Broken Breakroom

There I was, sitting alone in a breakroom, minding my own business. It was lunch hour, so I was stuffing my face with a couple of corn dogs and a small bowl of mac 'n cheese that I had heated in the microwave. As I was chugging away on a bottle of root beer, I was staring at a Playboy magazine that had a black and white bunny in purple lingerie on the cover. 

The breakroom was clean and modern, with a Frutiger Aero design aesthetic. Apparently, I was working for the Umbrella Corporation, as indicated by a logo on the wall that was next to a poster with a long list of safety rules. 

It's unclear what my job was, but because I was employed by the Umbrella Corporation, it was likely a top-secret position.

As I was staring at my Playboy magazine, Milla Jovovich and a younger woman that looked just like her randomly walked in, both wearing red dresses, and they both got cups of tea from a dispenser. When they both noticed what I was looking at, they rolled their eyes and exited the room. 

Presently, my phone alarm went off, indicating that my lunch break time was over. I was very particular about punctuality, as it was important to me to keep track of time. 

Part of the breakroom wrapped around a corner, which was where the recycling and trash bins were located. When I went to dispose of my paper plate and bowl, I noticed something I had never seen before. Next to the green recycling bin was a square hole in the wall. It was just large enough to crawl through, about three by three feet. 

The hole looked like a drywall panel had been removed from the wall. Was some repair work being done? I peered into the hole, purely curious as to what was in there. I kneeled down, and now on my hands and knees, I crawled into the strange space, disappearing from the breakroom. 

~~~~~~~~

OOF! Goddammit! I hit my head on a wooden beam as I tried to stand up too early as I emerged from a hole in a beige wall. 

I was now in a beige breakroom that appeared, at first glance, to be abandoned. It seemed to be from another era, decades older than the modern breakroom I had just come from. 

The walls here were beige, cracked and covered in peeling wallpaper. The table and chairs were generic and plain, but also in a state of disrepair, clearly falling apart. On the table were shattered porcelain tea cups, and on the walls were clocks that appeared to be oozing blood. 

The clocks weren't ticking. The air was stale and musty, and the only sound in the eerily silent place was the endless hum-buzz of the fluorescent lights. 

Had this once been a part of the modern breakroom? Why had it been cut off and concealed? I was about to find out. 

There was an open doorway into another breakroom. This one was larger, but similar in appearance. This one had wooden chairs, some of which were broken. The walls were cracked, with more non-functioning clocks on the walls that were dripping blood from them. There was also more broken tea cups strewn about. What had happened here?

Again, the broken breakroom led to another. Then another. And then another. They all had cracked walls, shattered tea cups, and bleeding clocks. 

What a strange place. How far back did this breakroom go? Was there an end? 

My curiosity caught me off-guard. I kept going, deeper and deeper, into the broken breakrooms. Some of the rooms had non-functioning equipment, such as broken microwaves, dead refrigerators, and empty cupboards. The place was devoid of life. 

Suddenly, I remembered that I needed to get back to work. I retraced my steps back to the first broken breakroom. To my horror, I found that the hole I had come through was no longer there. 

Frustrated, I kicked at the spot where the hole had been, attempting to break the drywall so I could get back. Upon prying at and busting the drywall, I found that the wall behind the wall was solid concrete. 

In a panic, I shouted profanities at the wall, in hopes someone would hear me. 

"Butt-munch! Booger-brains! Ass-wipes! Forking ding-dongs! Fork y'alls!" 

As if being dramatic would solve anything. 

Perhaps there was another exit. Growing more anxious, I returned through the segmented and fractured rooms, now going even deeper into the labyrinthine complex of broken breakrooms. 

I looked around every nook, corridor, and cranny, but I could not find an exit, nor any sign for one. There was no escape from this place. I knew my time was bleeding away, and the longer I remained lost, the more I realized that gossip was likely spreading about me and my disappearance. 

~~~~~~~~

5 Years Later...

The rumbling sound of a jackhammer echoes through the broken breakrooms. In the first breakroom, concrete crumbles as a jackhammer breaks a hole in the wall. 

A construction worker peers through the hole, then works to enlarge the hole so it can be crawled through. 

A moment later, two researchers in turquoise hazmat suits crawl through the hole. Their suits have "D.A.R.B." embroidered with white lettering, and they're carrying strange instruments, which they use to measure energy frequencies. They also use standard cassette audio recorders to record EVPs. 

"This is where the audio phenomena is strongest," says one of the D.A.R.B. researchers, standing near the hole they had come through. 

"The time signatures are way out of whack. Time itself seems broken," said the other researcher, holding a time-flow detector thingy-ma-bob. "What are you picking up?"

"It sounds like a male voice cussing at something, but I can't be sure," said the first researcher. 

"Perhaps the rumors are true, then? Ever since that weird guy from the marketing department disappeared five years ago, there have been rumors of an angry ghost cussing at people here in the break room every so often. It was about damn time the extra-dimensional research department had us look into this." 

~~~~~~~~

5 Hours Later...

For hours, I kept cussing at the concrete barrier back to my reality. All I wanted to do was return to work and stare at my Playboy magazine in my spare time. 

After a while, I grew exhausted, so I lay on the floor under the table, and drifted off to sleep. Twenty or so minutes later, I was jolted awake by the sound of concrete crumbling. 

As if having broken all by itself, there was once again a hole in the wall where I had entered this purgatory. How or why, I didn't care. I was free! 

Or so I thought. 

I crawled through the hole, and back into the modern breakroom. However, it didn't at all look as how had left it. Although it was still the same Frutiger Aero aesthetic, the breakroom was dark, dusty, and it appeared as if it had been abandoned for many years, perhaps even decades. 

As if frozen in time, the clocks were still, and the atmosphere was eerie and stale. I exited the breakroom and wandered the silent and still corridors of the vast office complex, all of which was now seemingly lost in a twilight of existence.

Great. NOW where... or when... was I?