There is little variation from place to place as I zigzag through yellow room after yellow room. The volume of the fluorescent ballast hum is softer at times, but mainly loud. Some rooms have flickering lights. Sprinklers are dripping in enough rooms to keep the yellow carpet consistently damp, but sometimes it is a deep squelching wet that soaks the carpet and wells up around my sneakers with each step. Other times it is just a low-level wetness that has allowed the top of the carpet to dry, so that my steps leave footprints where my weight has pushed the top of the carpet down into the water at the base of the fibers. The smell of damp permeates everything, but I don’t detect any mildew, which was definitely present in the warehouse.
On average, I come across a leaking sprinkler or just a leak from the ceiling in general once every twenty rooms or so. The rate of leakage can vary from a slow drip to a steady flow. The distance from a high flow rate leak does affect the carpet wetness. There doesn’t seem to be any variation in elevation between rooms, so the water spreads out evenly, the distance from the source determining how much is absorbed and therefore how wet a particular room is.
Another thing that changes from room to room is the number of openings to other rooms. Every room so far has had at least two. Most have three or four. Maybe it would be better if this were a labyrinth. That would indicate it leads somewhere. I could just follow one wall and eventually get to the exit, but this open world of sameness doesn’t seem to have a point to it.
Occasionally, there are some marks on the walls. Here a bunch of holes have been made in a wall with foot or fist. There I see wallpaper has been partially stripped from the wall. In one room, someone wrote “Sally was here.” Did the people who came before me find a way out? At least I know this isn’t only happening to me. Maybe I’ll find someone.
I keep going according to plan until I reach room sixty-seven where I am blocked by a wall. I have seen walls without openings to either side, ahead and behind as well as the ones in the rooms I originally entered, but this is the first time one has blocked my path. I don’t want to break the pattern and potentially get lost in case I decide the smart thing to do is to return to the beginning. I try to think of what I should do.
I take my earbud charging case and place it in the middle of the room. If I follow the wall, always keeping it to my right, eventually I should come back to the room with the earbud case unless this has become a labyrinth, in which case I will not be able to return to my zigzags anyway. Another possibility is that the earbuds are not there anymore, meaning the rooms are shifting or someone has moved them.
Starting off by going into the room to the left, which I call A, I find it is also walled off to my right, so I go straight into the next room, B, where I am able to turn right. I then have to go straight for five rooms until I can turn right again in room G. In the adjoining room I am also able to turn right and go forward to room J where there is another walled side of the room ahead of me. Since there is also a wall to my right, I turn left, and I figure that next room is the one that would have been room seventy had I been able to go straight from sixty-seven. I walk straight through room seventy-one into seventy-two, where I can continue straight to seventy-three or again turn right. Instead of backtracking to room sixty-seven, I keep going with my previous tactic, always keeping a wall to my right, with the goal of returning to the room with my charging case.
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After turning into room K to the right of seventy-two, I can turn right again and see two rooms ahead of me, the first of which would be sixty-nine and then to another wall, so instead of following the wall this time, I turn left and go one room to M. As I expected from my mental map, I can see two empty rooms and a wall to my right. In front of me is a wall, so, I turn left, go two rooms to O and am able to turn right again. It’s four more rooms until I can make another right from room S to T. I go one room and turn right again. Three rooms ahead there is another wall in room W, where I turn to my left.
In room X, I stand in the center under the vent, which urges me on back to room sixty-seven. My earbud charging case is still there on the floor and I retrieve it. Aside from the doors to the warehouse that led me here and then disappeared, the rooms seem to operate according to natural laws. I turn around and backtrack to room seventy-two and turn right in the direction of room seventy-three. I continue my zigzag path, ten rooms at a time. Occasionally, I am interrupted by a wall and carefully use the method of only turning right until I return to my course.
When I get to room five hundred, I stop. I’ve been walking for at least an hour, so that must be about three miles with stops, detours, and backtracks. I wonder how big exactly these rooms are and if I can figure out my travel distance based on the number of rooms I pass through. I decide to make some measurements. I know my size nine women’s sneakers are about ten inches from the rubber of the heal to the rubber of the toe. I start on one side of the room and start stepping heel to toe keeping track to measure the distance to the other side.
Halfway across, I glance up and say out loud, “Stupid!” The ceiling tiles and lights are a standard two feet by four feet, so I just need to count the tiles. I determine the rooms are thirty-six feet from the center of one wall opening to the next and the rooms are all square. It’s close enough to say every one-hundred-fifty rooms is a mile since on the zigzags I am somewhat cutting the corners.
It occurs to me that I might as well go straight rather than zigzagging given the occasional blockades of my course. They will do as well as zigzagging to throw off the bear. Actually, I don’t even know if anything would throw off a bear. The only thing I know about bears is that they’ll get into your trash, car, or house if they smell food and can find a way inside and I’m not going to beat one in a fight or outrun one. Maybe a straight line would be more confusing for a bear. I have no idea. Zigzagging will cut down on my total distance from where I started since I can’t go diagonally. I set a goal of going at least two more hours before reconsidering my strategy. My calculations confirm I am covering about four hundred fifty rooms an hour, so like three miles as I had estimated earlier. I could probably improve on that, but I see no advantage in tiring myself out.
As I walk, I finish my water. It’s time to face the decision of drinking the sprinkler water or not. If something poisonous is in the dripping water, it would probably be a better death than dehydration or bear attack. I stop walking. “Stay positive, Okxana. You only just got here. There’s got to be a way out.” I start walking again. I have to keep my wits about me even if this situation is beginning to seem impossible. In the next room that has a leaking sprinkler I patiently wait for my water bottle to refill. I take a swig and swish it around in my mouth. It has a slightly coppery taste but seems like plain old tap water. I spit it out and top off the bottle again. If I feel fine, I’ll swallow some.
