The Man From the Van
Nobody approached the stairwell.
The red emergency lights flickered weakly across the lounge while the voices from below disappeared again into silence. Ethan stood frozen beside the open door staring into the darkness beneath Somna Labs, every instinct telling him to shut the stairwell immediately and never look downward again.
But the voice had been real.
Not distorted.
Not imagined.
The missing participant was alive somewhere below the facility.
Or at least something wearing his voice was.
Daniel Cross grabbed Ethan’s shoulder roughly. “Close the damn door.”
Ethan didn’t move.
Because part of him needed answers now more than safety.
“Who are you?” he called carefully into the darkness.
Silence answered first.
Then slow footsteps climbed another few steps upward from below.
Step.
Step.
Step.
A figure finally emerged beneath the red emergency lighting at the bend of the staircase.
Middle-aged man.
Brown coat.
Short beard.
Exactly like the photograph from the old medical report.
The missing participant looked exhausted beyond human limits. Dark veins spread beneath the skin around his eyes while his movements seemed slightly delayed, almost dreamlike. Yet the most disturbing part wasn’t his appearance.
It was the expression on his face.
Relief.
Like he’d been waiting years to finally see other people again.
“You remember me now,” he whispered.
Mira physically stepped backward.
Leah looked close to collapsing again.
Daniel spoke first. “How are you here?”
The man smiled weakly.
“That’s the wrong question.”
His voice sounded calm but strangely detached, like somebody speaking after being isolated for far too long.
Ethan stared at him carefully. “Then what’s the right question?”
The man slowly looked upward toward the ceiling.
“How many nights have really passed?”
Silence filled the lounge.
Then the emergency lights flickered harder.
For one brief second, the man standing on the stairs appeared wrong.
Not physically changing.
Duplicated.
Like multiple versions of him briefly overlapped in the same place before snapping back together.
Leah noticed too and immediately covered her mouth.
The man sighed softly afterward.
“They opened the Ninth Floor again, didn’t they?”
Nobody answered.
Mostly because nobody understood what the Ninth Floor actually was.
Ethan finally asked carefully, “This facility only has six underground levels.”
The man laughed once.
Tired.
Humorless.
“That’s what they tell the new groups.”
Cold silence followed.
Then he slowly climbed the remaining stairs into the lounge itself.
Nobody stopped him.
Mostly because fear had already evolved beyond simple fight-or-flight panic now. The participants weren’t dealing with something dangerous anymore.
They were dealing with something impossible.
The man glanced around the lounge quietly before his eyes settled on the shattered television screen still lying across the floor.
“You’ve started seeing her already.”
Leah’s voice shook. “Who is she?”
The man’s expression darkened immediately.
“She was the first participant.”
Another silence hit the room.
Mira frowned. “First participant of what?”
The man looked directly at Ethan before answering.
“The original sleep experiment.”
Ethan’s chest tightened.
“How long ago?”
The man hesitated.
Then quietly:
“Nineteen years.”
Daniel laughed immediately. “No. Absolutely not.”
Fair reaction.
Because the man standing in front of them looked maybe forty-five years old at most. Not somebody trapped underground for nearly two decades.
Yet deep down—
Ethan believed him.
The man slowly lowered himself into one of the lounge chairs like even standing required effort now.
“They thought prolonged wakefulness weakened the boundary between conscious and subconscious perception,” he explained softly. “Memory. Dreams. Hallucinations. Human awareness.” His tired eyes drifted toward the dark hallway outside. “They were right.”
Nobody interrupted.
Because every word somehow felt important.
“They called it Threshold Theory,” he continued. “The longer the brain remains awake, the thinner reality becomes.”
Mira whispered carefully, “That doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” the man agreed quietly. “It doesn’t.”
Then he looked directly toward Leah.
“But you’ve already seen things that shouldn’t exist, haven’t you?”
Leah didn’t answer.
Her silence confirmed enough.
The man rubbed trembling fingers against his forehead before continuing.
“By the Ninth Night, your mind stops separating memory from physical space.” His voice lowered further. “Dreams stop staying inside your head.”
The lounge felt colder.
Daniel crossed his arms aggressively. “So what? We’re all hallucinating together now?”
The man stared at him for several long seconds.
Then softly—
“What makes you think I’m hallucinating?”
Nobody spoke afterward.
Because none of them had a good answer anymore.
Then suddenly alarms screamed again somewhere deeper inside the facility.
This time closer.
The man immediately stood.
“They found out I came up here.”
Ethan frowned sharply. “Who?”
The man looked toward the stairwell.
“The ones who stayed awake too long.”
A heavy metallic crash echoed from below.
Then voices rose through the darkness beneath the staircase.
Dozens.
Whispering.
Moving upward.
The man’s exhausted expression finally shifted into visible fear.
“You need to leave the lounge.”
Daniel stepped backward instantly. “Leave and go where?”
The man pointed toward the observation wing.
“There’s an access elevator near Sector D.” His breathing quickened now. “It still reaches the surface.”
Mira looked confused. “Still?”
The man didn’t answer.
Another crash thundered from below.
Closer now.
Then came laughter.
Multiple people laughing softly beneath the stairwell in overlapping voices.
Leah started crying again immediately.
The man grabbed Ethan’s arm suddenly.
His grip felt freezing cold.
“When the clocks stop again,” he whispered urgently, “don’t trust anyone who remembers sleeping.”
Ethan’s stomach dropped.
“What does that mean?”
But before the man could answer—
the lounge lights shut off completely.
Darkness swallowed the room.
And from somewhere inside the darkness—
someone whispered directly beside Ethan’s ear:
“He never left the Ninth Floor.”