The elevator jerks to a halt.

I frown at the glowing button panel. No one pressed six. I’m alone, briefcase in hand, already late for the pitch meeting on twenty-one. The doors part with a reluctant sigh.

The hallway beyond is dark.

Not pitch-black, just… dim, like the building forgot to pay full attention here. The lights flicker weakly overhead, casting yellow puddles on the faded green carpet. It smells faintly of dust and something sharper—ozone, maybe. Like after a thunderstorm.

I shouldn’t step out. I don’t want to. But something tugs at me. Curiosity, or maybe the sense that I’ve been here before, in a dream I forgot to remember.

I cross the threshold.

The doors close behind me with a metallic whisper. I turn, startled, but there’s no button, no panel—just blank wall where the elevator once stood.

The hallway stretches in both directions. Silent. Still.

I pick a direction.

The silence isn’t empty. It hums. The way an old CRT TV would hum, just on the edge of hearing. And there’s something else—a soft sound, like paper rustling. I follow it.

At the end of the corridor is a door. Pale wood, unmarked, slightly ajar.

Inside is a room with no windows and a long table surrounded by mismatched chairs. A single incandescent bulb dangles from the ceiling. On the table: a stack of manila folders. Each one has a name written in marker on the front.

Mine is on top.

I don’t want to touch it, but I do. I open it.

Inside are photos—of me. Some are recent. Others are from years ago, moments I barely remember: my eighth birthday, the night I broke my arm in college, the exact second I decided not to call my father back.

I flip deeper.

There are transcripts. Conversations I’ve had, thoughts I haven’t spoken. One page reads: He steps into the hallway, knowing he shouldn’t.

My breath catches.

I look up.

There’s someone in the chair at the far end of the table. I didn’t see him come in. He’s wearing a suit that doesn’t fit quite right and has a face that feels like it’s borrowed—familiar, but wrong. He smiles gently.

“You’re early,” he says.

“For what?”

He opens a folder of his own.

“For your reassignment.”

I stare. “I don’t work here.”

“You didn’t,” he says. “But you came to floor six.”

He gestures around the room. The walls are pulsing slightly, like they’re breathing. The air smells like memory.

“This building is a little miswired,” he continues. “Sometimes people press twenty-one and end up here.”

“What is this place?”

“A sorting room,” he says simply. “Some floors are about destinations. This one’s about decisions.”

I back toward the door. It’s no longer there.

“You can go back,” he says. “But you won’t be the same. That’s the price of seeing this place.”

“What’s the other option?”

He taps my file. “Stay. Help sort.”

I look down at the folder still in my hands. My photo stares up, mid-blink. I can’t tell if it’s asking or warning.

Behind me, the hum grows louder. The lights flicker once, then steady.

I pull out the chair beside him and sit.

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