Office Space (Backrooms Pt. 2)

Office Space

(Backrooms Pt. 2)

 

Silence encircled her and much like a weighted blanket, it was stiff and almost suffocating. The only sound that seemed to pierce the stillness was a low humming noise that emanated from the soft yellow fluorescent lights overhead.

 

With each passing second, the humming grew louder--buzzing even--droning on like a cluster of angry bees.

 

Thistle closed her eyes, slowly inhaled through her mouth, and counted:

One... 'Stay calm.'

Two... 'There must be a way out. There has to be.'

Three... 'Find an exit. But how?'

Four... (She opened her eyes and scanned the room once more.)

Five... (She turned her back to the foreboding shadow and began to notice that like the carpet, the walls, too, were different.) 

Six... They were yellow, hideously yellow--

Seven... -hideous like stale mustard... like egg yolks that have gone bad.

Eight... disgustingly dingy and sallow and horribly chartreuse.

Nine... A doorway--

Ten... Exhale.

 

In the far reaches of the room, there was a hallway that appeared to open up to another room. Figuring that moving forward would be far better than standing still, Thistle exited the cubicle and made her way toward the opening. 

 

For only a moment, she stood in the doorway and gazed upon an empty office.

 

"Hello?" She called into the space knowing she would receive no answer. Her voice echoed through the vast emptiness and exited out of a similar doorway at the far end of the office space. 

 

There were grey desks and black rolling chairs precariously strewn across the room as if... the previous inhabitants had left in a hurry.

 

'And if someone had indeed left in a hurry,' Thistle wondered to herself while drawing nigh, 'it must have been decades ago.'

 

She extended a reluctant hand and slowly swept her fingers across one of the chairs. Feeling dirt and grit gather under her fingernails, she immediately recoiled in disgust. She quickly examined the tips of her fingers and noted that they had turned bluish-slate in color. Then, she inspected the space upon the chair where she had wiped. The chair wasn't black at all. It was originally brown.

 

Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust and grime. Even the ugly, yellow wallpaper seemed aged as if it weren't originally yellow but had become that way due to years of decay and neglect. Her suspicions were confirmed when in a corner of the room,  she noticed a cluster of mushrooms snaking up the wall as if the wall were a tree. 

 

Thistle had never been too partial to small things that grew in clusters. Not even fucking berries. Up and down both her arms, the tiny hairs stood on end and her skin prickled like raised dots. She hugged both arms to herself, rubbing intensely, and hurried out of the room as quickly as she could manage.

...