[OLD] Deep Underground

14. Ghost Building

Pulling into the parking lot, I looked up at the ten-story building where I had previously worked. Strangely, in a matter of weeks, it seemed to have aged decades.

The windows, from what I could see, were covered in a layer of dirt and grime on the bottom level, becoming dustier as the floors continued upwards. The building seemed to groan in the light wind, though that may have just been my imagination. Everything was silent and not a single car, besides mine, was sitting in the parking lot. Overall, it had the atmosphere of a ghost town.

Hesitantly, I stepped out of the safety of my car, shutting the door and locking it behind me. I walked slowly toward the two sets of double doors that led into the large building, as though something would jump out and scare me.

I put my hands on the massive pull handles, but made no move to open the door. I could barely see the lobby through the layers of filth on the glass door, but it was clear that the lights were off and no one was inside. I didn't want to open the door. I didn't want to face the facts that somehow, this was all very real. I didn't want to find out the truth.

But at the same time, it was as though some small voice was directing me to go forward into the dark and find out what it hid.

I pulled on the handle.

I opened the door.

I stepped inside.

The door shut behind me, leaving me in the dark.

Blinking to adjust to the absence of light, I could eventually see the dust particles in the air, stirred up from the door being opened, after remaining shut for so long. The air in the lobby was stale, and held a tense feeling, as though the entire building was holding its breath. I could see the glass from shattered lightbulbs on the floor, wires hanging limply from the ceiling, and chairs strewn across the floor. Some of the chairs were cracked, some were tilted, and some were completely broken into two, or twenty, or two hundred pieces.

There was one chair standing upright. It stood alone in the center of the room, facing the doorway. This chair was an office chair, unlike the wooden and cloth waiting chairs that lay broken on the floor. This chair looked as though it had been moved recently. I walked up to it slowly.

As I came closer I noticed that something sat on the chair. It was not a person, but a box. The box was big enough to not quite fit into a cubbyhole, but small enough to be able to be held easily with one hand. Picking up the box, I looked around briefly before sitting in the chair. It didn't even squeak as most objects would, if they had not been used for a long period of time. I set the box on my lap and lifted the lid.

Inside the box was a single key, no bigger than my pointer finger. Why do they need such a large box for this small of a key? I examined the key. It appeared as though the edges, the ones that would fit into a lock, had been snapped off. I frowned. Not only is it a small key from a large box, it's a broken key.

Looking carefully at the jagged edges I noticed something that had not quite stood out to me as much as the broken edge of the key. Along the side of the key were nine numbers. The numbers were two, then three, then two, then three, then four, then three, then two, then one, then zero.

232343210. I wondered what that could be for or what it could mean.

I put the box down, and looked around the dusty, deserted lobby. I walked up to reception desk and started going through the many compartments and draws. Finding a, slightly decayed, pad of paper, I wrote down the numbers from the key with a pen from my bag, just in case. Then, I slipped the pad with the nine numbers written on it, the pen I had, and the single broken key I had found, back into my bag.