TW: Murder, suicide, and mental health are topics in this story

“Denise? Denise!” Mark screams into the empty house when he gets home from work.  He pauses in the eerie silence of the dim hallway. The sun is setting and his stomach is turning. “Denise!”  He paces through the house until he reaches the bedroom.  Denise is in bed, with the covers up to her chest and she's blankly staring into her phone.

“Denise? What are you doing?” He asks, and she shakes herself out of the trance.

“What time is it?”

“It’s 6:30… Is this what you did all day?”

“Um… yeah.”

“What are you even doing?”

“I’m playing Tetris,” she says as she props herself up to stretch. 

“Denise, I know you’re depressed but you have to start having a routine.”

“I know but I don’t know what that looks like.”

“Just… start going to the gym.  It’ll get you moving and out of the house.” Denise nods along to Mark’s suggestion. 

He convinces her to get out of bed and at least eat a microwave dinner at the table but after she crawls right into bed.  

Denise was a Talent Coordinator for a tech company and was training to start recruiting until she was laid off.  Mark was supporting her and letting her take time to find a career but all she found was depression.  She was a shell of the woman he loved.  He kept clinging to hope God would breathe life into her once again.  Denise was numb, frozen by inertia.  Being around Denise was like living in a black hole.  The house was dreary despite being decorated like a Target catalog brightly and perfectly. That was when Denise wasn’t depressed.  She appreciated colors. When she made this house a home. 

In the morning, Denise woke up with Mark. 

“I’m going to go to the gym,” She said.  Mark smiled.  They got ready together. Mark dropped her off at the gym while he went to work.  The gym was in a weird building/ mall. It wasn’t the most welcoming building.  She walked through wide white doors that lead down a dark hallway.  The building looked like it should be condemned.  The lights all flickered and the floors were filthy.  But there was a sign that said, “LA Fitness.” Denise followed the signs up cement stairs through another set of doors to a floor with unmarked doors and no natural light. She saw the gym entrance.  It was a beacon of light illuminating the fluorescent-lit hall and the sound of pop music gently floated into the space with the clinking of weights. 

Denise thought for a moment. What is this building?  This is so odd. I’ll just do a loop around the floor and come back. She walks down the hall.  She notices an unmarked door. She’s drawn to it. It had a vinyl cling peeled off of it. She opens the door.  The room is empty, and quiet and looked like a fancy lobby of a cruise ship with black and white tile across the floor, modular white leather seating, led light strips illuminating the steps down into the lobby and a 7-foot-tall white stone statue of a cubist version of an Easter Island head.  Something about the room made it an odd purple. 

“Hello,” she called out. No reply.  She started walking deeper into the room.  Looking at the odd abstract, black and white art hanging on the walls.  She walked into a lounge with a bar cart and a television.  She had a choice: get comfortable or get out. She got comfortable. The tv had NetFlix.  The cart had vodka and seltzer. No one was around to judge her. After watching an episode of New Girl she left her to drink and went back out from where she came and suddenly… she was back in the dingy hall.  She walked into the parking structure. It was sunset. Disoriented she walked back home feeling a lingering feeling that the room had more to offer her. 

“What did you do all day?” Mark asked.

“I just wandered around.” Mark’s face lit up. He was seeing a glimmer of hope in the black hole. 

The next morning, the same routine she woke up, Mark dropped her off at the gym but she didn’t go she went into the room. Where she got to snooping and found some papers. The room was a marketing agency that went out of business.  No one cleared the furniture and the rent was paid for another 3 months. She discovered a balcony up some stairs. Every day she came, reading the random papers of ad campaigns that were never made. Ate the snacks and drank the booze that was never taken. She enjoyed the empty space that was her little secret.  It was just a little world where time seemed to pass by quickly. Mark was just happy to see her get out of the house. Not realizing she was switching from one quiet space to being lazy for another. 

On the eighth day of hiding out in an abandoned office building, Denise was on the balcony reading a book. Looking out unto the city with the hustle and bustle, Denise is in her serenity. Suddenly the calm fractures as she feels a presence next to her. She slowly turns her head and looks. It’s a tall, brunette woman in a navy blue pantsuit standing in the doorway. She sits next to Denise looking out to the city silently. Denise is still. Unsure of what is happening or how to react.  The person doesn’t acknowledge her. They stay in silence for a few moments. 

“Hello?” Denise finally says and the woman doesn’t respond. A chill goes over her body. The woman’s face is off.  Her face isn’t quite human and this interaction isn’t quite human. 

Suddenly the woman gets up and walks off the balcony.  Denise shrieks look down and there isn’t anything on the grass. There isn’t anyone anywhere. Denise runs inside down the stairs into the lounge. Then she hears clicking. Someone is typing. She looks around. Who else is here? Where is it coming from? What is happening? Then on the other side of the room, she hears the rumbling of a printer.  She darts out the door and runs past confused patrons to the parking lot.  Out of breath she looks around and realizes.  There’s no grass in front of where the balcony would be.  She walks around the building in a daze searching for the balcony she was just on.  She can’t find one. She can’t find the grass she saw. Where was she going every day? 

The next day, she came back and recharged with a mission to figure out what this office was. She walked into the lobby and stood at the door listening. She could hear typing. Walking carefully around what was once an office she peered into the dark rooms. She finds a room where the keyboard sounds are echoing but there are no people just empty seats. Just echoes. She made her way to the breakroom where she could smell coffee but there was no machine. There were coffee cups but no coffee. Walking into the back room where there were cubicles she heard a whimper.

“Hello!” No response. As she turned around she sees a man pacing with papers in his hand across the lobby and disappear into an office. Denise runs to the door. She’s shaking and can’t seem to get it open.  She looks back and he is pacing back toward the cubicles. He doesn’t notice her. Finally, she gets the door open and falls into the hall.  She scrambles to get up.

“Hey!” Someone yells.  “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Denise says trying to catch her breath. She looks up and there’s a young girl approaching in pink gym clothes.  

“Why were you in there?” She asks as she helps Denise up.

“Um… I was exploring I guess. Do you know what that place is?”

“Yeah…” She has a concerned look on her face. “The CEO poisoned the coffee one day and killed like 6 people after she had to file for bankruptcy.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it’s been abandoned. No one wanted to clean it out and management  can’t get anyone to rent it.” She pauses, “I work for the building management. I’ll have the janitor lock it.  You shouldn’t be in there.  No one should be.” 

“Oh… Thanks for that. I had been wondering how a whole office could just be there. And thanks for helping me.” The girl is looking for her phone.

“Can’t you just feel the energy is off in there?” She asks.

“I guess, I guess my energy has been off so it kind of just felt comfortable.”

“Well, if you ever wanna work out sometimes instead of hanging out in abandoned offices shoot me a text.  Let me see your phone.”