Floor after floor of empty, endless space. A concrete cathedral built in honor of the God of Cement, who is after all, the universe's proudest fan of disposable paper cups. Large towering pillars reach up toward the ceiling, repeating every ten feet, aligned so perfectly across neatly spaced rows. It feels like I'm walking through some type of industrial ribcage. Over the years, water has slowly permeated in through cracks within the concrete, leaving behind calcified mineral deposits which hang like stalactites from the sky-high ceiling above. In the worst of sections, the internal re-bar is beginning to show, red and inflamed, like an abscessed cavity inside a rotten mouth. Standpipes cling to the walls, the peeling red paint flaking and mimicking scales on a venomous snake. Shallow puddles on the cold concrete floor reflect the ceiling above. Or is it just an optical illusion instead, merely just a hole in the floor as I gaze into an identical story below?

Boxy corner stairwells lead up to more repetition, the familiarity broken only by the sound of my footsteps echoing throughout the endless labyrinth of industrial expanse. I head back toward the staircase I just came from and this time head straight to the top, where ever that may be. With each story ascended, I peak out across the corresponding landing into world of familiarity; ribcages, cavities, red snakes. Eventually a large steel fire door prevents me from ascending any further. The weighted ropes holding the door open have long since snapped causing the doorway to be permanently closed. I try to budge the heavy bastard back up its rusted rails, but to no avail. Back down the stairwell it is. Back into the repetition, the peeling paint, the echoes of my footsteps. This time around I head down toward the basement. With each story descended I can sense the temperature of the air trapped within, begin to drop.

Soon I reach the depths of the basement. It's pitch-black down here and smells of mildew and dirt. I flick on my flashlight, its LED light easily cuts through the darkness yet illuminates nothing at all, just a beam of artificial light flickering with specks of dust floating in what might as well be the interior of a concrete casket. I position the beam toward the floor. It's bare ground, even a bit muddy in sections. Footprints in the muck indicate I'm not the first person to poke around down here. Or maybe I am? Everything either looks so familiar or looks of nothing but darkness. I try to remind myself how I got here at all; it was through the basement, I think? I try to remind myself what the darkness looked like. It was a stillness, an impenetrable blackness that repeated for infinity, I recall. I remember heading directly toward a stairwell, where the darkness eventually retreated, but the repetition continued non-the-less.

Finally, within the black something appears. It's a boxy stairwell again. I climb up the concrete steps. The temperature begins to warm and a soft light infiltrates the space as I round the first landing. I peek out and down the first corridor I cross; floor after floor of empty, endless space. I begin to wonder if I've been here, but what would it matter if I hadn't. Would I even know if I had? I look for clues in the peeling paint that has accumulated like a light snow across the concrete floor. But to Hell if I can find any footprints. I suspect I've probably been on this floor before, the ribcages, the cavities, the peeling red snakes, they're all still here. Yet the flaking snow looks so undisturbed.

At the far end of this familiar hallway I spot an unfamiliar door. It's not rusted, nor stuck, just ajar, an open invitation beaconing my curiosity. Through the door I emerge and then I see it again, floor after floor of empty, endless space. This time however, half a footprint is pressed into the snowlike dust below. Not fresh. Yet not old either. I place my foot inside it. It fits all too well. I don't remember leaving it, I think. But would I remember if I had?