Before you is a dimly lit corridor illuminated with neon splashes of light.
To the left, there’s a single, solitary doorway.
Dead ahead: inky blackness spilling into the void at untold depths.
It’s a good thing you brought a lantern.
You turn down the first hall and find an immense corridor so gargantuan it doesn’t seem like it can physically exist here.
Your footsteps can barely be heard as the noise dissipates and is absorbed into the monstrous walls.
As you walk deeper into its maze, you see a variety of curious doors, each obscuring whatever secrets lie behind them… until one opens it.
The first doorway you stumble across is guarded by a menacing secure metal door with a high-tech locking mechanism that looks impenetrable.
It reads: “Central Processing” in neon letters across the top.
Neon blues and pinks from the sign and keypad are the only thing lighting up this dark doorway.
There’s an electric hum emanating from the door and possibly the room beyond.
Hidden amid the intricate keypad and locking system, there’s a single pink key in the corner that reads, “Open.”
The next doorway towers suddenly, stretching high into its foreboding recess of the massive corridor.
Before you is a towering entrance with deep indigo walls, intricate gold carvings, pink- and purple-lit walls, and a humming sign far above you in mammoth lettering that reads:
“Library of Progress”
The areas around the doors are dilapidated and in ruins, but the doors, themselves, feel to be alive… somehow caring for and maintaining themselves.
Nonsense.
Surely it’s just your imagination running rampant before this gilded behemoth.
What could possibly be on the other side of such an entrance?
The handles tower far above your head, but perhaps you can try to push it open?
The next door is much less assuming but emits a warm, welcoming vibe as you gaze upon it.
It reads: “Member Spotlight.”
Is it painted in many colors or is the sense of disorientation pervasive in these dark corridors starting to mess with your head?
It’s as if the door isn’t painted at all but simply is.
The lantern above casts an inviting glow.
As you step closer to the door, you hear faint, ghostly laughter.
You step back and look it up and down again. You’re filled with the sense that the laughter you perceive is an echo from happy moments captured in the this place’s magic aura.
Somehow… it doesn’t feel threatening.
There is no remorse or sadness here - only joy.
It’s hard to explain… just a feeling you get.
Are you losing your senses?
As you stand before this strange but inconspicuous door, you’re filled with the feeling that it’s encouraging you to venture forth.
It beckons you to explore… to discover… to live.
The door wants things for you. It wants you to experience things. It wants you to have adventure. It wants you to have life better.
The answers are on the other side, you’re certain of it.
Deeper into the corridor, you find a door that feels altogether out of place here.
Unlike the previous doors, which were resolutely opaque about what lie on the other side, this one has a delightful frosted window with the words, “The Therapist’s Couch” written in friendly letters across its face.
Happy lighting pours out of the window in active oranges and soothing blues.
How can something make you feel so activated and so relaxed at the same time?
Inky darkness surrounds the door, but that window to the inside promises something comforting… something that is both safe and transformative at the same time.
Further down the dark corridor, the next door stands in stark contrast to the one before it.
You’re beginning to think madness lives here.
This door is made of wood and looks like it’s been through a war bearing deep scars and wounds all over it.
Has this wall been attacked? Repeatedly? By who? For what reason?
Not only does the door look like it’s been viciously stabbed and hacked at with some unknown object, it also seems to have been assaulted with paint.
Pinks, blues, greens, and oranges drip chaotically across the door’s surface.
A single word appears to have once been stenciled neatly onto it but is now worn and aged.
It reads: “Philosophies.”
Does anybody actually go in this room? When was the last time somebody was here?
Which way does it even turn?
You’re hesitant to touch the handle, but this is why you brought gloves.
The next door stands at the end of a deep, dark recess.
It looms ominously with an unsettling glow casting from the other side.
“Lilly’s Dark Hall,” it reads in jagged, confrontational letters.
This door seems to want to keep its secrets. It holds its own space silently, content to keep its contents contained within, shut away from the outside world.
It seems alive.
It feels as though the door is watching you as you watch it.
The door makes no moves to invite you in.
Clearly, it wants you to keep moving… right?
You start to walk past then linger a second longer.
Why is this one being so mysterious?
What could it possibly be keeping locked away?
The next recess in the great corridor sports two doors side-by-side seemingly leading into some kind of school tucked all the way into the back of this dark and foreboding place.
Who would attend classes here?
The windows in the doors both read: “School of Understanding.”
Understanding what?
Aren’t all schools for understanding?
Paint seems to bleed down the face of the doors. Is this a bad sign?
Maybe you should just keep walking.
Then again…
The next door is happier than the last few.
It looks like it was painted by elves, or hobbits, maybe.
A rainbow of colors fold gently back and forth into each other.
The writing is big and confident reading: “Honor Roll for Good Deeds.”
The door looks like it’s lit by the sun on a cool spring morning just as the snow is melting.
You shake your head. That’s silly.
Perhaps this place should be called, “The Dark Corridor of Insanity” because you find yourself having the oddest thoughts today.
Still.
This door promises only good things.
Maybe going through it will clear your head?
You walk up and down this corridor realizing that the rest is filled with nothing but empty doorways leading to nowhere.
Some of the empty rooms feature ladders, paint buckets, and various building supplies.
Is… is work being done here?
Is this place still alive?
Who are these unseen people putting all this here?
…and why?
What do they want?
You pace up and down the corridor some more finding nothing new.
It doesn’t look like anything down this way is going to provide you with the clues you’re searching for.
The only promising information lies hidden behind those four eerie doors from earlier… or perhaps in the future when the spectral influences finish their additions.