The restroom smelled intensely of industrial bleach and old, wet pennies.
Mac pushed the heavy wooden door open and stepped onto the small hexagonal floor tiles. The room was stark and aggressively bright, illuminated by bare fluorescent bulbs that lacked the plastic diffusion covers of the main archive. There were three urinal stalls, three toilet stalls, and a long, continuous pane of cheap mirror glass mounted above a row of three porcelain sinks.
Mac let the door swing shut behind him. It clicked into its frame with a solid, mundane sound.
He took a breath, the harsh chemical smell burning his nostrils, and looked up at the mirror.
There was no one there.
Mac stood directly in front of the middle sink, perfectly centered in the glass, but the reflection showed only the opposite wall of the bathroom and the closed wooden door. The sink in the mirror was empty.
Rule 2: The mirrors in the staff restroom on the East Wall reflect a five-minute delay.
Seeing it written on a clipboard was one thing. Standing in front of a mirror that actively refused to acknowledge your existence was a deeply visceral, nauseating experience. It felt like he had been erased from the universe.
Mac swallowed hard, forcing his eyes away from the empty glass. He turned on the cold water tap. It sputtered, coughing out a rust-colored burst before running clear. He cupped his hands, brought the freezing water to his face, and scrubbed vigorously, washing away the cold sweat and the fine, white ceiling dust that had fallen on him in aisle D-14.
He grabbed a rough brown paper towel from the dispenser, dried his face, and tossed it into the metal trash can.
Then, he waited.
It was a stupid thing to do. The smart play was to leave immediately, to minimize his exposure to the anomalies of Basement Level 4. But human curiosity is a fatal flaw. He leaned against the tiled wall next to the door, safely out of the mirror's direct line of sight, and watched the glass at an angle.
The silence in the restroom was absolute, broken only by the faint drip... drip... of a leaky faucet in the third sink.
Mac counted the seconds in his head. Two minutes. Three minutes. Four minutes.
He felt a strange, detached anticipation. It was like waiting for a movie to start.
At exactly five minutes, the wooden door in the mirror swung open.
Mac held his breath.
His own reflection stepped into the room.
It was a flawless playback. Mac watched his past self let the door swing shut. He watched the reflection look up at the mirror, its face pale and drawn, shoulders tense beneath the heavy canvas jacket. He watched it stare at the glass for a long moment, visibly unsettled by the delay, before stepping up to the middle sink and turning on the cold water.
"Trippy," Mac whispered under his breath. It was like watching security footage, only rendered in terrifying, high-definition real-time.
Reflection-Mac cupped its hands, splashed its face, and reached for the paper towel dispenser.
If your reflection makes eye contact with you, leave the room immediately.
Mac was standing near the door, out of the way. His reflection was just going through the motions. It grabbed the brown paper towel. It dried its face.
But then, the playback hitched.
Real-Mac hadn't paused after drying his face. He had immediately tossed the towel into the trash can.
Reflection-Mac didn't do that. It lowered the paper towel slowly, its hands dropping to the edges of the porcelain sink. The water was still running in the mirror, though the real sink in front of Mac was turned off.
Reflection-Mac gripped the porcelain tightly. Its knuckles turned white.
Slowly, terrifyingly, the reflection raised its head. It didn't look at the empty space where it was supposed to be standing.
It turned its head to the side, looking perfectly, precisely, at the corner by the door where Real-Mac was currently hiding.
Its eyes locked onto Mac's.
They weren't his eyes. They were entirely black, devoid of sclera or iris, like two drops of ink bleeding into a glass of water. The reflection's mouth slowly curled upward into a wide, unnatural smile that stretched too far across its face, revealing a row of teeth that looked sharpened to jagged points.
Every alarm bell in Mac's nervous system screamed at once.
Leave the room immediately and lock the door from the outside.
Mac didn't think. He threw himself backward, hitting the wooden door with his shoulder. He grabbed the handle, twisted it, and tumbled backward into the vast, beige-carpeted expanse of the main archive.
He kept his footing, spinning around to face the door as it swung shut. He ripped the heavy iron ring of keys from his pocket. His hands were shaking so violently they chimed like alarm bells.
Which key? Which key?
There were a dozen iron keys on the ring. He grabbed the largest one, shoving it blindly into the deadbolt on the exterior of the restroom door. It didn't fit. He fumbled, swapping to a medium-sized brass one.
From inside the restroom, something massive slammed against the wood.
BANG.
The door shuddered violently in its frame. The doorknob rattled as something on the other side twisted it fiercely, trying to yank it open.
"Come on, come on!" Mac hissed, his heart hammering in his throat. He forced a heavy, square-headed iron key into the slot. It slid in perfectly.
BANG.
The door bowed outward, the hinges screaming under the strain.
Mac twisted the key hard to the right.
THUNK.
The heavy deadbolt slid into place just as a third, deafening impact hit the door. The wood splintered slightly around the frame, but the lock held.
Mac stumbled backward, abandoning the ring of keys dangling in the lock. He tripped over his own boots and fell hard onto the beige carpet, scrambling backward like a crab until his back hit the cold metal of a filing cabinet in aisle A-1.
The door didn't bulge again.
Whatever was in the restroom realized it was trapped. A low, wet, furious screech echoed through the thick wood, vibrating down the endless rows of Basement Level 4. Then, the sound faded, replaced once again by the maddening, low-frequency hum of the fluorescent tube lights.
Mac sat on the floor, his chest heaving, his canvas jacket soaked with cold sweat. He dragged a trembling hand down his face.
The physical brand on his left arm pulsed with a hot, rhythmic ache.
"Two," Mac gasped to the empty room. "That's two."
He pulled his phone out of his pocket with a shaking hand to check the time. He needed to know how close he was to 3:33 AM.
The screen flared to life.
2:48 AM.
Time was accelerating again. He had only been in the restroom for ten minutes, but over two hours had vanished from the clock. Basement Level 4 was digesting time, compressing the shift to break his mind faster.
As Mac stared at the glowing digits, a sound echoed from the far end of the infinite room. It sounded like it was a mile away, but in the sterile acoustics of the archive, it cut through the silence like a knife.
RING. RING.
The heavy rotary phone on the supervisor's desk was ringing.
Mac's blood ran cold.
Rule 3: Answer it by the second ring.
The desk was a ten-minute sprint from where he was sitting. He had wandered far down the East Wall to find the janitor's closet and the restroom. There was no physical way he could make it back to the center of the room before the phone rang a third time.
RING. RING.
Mac scrambled to his feet, a surge of pure adrenaline masking the exhaustion in his muscles. He bolted down the central aisle, his heavy boots thudding against the beige carpet.
"Wait!" he yelled, sprinting past rows C-10, C-9, C-8. "Wait, I'm coming!"
The rows of grey filing cabinets blurred past him. His lungs burned. The desk was still a speck in the distance, barely visible under the oppressive glare of the fluorescent lights.
RING.
The third ring began.
Mac lunged forward, throwing his entire body toward the desk, sliding on his knees across the carpet for the last five feet. He slammed into the heavy wood, his hand shooting out to grab the black plastic receiver.
He ripped it off the cradle, smashing it against his ear just as the third ring reached its peak.
He clamped his mouth shut, panting heavily through his nose, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. He had answered it. Was it in time? Did it count as the second or third ring?
Do not speak first.
The static hissed in his ear.
"Hello, Maclin," a voice whispered softly from the receiver.
It wasn't the automated woman looking for Mr. Abernathy. It was a man's voice. Smooth, calm, and intimately familiar. It sounded exactly like the corporate voice that had dismissed him on the truck radio.
If the caller asks for you by name, hang up immediately and hide under the desk for ten minutes.
Mac didn't hesitate. He slammed the receiver down onto the cradle with a violent crack.
He immediately dropped to the floor and scrambled underneath the heavy wooden desk, pulling his knees up to his chest. He clicked off his flashlight, plunging his small hiding spot into shadow.
Do not look at the shoes of whoever walks past.
Mac squeezed his eyes shut, buried his face into his knees, and wrapped his arms around his head. He tried to slow his ragged breathing, terrified that the sound of his own lungs would give him away.
The silence returned to The Archive, heavy and absolute.
Then, he heard it.
Squish. Drag. Squish. Drag.
Footsteps were approaching the desk. They didn't sound like hard leather on carpet. They sounded wet, heavy, and disorganized, like a sack of raw meat being dragged across the floor.
The smell of stagnant water and copper flooded the space under the desk.
The footsteps stopped directly in front of the wood paneling, less than two feet from Mac's trembling body.