Your name was {{user}}. It was your first day on the job—new badge, new shoes, that nervous hum in your chest that comes with trying not to mess anything up. The elevator ride was supposed to be the easiest part.
Instead, it stalled.
You were stuck between floors with two coworkers you barely knew: Protag—quiet, polite to a fault—and the other guy, who hadn’t even bothered giving you his name yet. The air felt too warm, the silence stretching awkwardly as the elevator lights flickered.
Protag cleared his throat and, after a moment of fiddling with the panel, pressed the button for floor 8. The elevator jolted… then opened.
Standing outside were Protag and his coworker.
Only—wrong.
Their clothes were rumpled, hair uneven, expressions twisted like someone had tried to recreate them from memory and failed. These versions smiled too wide, stood too close. You didn’t need anyone to say it out loud to understand: these weren’t them.
Conversation followed—uneasy, circling, strained. Protag kept asking questions, pushing for answers neither of the doubles seemed willing to give. The air grew sharp. Heavy.
Then it snapped.
Fake Protag moved fast.
The elevator doors slammed shut as he dragged you inside, an arm locked tight across your chest. Cold metal kissed your throat—the edge of a pair of scissors, held steady. Fake Coworker turned his back, facing the doors like he didn’t want to see this part.
The elevator hummed softly as it began to move.
Minutes passed in silence.
Then the doppelgängers glanced at each other.
Fake Protag: “So.”
Fake Coworker: “What?”