The elevator opened on Floor 23 even though the building only had twenty-two floors.
I work in IT, which means everyone assumes I have a rational explanation for anything involving electronics.
Usually I do.
This is the exception.
Our company rented floors 17 through 19 in a twenty-two-story office tower. I had been there three years. I knew the building systems reasonably well because IT and facilities shared tickets for access control, network rooms, CCTV, and after-hours alarms.
There was no Floor 23.
Not hidden. Not mechanical. Not labeled differently.
The elevators showed B2, B1, G, then 1 through 22.
On a Tuesday in March, I stayed late to finish a server migration.
By 1:00 a.m., everyone else was gone.
I packed my laptop, turned off the lights in our section, and called the elevator from 18.
Car C arrived.
I pressed G.
The doors closed.
The elevator went up.
I felt it immediately.
That little pressure shift in your knees and stomach.
I looked at the display.
19.
20.
21.
I pressed G again.
The button was already lit.
22.
Then the display showed 23.
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened.
Beyond them was our office.
Not the twenty-second floor.
Our office.
Same reception desk. Same gray carpet. Same company logo on the wall.
But all the lights were off except the emergency strips near the floor.
I did not get out.
I pressed close-door repeatedly.
Nothing happened.
Then a desk phone rang somewhere in the dark office.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
The sound stopped.
The elevator doors remained open.
A printer started.
I could hear paper feeding through it.
Then a white sheet slid onto the floor from somewhere beyond reception.
Another followed.
And another.
I don't know why I stepped out.
I wish I had a better answer.
Maybe because I thought if I triggered the floor sensor the elevator would reset.
Maybe curiosity.
I kept one foot inside the elevator and leaned out.
The nearest sheet of paper had landed face-up.
It showed a staff directory.
My photo was at the top.
Name: Alex Chen.
Employee ID: 4471.
Status: ARRIVED.
I stepped backward into the elevator.
The doors closed instantly.
The car descended to ground.
I walked out of the building and didn't stop until I reached the taxi stand.
The elevator opened again after Facilities checked it
The next morning I told our facilities manager that Car C had malfunctioned.
I did not mention the copied office.
She pulled the elevator log.
At 1:14 a.m., Car C received a call from Floor 18.
At 1:15, it began descending.
At 1:16, the log showed it stopped between Floors 18 and 17 for forty-seven seconds.
Then continued to ground.
No upward movement.
No Floor 23.
"Probably sensor logging error," she said.
Then she looked at me.
"Why?"
I said nothing.
She asked again.
I told her.
Her expression changed before I finished.
"Was it our office?" she asked.
That question scared me more than anything I'd said.
I asked how she knew.
She shut her office door.
Three years earlier, a cleaner reported something similar. Car A stopped on 23. The doors opened onto the office belonging to the previous tenant from years before.
The cleaner stepped out.
The elevator closed behind him.
He was found forty minutes later in the stairwell on Floor 16, confused and barefoot.
He refused to return to work.
I asked why no one had told us.
"Because officially it didn't happen."
She made me promise not to tell coworkers and said she would report the elevator for inspection.
For a week I used the stairs.
Then normal life wore down the fear.
I started using elevators again, just not Car C.
Two months passed.
One Friday, my access badge stopped working at the main entrance.
Security checked the system.
My employee number was valid, but my status showed something strange.
"It says you're already inside," the guard told me.
"I just arrived."
He refreshed.
Still inside.
The access log showed my badge had been used at 1:16 a.m.
Floor 23.
I stared at him.
"There is no 23."
He frowned at the monitor.
Then the entry vanished.
He let me in manually.
That night I checked our internal systems.
There was a printer job under my username from 1:16.
File name: ARRIVAL_4471.pdf.
The document had one page.
A photograph.
It showed me standing in the elevator with the doors open.
Taken from inside the dark office on Floor 23.
I was visible in profile, one foot out of the car, looking down at the papers.
Behind me, inside the elevator, someone else was standing very close.
Their face was hidden behind mine.
I printed the image and showed facilities.
The next day the file disappeared from the server.
Facilities asked me to delete the printout.
I didn't.
I kept it at home in a drawer.
Three weeks later, I took it out to show my partner.
The picture had changed.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but it had.
In the original, the figure behind me was partly hidden.
Now I was alone in the elevator.
The figure was standing inside the dark office, farther back.
Closer to the reception desk.
My partner thought it was some kind of trick photo.
I tore it up.
I transferred to another office building last year.
Different company.
Different district.
Our new office is on Floor 11 of a fifteen-story building.
No weird elevator numbering.
Last month, I worked late again.
At 1:16 a.m., I called the elevator.
The display above the doors lit up.
16.
I didn't wait.
I went straight to the stairwell.
As the door closed behind me, the elevator arrived.
I heard the chime.
Then a printer started somewhere on the other side of the wall.
My phone received an email.
No sender.
Subject line:
TRANSFER APPROVED.
Body:
EMPLOYEE 4471 HAS NOT YET COMPLETED ARRIVAL.
I took the stairs eleven floors down.
Halfway to the lobby, a desk phone began ringing inside the locked stairwell below me.
There are no desk phones in our stairwells.
I didn't answer it.
I don't stay late anymore.
DarkRecord editorial note: This is an original fictional submission-style horror story. The named submitter and events are fictional.
