It was one of those strange days in November when daylight never really broke through. Rain was pouring out of the sky as Matt stood in front of the college hall and sighted. Nope. No way was he passing through that to the dorms. He’d be soaked to the bones in seconds. Then again…
He let his gaze wander through the empty hall. Everyone else already left or didn’t even appear to class. Just waiting out the rain in an empty building didn’t sound very appealing either.
Just as he was reaching for the door to get himself soaked, he remembered something: In theory, both buildings shared the same basement (or so he heard). Shouldn’t it be possible to reach the dorms through it without taking a shower? Well, he had definitely some time to try!
Cobwebs and dust were reflecting the cold white light of his cellphone. There wasn’t just a basement, it turned out, but a whole labyrinth of old and dusty tunnels, some with flickering lights, some entirely dark. Matt loved the cold chill it gave him to explore those tunnels. It has not been too difficult to find an entrance through the janitor’s rooms and since then, well, Matt wasn’t exactly sure where he ended up, but as long as the tunnels went on, he was optimistic to end up in the dorms at some point – and it was not like he was in a hurry.
This tunnel ended in a junction of two open metal sliding doors. Shrugging his shoulder, he chose the right one and entered a rather small room that was, as far as he could judge in the cone of his flash light, made entirely out of dull metal. On the ceiling and floor were rusty grates and on the opposing wall, it looked like another metal sliding door, however, this one seemed closed.
Just as Matt approached this wall however, a soft humming sprang to life, with lights flickering on in the room he just entered. With a screeching sound, the door he entered through shut closed, the walls echoing with the bang. “What the-“, Matt muttered in shock and looked around. He was trapped in what appeared to be some lab cell. Just as he turned around to examine the newly closed door, he heard a hissing sound from the ceiling.
It was hard to see in the bad light but easy to smell: Some brownish gas was flooding into the room through the ceiling grates, letting Matt cough. The gas smelled like old rubber and was taking away his breath. Just as he was about to lose consciousness, he heard a whirring sound from below – and saw the gas being sucked out of the room again through the floor. At quite the same time, the second, formerly closed, door screeched open, opening the way out into a brightly lit room.
Without thinking twice, Matt dashed through the door, which closed behind him again momentarily.
Only now, he saw, that there was another person in the room: Luke, another student he knew loosely from history class, was looking at him concerned. If he remembered correctly, the skinny man was a history major even.
“Hey,” he said. “Aren’t you eh… Matt? From history?”
Matt just nodded and coughed again, slowly feeling better. He looked around. There were two more doors in the room: Another one on the wall with the door he came through and one on the opposing wall. Other than that, the room looked like a gym – only without the sports equipment but a small couch and a table. Other than that, it was completely empty.
“How did you…” Matt answered a bit delayed.
“I don’t know, it was creepy!” Luke replied. “I was looking for a shortcut to the dorms and came to this metal room, like a locker room or something. Suddenly there was this blue gas everywhere, nearly gagging me and then, this door opened!” He pointed at the left door, next to the one Matt entered through.
Matt nodded. “O-okay, it was about the same for me. Question is: Can we get out?”
Neither of the two young men had seen the label on the first doors they went through on the junction, as they had been open. Luke’s door had a crusty sign spelling “User”, while Matt’s door said “Object” on it.