All of a sudden, the lights came on. No, that’s wrong. If this whole scenario was secretly being watched by television viewers at home, it’s as if a single frame of film was rudely snipped away to the cutting room floor. White fluorescent light pierced my eyes, which up ‘til now had just enough time to adjust to darkness before they were so assaulted. What was worse, however, was that I wasn’t on the 8th floor anymore. I was on the 3rd, back where where it all started: it being the crack in this bizarre reality that quickly spiraled towards “things breaking down”.

Had we been teleported back to the third floor? I don’t recall hearing any sort of high-pitched whine, nor had I seen a shimmering light. My head grew heavy. Standing next to me was the unassuming man, carrying the functioning coffee machine. Just then, a thought occurred to me. I swallowed hard upon the realization.

“Are you The Controller?”

He never said yes, nor did he say no. He’d just blithely gone on to ask about “things breaking down”.