Quality control is going to love you
Pulling your head away from the door, you shake it in distrust. No. This place is too creepy. You’ll find some other way back.
Stepping away from the store and back onto the sidewalk, you decide to try crossing the street and walking toward a large factory that’s maybe a few blocks away. Smoke is emitting from the top of it and pouring out into the air. No wonder this place smells so muggy.
Heading toward it doesn’t take as long as you thought, and you’re there within a matter of minutes. Aside from a few shady glances and noises from alleyways and finding some spare change and a condom in your pocket, nothing terribly unusual happened on the walk.
The factory is closed to the public via large gates guarding the entryway. Looking at them, you can’t really tell how they’re locked in place. The hinges on them suggest they swing in and out, but there’s no poles, no electric mechanisms, not even a gatekeeper nearby. Pushing on the bars of the gate gets you nowhere, for even though they seem to just be hovering in midair from hinges attached to pillars, they’re immovable. However, you notice that there just might be enough room to crawl under it. Looking around to make sure no one is watching, you duck down and wriggle your way under the metal gate.
As you put your hands on the bottom of the gate to help push yourself through, the doors swing open with almost no effort, gliding gracefully out where you had just been standing. Rolling your eyes at the simplicity of the problem, you stand up and dust yourself off.
It looks like you’re now in the building’s parking lot, as there are dozens of cars parked around you. The only oddity is that none of them are in place. There isn’t even really a “place” for them to go. There are no lines on the ground or anything that designate where cars should drive or park. Shrugging and chalking it up to just a cultural oddity, you walk to the main doors of the factory.
The front door to the place is even bigger than the gates leading in. Whoever owned this place was definitely not short on money, and could maybe use some of it to help you get home. It looks like there’s a reception area that’s supposed to welcome you in the building, but it’s oddly deserted. There’s not a soul in the room, but the sounds of heavy machinery can be heard roaring from deeper in the building. Walking behind the counter and through another set of double doors, you find yourself on a catwalk in what appears to be the main room of the facility. Large vats of something are being pressed down by pistons, whose operation seems to be what’s causing all the smog. Walking above one of the vats, you suddenly realize how low the safety rails are here.
No sooner do you realize this than an alarm blares in your ears, echoing throughout the factory. A voice over a PA system screams “LUNCH IS OVER, BACK TO WORK!”
The jolting scare of the noise made you lose your balance. You try to lean on the rail for support, but you misjudge its distance, and you feel your body’s weight shifting. With a yelp, you lose your footing and fall into a vat, only to see a piston about to come crashing down on top of you.
Written by Zorpix on 20 February 2015
The end (for now)