The hallway wasn't supposed to be there.
Daniel Tressa knew that much.
Five minutes ago he'd been walking through the back corridor of the Greenstone Mall service wing with a mop bucket and the worst hangover of his adult life. The night shift had been quiet. Too quiet. Just the humming of vending machines, the distant echo of a security gate rolling shut somewhere far away, and the kind of fluorescent lighting that made everyone look like they hadn't slept since 2003.
Normal.
Boring.
Safe.
Then Daniel turned the corner and the hallway just… kept going.
He stopped walking.
The corridor stretched forward longer than it should have. Much longer. The service hallways behind the mall were maybe twenty meters long at most, broken up by storage rooms and staff bathrooms.
This one looked like it went on forever.
Daniel blinked slowly.
"Okay," he muttered to himself.
He leaned around the corner again.
Still there.
The walls were the same off-white paint used everywhere else in the mall. The same cheap grey carpet tiles. The same buzzing fluorescent lights mounted into the ceiling panels.
Except there were too many lights.
The hallway repeated itself in long identical sections like someone had copy-pasted the same ten meters again and again.
Daniel scratched the side of his head.
"Right," he said.
He turned around.
Behind him should have been the service elevator and the vending machines.
Instead there was just more hallway.
Daniel froze.
"…No."
He walked back ten steps.
Then twenty.
Then thirty.
The vending machines didn't appear.
The elevator didn't appear.
The hallway just kept going.
The buzzing from the lights got louder.
Daniel stopped again and stared down the endless corridor.
He exhaled slowly.
"This is… not ideal."
He pulled out his phone.
No signal.
Of course.
"Great."
He tried to remember if the mall management had been doing any weird renovations.
Maybe they'd knocked through some walls or expanded the service areas. Maybe he'd just taken a wrong turn.
That had to be it.
There was no such thing as an infinite hallway.
Daniel started walking.
The carpet squished faintly under his shoes. The air smelled like dust and old paint. Every few meters another fluorescent light flickered overhead with that faint electric buzzing sound that made his teeth itch.
Ten minutes passed.
Then twenty.
Daniel stopped walking again.
He looked back.
The hallway behind him looked exactly the same as the hallway ahead of him.
Identical.
"Okay," he said slowly.
"That's weird."
He rubbed his face.
Maybe he'd passed out somewhere and was dreaming. That made sense. People had weird dreams all the time.
He pinched himself.
Hard.
"Ow."
Not a dream.
Daniel sighed and leaned against the wall.
"Cool."
He looked down the corridor again.
"Hello?"
His voice echoed slightly.
No response.
Daniel pushed himself off the wall and kept walking.
At some point the lights began flickering in a strange rhythm.
Not random.
Almost like… breathing.
Daniel frowned up at them.
"That's new."
He kept walking.
Another few minutes passed before he noticed the door.
It appeared suddenly on the right wall.
Just a plain wooden door with a metal handle.
Daniel stopped in front of it.
He hadn't seen any doors in the hallway before.
He stared at it for a moment.
"Okay," he said.
"Progress."
He grabbed the handle and opened it.
Inside was a small storage room.
Cleaning supplies.
A metal shelf.
A mop bucket.
Exactly like the ones used in the mall.
Daniel stepped inside and looked around.
Everything looked normal.
He turned back toward the hallway.
The hallway was gone.
Daniel stared at the wall where the doorway had been.
There was nothing there now.
Just a blank painted surface.
He blinked.
"…Oh you've got to be kidding me."
Daniel slowly set his mop bucket down.
"Alright," he said to the empty room.
"Let's not panic."
He turned in a slow circle.
The room was maybe three meters by three meters.
One shelf.
One bucket.
One flickering light.
No door.
"No door is… a problem," he admitted.
He walked over to the wall where the door had been and knocked on it.
Solid.
He knocked harder.
Still solid.
Daniel sighed.
"Cool."
He sat down on the floor.
For a while he just stared at the opposite wall.
His brain slowly ran through possibilities.
Prank?
No.
Gas leak hallucination?
Unlikely.
Severe mental breakdown?
Possible.
Then something knocked on the wall.
Daniel froze.
The knock came again.
Three slow taps.
From the other side.
Daniel stood up slowly.
"Hello?"
Another knock.
Then a voice.
Muffled.
"Hey!"
Daniel's eyes widened.
"HELLO?"
"Yeah hold on!"
Something slammed into the wall.
Once.
Twice.
On the third hit the wall cracked open like drywall being kicked from the other side.
A chunk collapsed inward.
Dust filled the air.
Through the hole Daniel saw a man in black tactical gear staring back at him.
They both blinked.
The man lowered the boot he'd just used to kick through the wall.
"…Huh," he said.
Daniel stared.
The guy looked like a SWAT officer crossed with a government agent. Black jacket. Utility belt full of strange devices. A flashlight mounted on his shoulder.
Behind him stood two more people dressed the same way.
One of them held something that looked like a rifle… except it had a glowing blue ring near the barrel.
The first man looked Daniel up and down.
"Name?"
"Daniel."
"Last name."
"Nkosi."
The man nodded once.
"Alright Daniel Tressa," he said calmly.
"You're going to want to come with us."
Daniel blinked.
"…What?"
The man stepped through the hole into the room.
"You fell into a liminal corridor," he said.
Daniel stared at him.
"A what?"
"A liminal corridor."
"Okay," Daniel said slowly.
"That clears up absolutely nothing."
The man ignored that.
"How long have you been in here?"
"I don't know. Maybe an hour?"
The agent frowned slightly.
"That's… impressive."
Daniel pointed at the wall.
"Where are we?"
The second agent climbed through the hole and looked around the room.
"Level One variant," she said.
"Standard architecture mimicry."
Daniel rubbed his temples.
"Are you people speaking English?"
The first agent finally looked directly at him again.
"Listen carefully," he said.
"You accidentally entered a space that doesn't belong to normal reality."
Daniel stared at him.
"Right."
"We're here to extract you."
"Extract me from what?"
The agent gestured toward the wall hole.
"The hallway."
Daniel hesitated.
"Is the hallway still… infinite?"
"Probably."
"Fantastic."
The agent handed him a small device that looked like a metal coin with a blinking green light.
"Hold onto that."
"What does it do?"
"It stops the hallway from moving you."
Daniel blinked.
"…The hallway can move me?"
"Sometimes."
The other agents had already started setting up strange equipment near the broken wall.
One of them pointed a handheld scanner into the corridor.
"Spatial drift increasing," she said.
"Yeah I figured," the first agent replied.
Daniel looked between them.
"You guys seem very calm about this."
"We do this every day."
"That's worse."
The agent gestured toward the hole again.
"Alright Daniel. Field trip."
Daniel stepped closer and peeked through the broken wall.
The endless hallway was still there.
Lights buzzing.
Carpet stretching forever.
He swallowed.
"…What happens if we don't leave?"
The agent looked at him.
"Eventually the space forgets you exist."
Daniel blinked.
"What does that mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like."
"…Cool."
Daniel climbed through the hole.
The agents formed up around him as soon as he stepped into the hallway.
One of them tossed a small glowing marker onto the floor.
"Exit beacon active," she said.
The first agent nodded.
"Alright team," he said.
"Let's go home."
They started walking.
Daniel glanced at the agent beside him.
"So," he said.
"Hypothetically… how often does this kind of thing happen?"
The agent thought for a moment.
"About thirty times a week."
Daniel stopped walking.
"…Thirty?"
"Roughly."
Daniel looked down the endless hallway.
Then back at the agents.
"Okay," he said.
"Follow-up question."
The agent raised an eyebrow.
"How many of those people do you actually find?"
The agent didn't answer immediately.
They kept walking.
Finally he said:
"Not many."
Daniel felt a chill run down his spine.
After another minute of walking, a door appeared at the end of the hallway.
A heavy metal door with a glowing symbol painted across it.
One of the agents pushed it open.
Bright sunlight poured through.
Daniel stepped through the doorway, and found himself standing in the middle of a parking lot behind the mall.
Normal sky.
Normal air.
Normal reality.
Daniel just stood there breathing for a moment.
The agents began packing up equipment around him.
A black van waited nearby.
Daniel turned to the first agent.
"…What was that place?"
The man looked at him for a long moment.
Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a black card.
He handed it to Daniel.
The card had a simple logo printed on it.
A doorway.
Inside the doorway was an endless hallway.
Below it were three words.
Liminal Space Division
The agent smiled slightly.
"Tell you what," he said.
"You survived your first encounter."
Daniel looked at the card.
Then back at him.
"…First?"
The agent nodded toward the van.
"How would you like a job?"