The Ninth Floor
The darkness lasted only four seconds.
But afterward, nothing inside the lounge felt the same.
Emergency lights flickered weakly back to life across the room, painting everything in deep red shadows while the participants struggled to steady their breathing. The automatic doors remained sealed shut. The shadow beneath them was gone.
And somebody was missing.
Leah Hart.
Ethan noticed first.
The couch where she had been sitting moments earlier now stood empty except for a spilled coffee cup slowly dripping across the floor.
Mira stood immediately. “Leah?”
No answer.
Daniel moved toward the bathroom hallway near the back of the lounge. “She probably panicked.”
But the second he reached the hallway entrance—
he froze.
“There’s blood.”
Everyone turned.
A thin trail of dark red drops stretched across the white floor tiles leading toward the emergency stairwell door at the far end of the corridor.
Fresh.
The atmosphere inside the lounge shifted instantly from fear into genuine panic.
Mira grabbed Ethan’s arm tightly. “We need security.”
Ethan looked toward the sealed doors. “Security’s already dealing with something worse.”
Another deep metallic groan echoed somewhere beneath the facility.
The Ninth Floor.
The woman outside the lounge had said they opened it.
But Ethan remembered the facility directory from orientation clearly.
Somna Labs only had six underground levels.
So why did that phrase sound familiar?
Then Daniel suddenly looked pale.
“I saw that name before.”
Everyone stared at him.
“In the files I stole earlier,” he whispered. “There was an old section labeled Ninth Floor exposure.”
Cold silence spread across the room.
Ethan stepped toward him carefully. “Exposure to what?”
Daniel swallowed visibly. “I don’t know.”
The emergency stairwell door creaked softly.
Everyone froze instantly.
The handle slowly turned halfway downward by itself—
then stopped.
Mira backed away immediately.
“Don’t open it.”
Nobody planned to.
The blood trail disappeared beneath the door.
Then came Leah’s voice from the other side.
Weak.
Crying.
“Please help me.”
Mira covered her mouth instantly.
“Leah?”
No response came immediately.
Then softly—
through the metal door—
Leah whispered:
“There’s another hallway down here.”
Daniel shook his head immediately. “No chance.”
But Ethan’s chest tightened painfully hearing the terror in Leah’s voice.
She sounded real.
Not distorted.
Not wrong.
Just terrified.
Another voice suddenly interrupted from the speakers overhead.
Dr. Mercer.
For the first time since arriving at Somna Labs—
she sounded frightened.
“All participants remain where you are,” she ordered sharply. “Do not enter restricted sectors under any circumstances.”
The announcement crackled violently.
Then another voice spoke through the same speakers.
Not Dr. Mercer’s.
A woman.
Calm.
Soft.
“You already let us inside.”
Every speaker in the lounge exploded with deafening static afterward.
Mira screamed and covered her ears while the emergency lights flickered harder overhead.
Then the stairwell door burst open.
Leah stumbled inside.
Everyone rushed toward her immediately.
She looked horrified.
Her sweatshirt sleeve had been torn open near the shoulder while blood ran slowly down one arm. Her breathing shook violently as Ethan and Mira helped her away from the doorway.
“What happened?”
Leah physically couldn’t answer at first.
She kept staring toward the open stairwell behind her with wide unfocused eyes.
“There’s people down there,” she whispered finally.
Daniel frowned sharply. “Security?”
Leah shook her head immediately.
“No.”
The fear in her voice silenced everyone.
Ethan looked toward the stairwell carefully.
Darkness stretched downward beyond the red emergency lighting. Concrete steps disappeared into blackness far deeper than the facility layout should’ve allowed.
And softly—
voices echoed upward from below.
Not screaming.
Talking.
Dozens of conversations overlapping somewhere deep underground.
Mira stared at Leah’s bleeding arm. “What did this?”
Leah slowly raised trembling fingers toward her own shoulder.
“She touched me.”
The room went cold.
Ethan crouched slightly closer. “Who?”
Leah’s eyes filled with tears instantly.
“The woman from the television.”
Nobody spoke after that.
Then Leah whispered something worse.
“She knew my name.”
The voices beneath the stairwell suddenly stopped all at once.
Complete silence rose from the darkness below.
Then came footsteps.
Slow.
Ascending.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Someone was walking upward from the lower levels.
Daniel immediately backed away from the open door. “Close it.”
Ethan agreed instantly.
The moment he grabbed the metal handle, however, he noticed words carved repeatedly into the inner surface of the stairwell wall beside the doorway.
Deep scratch marks.
Hundreds of them.
All repeating the same sentence over and over:
DON’T SLEEP AFTER THE NINTH NIGHT
A cold pulse moved through Ethan’s stomach.
Then the footsteps stopped directly beneath the visible staircase.
Just out of sight.
Something waited below the final corner.
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed loudly enough to break the silence.
Then a man’s voice drifted upward from the darkness.
Calm.
Exhausted.
“You shouldn’t be awake yet.”
Ethan’s blood ran cold instantly.
Because he recognized the voice.
The missing participant from the transport van.