The Room with No Corners

Lights flickered. The building’s power blinked. Lightning flashed outside.

The nightshift maintenance man, Marcus A. Serling, was alone.

Marcus stood in the basement staring at a heavy red door. It had a sign that read "Senior Personnel Only.” A bulb in the room had been marked for replacement. For some reason, it had suddenly appeared on the maintenance log.

It was strange. Encrypt Corp HQ had floors most employees never saw. Marcus wasn’t sure why the basement even existed—or why the lightbulb request came through on a paper log. Eugene Thaddeus favored automation, drones, and efficiency—a paper log was odd. What’s more, he still didn’t understand why a lightbulb in a basement room mattered.

Who put it on the log? Who knew. It was Marcus’ second week.

The room had been on the maintenance log since before Marcus was even hired.

Marcus’ supervisor, along with the rest of his shift, were on a sudden week-long conference.

“It’s just a bulb in a moldy room. You don’t need any of us for that, Champ! See you next week!” his supervisor said.

Marcus stood alone examining the door. He carried only his trusty flashlight, a gift from his grandfather, and the replacement bulb in his pocket. No cleaning gear. No checklist. Just the basics for the job.

Marcus, if nothing else, was dutiful and reliable, like the flashlight he received from his grandfather. “This flashlight is so dependable it could illuminate the abyss. Keep it safe, Marcus. The light keeps us from turning sideways - heh,” Marcus' grandfather, Rob Serling, said, vanishing soon after. 

Marcus paced closer to the door.

Wind howled. Rain battered the windows. The building shook above.

Marcus took a deep breath.

Marcus gave the heavy red door a push. 

Rusted hinges creaked and echoed throughout the basement.

Marcus flipped the light switch.

The lightbulb pulsed, like it was breathing. Then, with a crackle, it sparked and sizzled off. The room was darker than black.

Marcus flipped the switch again and again. Nothing happened. He sighed. Goosebumps stood with the hair on the back of his neck.

He clicked his flashlight on. It flickered reluctantly. Then, as if compelled, the flashlight cast a jagged beam—like lightning seeking an exit. It illuminated the room. Marcus saw a continuous wall with no edges or angles. No matter where he looked, the single, infinite wall turned with his gaze. It was mesmerizing. He stepped forward like a moth to the light. 

Marcus entered the room.

The door closed behind him with no sound. No latch. No breeze. Just gone.

His boots made no echo. The air felt thick, syrupy, like the room was remembering something too slowly to release it.

The floor was clean, unnaturally so.

No dust. No cobwebs. No footprints.

Just one burnt-out bulb overhead.

Marcus reached up to change it.

That’s when the ticking began.

Soft at first. Mechanical, but not quite. Like a clock learning to breathe. He turned. It wasn’t coming from the ceiling or the floor. It was coming from the walls. Or maybe from within him.

Marcus scanned the perimeter, but there was no perimeter. The room curved where corners should have been. A seamless, infinite wall ran parallel to wherever Marcus looked. 

His flashlight passed over each bend, revealing more of the same.

He tried retracing his steps. The door was gone.

The wall where it once stood was smooth, blank - infinite.

His flashlight had vanished from his palms.

Frantic, Marcus pulled out his phone. No signal. The flashlight app worked, but the screen began to ripple—like an old TV with a broken antenna.

He frowned. Rubbed his eyes.

When he looked again, something was in his hand. A mop.

He didn’t bring it in.

His palm ached. He opened his fingers.

Skin had grown around the wooden handle.

He gasped. Marcus threw the mop. It made a disgusting sound: raw meat slamming on concrete. He backed away, stumbling, hitting a wall—but it wasn’t behind him a moment ago. It bulged inward, soft and warm. He turned to face it.

Marcus’ flashlight was suddenly in his trembling hands. It flickered again.

The light pointed sideways.

It was a direction Marcus couldn’t comprehend. It felt like he had seen something older than thought and deeper than emotion. His flashlight seemed to illuminate a space between. A space that didn’t, or couldn’t, be there. Marcus tried to speak, but the sound of his words came out in a different direction - neither forwards nor backwards. His words were sideways.

A figure stood ahead, lit by the twisting light.

Another Maintenance Crew-member? Marcus thought - almost relieved. Gibberish poured from his lips as he tried saying, "Help." 

Then, Marcus noticed it: his name tag.

It wore Marcus’ uniform.

It held Marcus’ flashlight—a crooked imitation.

It had Marcus’ stance.

It had Marcus’ face. Twisted—no, distorted.

It was like the figure was trying to mimic Marcus, but didn’t remember what a person looked like. Its skin shifted like wet clay shaped by an invisible hand.

Marcus stepped back.

The figure stepped forward. Delayed by a half-second, like a corrupted mirror. Its eyes focused on Marcus while the rest of its face rippled and twisted like paint mixing in a palette.

A second one appeared. Off to the left.

Then a third.

Each watching, breathing—just after he did. As if they were remembering him badly.

“Help!” Marcus shouted.

His copies smiled.

One raised a mop. Marcus screamed and hurled his flashlight at the wall. It vanished into the curve without a sound. Its twisted light slicing through the ominous darkness. One figure convulsed and collapsed.

Marcus felt a stab of pain in his chest.

He fell to his knees, panting, pulse hammering. The figures froze. One mimicked his agony, curling into itself. Another laughed. It wasn’t his laugh.

Marcus crawled. The wall ahead split, just slightly. A hairline fracture. Within it, darkness. Thick. Velvet. Familiar.

He reached in.

The moment his fingers touched the void, the ticking stopped.

A light came on. The bulb he had come to change.

He turned to look at the figures. They were gone.

In their place stood a man draped in black — robe-like clothing, a wide-brimmed hat. Motionless. Expressionless. Standing idle.

He extended both hands toward Marcus, palms open, as if inviting him into prayer.

Marcus staggered backward. Tried to scream.

Nothing came out.

The room stretched—or sank—into a directionless abyss.

From the darkness, something rose: a glowing porcelain hand.

Marcus shut his eyes. Covered his face. Began praying.

Overhead, the replaced lightbulb flickered again. When he opened his eyes, he was alone.

He was in the room with no corners.

Disoriented, he turned toward the bulb. The light blinded him. The space… settled.

It felt like he had flipped a switch and awakened in a different version of the same room.

He looked down.

Just one flashlight lay in the center. It looked like his, but different. New.

His hand still ached.

Marcus stood. Walked to the light. Picked up the flashlight. Its beam was stronger than his had ever been. Warmer. Enhanced somehow.

Marcus clicked the flashlight on. Its light made a sharp left, a sharp right, and then focused center.

The room was different now. Smaller. With corners.

He stepped out.

Behind him, the door blinked out of existence. For now.

In time, Marcus left Encrypt Corp. He earned a living taking odd jobs that, in one form or another, required entering and exiting rooms with no corners - rooms that could only be entered turning sideways.

As it did, and always would, the room in the basement of Encrypt Corp HQ appeared on the maintenance log - again.

As always, another maintenance person would enter - finding the room already clean. Lightbulb working, until it didn't.

However, this time, one thing was left behind: a mop, standing perfectly upright, in the center. Ticking faintly from within the handle.

As the maintenance man tried to gain his bearing, he realized there was only one wall - a wall with no beginning or ending that turned with his gaze.

He tried to run. He tried to scream. He called for help. 

Only the wall with no corners responded.

Darkness encroached.

A pale man in black garbs appeared. He stood beside a glowing, porcelain hand neither waiting nor expecting - idle.

The Idle Man stretched his arms out to the side, tilted his head back and spoke in whispers that came from all directions.

The Maintenance Man, like many others, was entranced by the pacifying whispers echoes from walls that were no longer visible.

Drawn to the porcelain hand, he joined his palm with its ghostly palm. A pact he did not comprehend, yet had no awareness he was making. The maintenance man sunk into the darkness with the porcelain hand. The Idle Man tilted his head down and clasped his pale hands together in prayer. He vanished with the red door yet the room with no corners, and many like it, would forever remain. 

__

Somewhere in the sideways, the chasm between reality and the abyss, a porcelain palm closed.

An idle caretaker whispered, “The plot thickens..."