, he found nothing but the endless expanse of cubicles. Yet the sense of presence persisted. It dawned on Ethan that he might not be alone in this bizarre dimension.

He turned again to make sure he didn't start adventuring in the direction he saw the enigma. He picked his pace up, reassuring himself he wasn't being followed. Then, a flicker of red caught his eye. A door, distinctly different from the monochrome office palette, stood at the end of a row of cubicles. But as soon as he focused on it, the door vanished. His puzzled expression quickly was washed over by a face of unbridled grief. "Anything goes here, I guess" he muttered, defeatedly. As he blinked, the door appeared again, and disappeared once more as he focused on it again.

Ethan grinned and flipped off the empty void to his left and right. He figured out the puzzle. He recalled tales of optical illusions and peripheral vision tricks, and the key to this level was something similar. At least, that's what he thought. Ethan decided to test his theory. Keeping his gaze forward, he walked sideways, keeping the red door just at the edge of his vision.

Each step was a gamble, a fight against instinct to look directly at his target. The red door grew larger, more distinct, yet Ethan resisted the urge to glance at it. His heart pounded in his chest as he drew closer. Just as he was within arm's reach, he lunged sideways, tumbling through the door's threshold.

The world spun, and suddenly, Ethan found himself in an entirely new environment. Gone were the flickering lights and cubicles, replaced by an expanse that defied all logic and expectation. He wasn't outside of the house. He wasn't safe, either. Everything around him was completely black. Ethan bit his bottom lip in sheer horror. Had he made the wrong decision? Was he not supposed to go through that door? Was it all a trap??

And then, the floor beneath him disappeared.