The Door to Tomorrow

The First Corridor

On one of the fancy tables was a piece of white chalk, which I decided to mark each doorway with. There were five doorways, so I assigned each one a number using tally marks.

We agreed to enter the halls in order, so we started with the first hallway. In that hallway were three doors on each side, each with a different name on the front. Apparently, this hall was where we would shower and sleep each night.

Marina and Shiloh both entered their respective rooms as the rest of us stood waiting in the hall. It didn't take long for someone to find something out of place. Shiloh yelled about something, which caught our attention. We all hurried over to her door.

"What's wrong?" Trevor asked as Shiloh approached the doorway.

"Uh, this is kinda creeping me out!" she replied.

Shiloh came to a stop and held her arm up. She seemed to be holding some cosmetics in her hand. "These are all the products I use at home, and they were sitting on a fancy vanity. Whoever furnished this place got it all right. The brands, the shades, everything. It's uncanny. Also, there's a closet in here with clothes and shoes in my size. Is it like this in all the rooms?"

The four of us headed for our respective rooms. Mine was the first on the left. I soon realized that Shiloh wasn't alone, and Marina had also just confirmed the same thing before I opened my door. Once I walked inside, I saw the two diamond barrettes Allen had given me. They were sitting on the bedside table in plain sight. I held them in my hand for a few seconds, wondering if I would ever see my disagreeable lover again. I stuck them in the drawer and investigated the rest of my room. There was a TV on the floor, but it had no antenna. Instead, it only had a VCR. I didn't find any tapes in the room, though, even after searching all the drawers. The closet contained clothes in my size, just like Shiloh said. It all looked similar to clothes I would wear every day. I became frustrated when I realized that Mr. Peterson had hired people to kidnap us and take our measurements while we were knocked out. He also had gotten someone to dress me after I had been abducted in the nude, which was embarrassing and weird.

Next to my side table was a brown bookshelf with one book sitting in it. It had a navy blue hardcover and the number two was scratched into the spine. It looked a little creepy to me, so I decided not to open it just yet.

Once we all gathered in the hallway again, we told each other what we had seen. During our conversation, Trevor pointed out a camera watching us from the corner. It was placed by the doorway, and it had a blinking blue light. This is definitely one of the cameras recording footage for the control room, I thought. Narrator and Mr. Peterson could view the live footage at any time, which made me uneasy. At least there were no cameras in the bedrooms.

Over time, some of us wandered in and out of the rooms to search for anything new. Marina and Robin announced that they tried using the phone in Robin's room. I had seen the phone before, but I didn't think it would work at all. I tried it for myself with no luck at first. I called my house's number, Hina's house number, and, once I knew for sure that normal numbers didn't work, I entered my estranged dad's cell phone number. Of course, I received a busy signal for all of them. "Not like I expected Dad to answer anyway," I groaned.

I had another idea after that; I planned to enter each number on the keypad one by one just to see what would happen. When I pressed the number one, the phone actually rang and someone answered.

"Hello?" That unmistakable nasally voice answered.

"Wait. Narrator?"

"Yeah, it's me," He sounded drowsy. "Lemme guess. You pressed number one, right? That calls the Control Room. I'll usually be in here, so I can answer if I want to."

"Do any of the other numbers do anything?" I asked.

"Uh...number two calls my room, and number three calls my boss's room. We can also call you, just so you know."

"Oh."

"Keep the other numbers a secret, though. Nobody else needs that function."

"Sure."

"Are you done? If so, I'm hanging up." Just then I heard a click. Damn, he's rude, I thought.

"Guys, I figured something out!" I alerted the others.

"What's wrong?" Marina asked from the hall.

"I pressed the number one and it called Narrator," I explained.

"What? That's what these are for?" Shiloh complained.

"Oh no! You mean I can't call my mom?" Hina made a sad sound.

"I'm afraid not, Hina," I reiterated the truth. She was going to get stuck down here, anyway, and it's not like her mom needed to know that her daughter was getting sent to Purgatory.

Robin went back to his room and tried the phone thing himself. We waited as he talked to Narrator. He came back with the date, April 25, 1997, which gave us some idea of how long we were asleep. My head was still a little foggy, likely because I was unconscious for at least one week. Shiloh said her birthday was the eighteenth, and she was asleep for a while before that. In fact, Shiloh and Trevor were probably asleep the longest.

After that was settled, we were on our way to Hallway 2.