“Are you sure?” Penelope asked.

  Daniel’s vision of endless white cubicles were rather bland for a nightmare, and he didn’t seem to react strongly to it.

  “Of course. I’ve had this one a lot.”

  It was a recurring nightmare borne from an existential crisis he’d had not long after he began working. He’d been thinking about his future when he fell asleep, and all he could see then were endless days of menial, repetitive tasks. Several events he had experienced later in life would compound the nightmare, but office work hadn’t turned out to be that bad in the long run.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Daniel asked, looking around.

  “As I said before, there should be an exit somewhere. But it’s not a literal exit, it’s the point in the dream where you run out of things to process. Basically, you’re looking for a blank spot, a hole in the fabric of reality.”

  He didn’t really understand all that, but it was better than nothing.

  Daniel entered a nearby cubicle. It was a normal office setup, with a desk, a filing cabinet, a computer, and a person to work with it all. The only decoration was a calendar with 2 days crossed off on it. The business-suit clad figure didn’t even turn around when he entered – more proof that this was just a dream.

  Thinking for a moment, he decided to open the cabinet and rifled through the files. The words on the paper were mostly illegible, and when they weren’t, they were nonsensical. Daniel pulled the drawer out of the cabinet entirely, only to find it empty. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the nothing he was looking for, so he was forced to leave the cubicle disappointed.

  As he walked out, however, he suddenly heard a snicker behind him. He whirled around, but the office worker was still seated in his chair, typing away. It couldn’t have been them, the laughter seemed to come from right behind him. Daniel covered the nape of his neck with his hand and started walking faster.

  “This is a nightmare, alright.” He muttered to himself.

  Daniel stopped to look around. Although the office seemed endless, there were walls with doors if he walked far enough. Only, the doors that would normally lead to a bathroom or a kitchen only led to more cubicles. With little choice left, he picked a random door and walked on through.

  Wandering the office labyrinth, he noticed the chatter getting louder. Like the other things in this place, it sounded right when he heard it in the distance, but if he focused on it, he couldn’t hear anything distinct. And yet, the more he listened, the more he felt like he could hear something...

  Shaking his head to refocus himself, Daniel continued his aimless wandering. He turned over office plants and filing cabinets. He fiddled with computers and rifled through bookshelves, but he still couldn’t find anything noteworthy.

  “Ugh, god.” He said, collapsing into a chair. “Am I even getting anywhere around here?”

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  “...Sorry, I can’t really tell.” Penelope apologized. “There are a lot of thoughts twisted up in this dream, it’s hard to untangle it all.”

  While he wasn’t physically tired, he could feel a significant mental strain. There was no way to tell how much time had passed, but he felt like he’d been here for an age. And the nonsense conversations between the fake office workers was starting to grate on his nerves. The buzz of computers and the clack of the keyboard was starting to give him a headache. Daniel sighed and leaned back in his chair. He just wanted to close his eyes and take a little break...

  “Come on Danny, what’s bothering you?” A familiar voice suddenly said.

  His eyes snapped open and he lurched to his feet, head darting back and forth as he looked for the source of the voice. But try as he might, he saw no one. Not a single figure was close enough to have said it at such a volume; he was alone in the cubicle.

  After a while, Daniel settled down on the chair with a sigh. This was a dream, so he supposed a few errant memories could have slipped through the cracks. As he lifted his head, however, he noticed the calendar right in front of his eyes in the cubicle. There were 3 days crossed off of this calendar.

  He stood up from the chair.

  “I think... I know how to get to the exit.”

  “Sorry, what?” Penelope asked, abruptly snapped out of whatever she had been doing.

  Daniel didn’t explain further as he power walked to the closest door. He burst through and kept walking, throwing a passing glance at a nearby cubicle’s calendar. This one had 4 crosses marked off. He was on the right track.

  The longer he walked inside the dream, the louder the noises became. The passing figures became more distinct and familiar, borrowing traits from the people he knew, their turned backs becoming more and more recognizable.

  He slammed the next door open and began jogging. The whispers were louder now, as if their source was right next to his ear. As he put distance between him and the door, he could hear footsteps that sounded like the steps of a giant, slowly approaching him from the side. He ignored all of it and kept moving forward.

  The figures in the office finally turned towards him, their faces featureless except for their eyes. They looked at Daniel as he passed with disdain and derision, and he could feel their gazes on his back. Their snickers were louder than ever, and they graduated to full blown manic laughter. Daniel began sprinting.

  After what felt like a lifetime he reached the next set of doors; a heavy set of double doors that normally led to the office’s back entrance. Instead of slowing down, Daniel rammed into the door with his shoulder. Pain rocked his arm, but the doors gave way, and he fell forward into a white void.

  His body began falling. Twisting in the air, he looked up at the black doorway he’d come from. He watched as it rapidly faded into the distance and then sighed in relief.

  “...Okay, how the heck did you even figure out where the exit was in that mess?” Penelope asked, confused.

  “There’s no work on the weekend.”

  That wasn’t exactly true, but young Daniel didn’t know that at the time. Present Daniel was glad for his past self’s naivety. Escape secured, he turned his attention to his surroundings.

  “Where are we, Penelope? I can’t see anything.” He said, looking around.

  “Ah, right, that’s what I was going to tell you.” She replied. “It’s just, um...”

  “What is it?”

  “After I took you into the dream, there was a bit of a mishap.” She admitted sheepishly. “And... that thing you brought with you got into the dream too. So that’s where we’re going.”

  Daniel widened his eyes in surprise at the news, but he was forced to put that aside for now. He was still falling, and his surroundings were becoming bluer. He twisted his body to look down and was even more surprised by what he saw. Skyscrapers dotted the land he was descending towards, but between them rose brown spires of an unknown material. Alien trees and power lines dotted the landscape, and the surface was a patchwork mess of concrete and soft dirt.

  Even as Daniel hurtled towards the ground at breakneck speeds, he couldn’t help but marvel at the strange world he was falling into.