Regretevator | One-way Ticket Doorman

It was almost midnight, but you could only vaguely remember what date it was. The day had merged into one endless strip flooded with artificial light. You were alone in the office. Only the indifferent, dead light of a fluorescent lamp burned above your desk, casting sharp, tired shadows. Its insistent hum became the soundtrack of your existence. The rest of the huge open space was submerged in a thick, almost tangible darkness that grew denser with each passing hour, bringing closer the ghostly dawn of moon that you would never see anyway.

Pitch darkness had long reigned behind the glass wall. The lights of the metropolis had faded, and the windows of the neighboring skyscrapers were plunged into a blind, indifferent void. The whole city was asleep. You were not. As always, deadlines were looming, on which the fate of the project depended. Your bosses were breathing down your neck, but their interest was comforting — it was expressed in respect and substantial bonuses. You, a self-taught workaholic bred on ambition and caffeine, continued to dig into your work long after the end of your official shift. Day after day. Week after week.

You completely forgot the taste of life outside this glass capsule. Home? Just a functional space, a capsule for recharging: an impersonal bed, a refrigerator with delivered meals, and a shower to wash away physical fatigue. Walks? An unacceptable luxury, a waste of time. You missed the short five-minute breaks on the roof, where you lit a cigarette, greedily gulped down the strongest espresso and cold wind, trying to chase away drowsiness, and then dove back into the digital abyss.

You had finally turned into a machine: your fingers fluttered across the keyboard, writing virtuoso codes or reports, your eyes darted across the monitors, grabbing and analyzing gigabytes of information. Your mind worked with the clarity of a silicon chip, cutting out everything unnecessary. But in an instant, something... floated in those very burnt-out eyes. The image on the monitor began to slowly blur, the edges of the letters lost their clarity, became jagged and floated, as if someone had poured water on the screen. You shook your head, rubbed your eyelids hard with your knuckles, tried to gather your willpower. It was useless. You jumped up from your chair, slapped your cheeks with your palms until they hurt, walked quickly in circles around the dark hall, your footsteps echoing in the ringing silence.

But as soon as you returned to the monitor, the world was plunged into a thick, viscous fog. It only got worse. And at the very moment when the clock on your phone showed 00:00, your body suddenly froze. Your muscles failed at once, as if someone had pulled the plug out of the socket. You collapsed limply face down on the keyboard, sending a meaningless string of random characters to your colleagues in the chat, and fell into absolute, unbroken emptiness...

You woke up immediately. Abruptly, with a jolt, which made your head spin. You were lying on the cold linoleum floor. An icy needle of adrenaline pierced your consciousness. You jumped up, your heart pounding in your throat. Your gaze immediately found the time on the monitor — only one minute had passed.

“Lucky...” — a wave of relief washed over you. You wiped the cold sweat from your forehead and looked around your workplace: everything was in its place, except for the mouse, which lay on the edge of the table, knocked off by your fall.

But something was wrong. You could feel it in your skin. The darkness outside the window... it was different. Not just the absence of light, but something dense, alive, frighteningly absolute. It was blacker than black, as if the entire building was floating in an airless black abyss where there were no stars, no distant city lights — nothing. You dismissed the thought, attributing it to the lingering effects of the blackout and fatigue. That malfunction was the last straw — today, you definitely needed to go home and crash.

You tidied up your desk a little and reached for the light switch. The indifferent light of the lamp went out with a quiet click, finally surrendering you to the power of darkness. Your footsteps echoed in the empty corridor leading to the elevators. Bright, overly sterile lights burned here as if nothing had happened. You called the elevator. The doors slid open with their usual soft hiss, revealing the familiar cabin with mirrored walls.

You stepped inside. Your hand automatically reached for the panel to press the familiar “1” button. And froze in midair.

“What? Where is it?”

The panel was empty and unfamiliar. There were no rows of shiny buttons with numbers, no call button for the dispatcher. Only a single, matte, unlit button with an arrow pointing straight up. You recoiled, rubbed your eyes again, shook your head.

“It's a dream. It's a hallucination. I'm asleep.” But the cold metal handrail under your fingers, the sharp smell of ozonated air — everything was frighteningly real.

A saving, obvious idea came to mind—to go out and go down the stairs. But as soon as you turned around, the heavy doors slammed shut with a dull, final thud. The sound was so final that your heart sank to your heels. You frantically pressed the “Open” button and banged on the door — all to no avail. The cabin didn't move.

You were trapped. In this shiny, soulless box with a single, anomalous button. And just above it, where there had been nothing before, a small screen was now lit up. It displayed the words “0 floor” in cold blue letters. A chilling realization, slow and inexorable, began to rise from the depths of your subconscious. It pounded in your temples, whispering in an icy voice.

That night, you didn't just pass out for a moment at your workplace. You died.

And now this reality is the posthumous delirium of your frozen consciousness, the last dream of your burnt-out brain. Or maybe it's a different, magical reality, where you've been thrown beyond the edge. And you haven't quite decided yet which is more terrifying.