Chapter Text
It all started on the podcast.
He isn’t usually a guest on that particular production, but whenever he is he tries his best to be entertaining and tell funny stories. Usually they consist of his childhood or job as an electrician. People still laugh and gag over the stories of him throwing up in the back seat of his mothers car, or the time he had to use his own fist as a plunger.
Burnie and Gus try to switch up the guests for the podcast every once in a while, Barbara is usually their go-to-girl for it because the fans love both her and her ridiculous puns.
Sometimes he’s asked through email or during a company meeting. Today however he was just getting a cup of coffee in the kitchen when Gus walked in and said “Michael, you’re on the podcast today.” and then left without waiting for a response.
Luckily he really does like being on the podcast. It’s literally just sitting down for an hour and listening to his friends and co-workers have funny arguments, retell silly stories from their past, or discuss current events. Easy.
It’s even more entertaining when they talk about dumb bullshit that’s been viral on the internet.
Lately everyone has been going crazy over those dumb scary hoax posts about ghosts, aliens, and the paranormal. It’s an interesting discussion even though it’s all fake.
"When I was a kid we used to dare our classmates to go into the bathroom and do that stupid ‘Bloody Mary’ thing into the mirrors," Burnie says, chuckling at the memory, "Then we’d turn on and off the lights and making screaming noises from the door."
"You’re a terrible person!" Gus accuses, but he’s laughing too.
"It was funny! The poor kid would be scarred for life but it sure made for some great high school memories," he muses.
"During my last year of high school a bunch of my classmates dared me to stay out all night in the graveyard for two hundred dollars," Barbara says, shuddering at the memory but then smirks, "I stayed for like ten minutes and then left. But I went back at like six in the morning, just an hour before everyone came back to see if I was still there."
Burnie laughs out loud, “Did they fall for it? Did you get the money?”
"Of course I did!" she laughs, "I told them all of these stories about how I saw ghosts and spirits rising from the graves and they walked around."
"You did not!"
"I did," she nods proudly, "They all believed it and I was one hundred dollars richer."
They share more and more stories until Burnie finally asks, “What about you, Michael? Have you ever done any of those silly paranormal tales?”
"I don’t think so, not because I was too scared, but because I knew they were bullshit and didn’t want to waste my time."
Burnie laughs, “How valuable was your time as a teenager?”
"Well, I also didn’t have stupid friends that believed in those things."
"What about now?" Barbara asks, "We should get you to do one for an RT Life."
"That’d actually be awesome because we could do that elevator one right here in the building," Burnie says, and begins going back in his search history to find it. They’d talked about that one and countless others earlier, mainly just to make fun of them and discuss how gullible people are to believe they could work.
"I’ll do it, I don’t give a shit," Michael shrugs nonchalantly.
"Kara’s telling me that she doesn’t think it’s a good idea," Gus laughs after hearing the words through his ear piece.
"C’mon, Kara!" he yells at the camera playfully.
"It says you have to just go into the elevators, click buttons in a certain combination," Burnie continues while squinting at his computer screen in concentration.
"Easy."
*
"This is ridiculous," Michael mutters while crossing his arms.
"You were the one who agreed to it," Burnie grins, holding up a camera so that it’s facing his annoyed employee, "Do you remember the combination?"
"Yeah, obviously."
"Recite it to me."
"What?" his shoulders sag in exasperation, "Why?"
"I just want to make sure. What if you get to the other world but then you forget the button combination to get back? You’ll be stuck there forever."
"Fuck off, there’s no ‘other world’. You’re all idiots.”
"I guess you’ll find out for yourself when you go," Lindsay says, very amused at his annoyance.
"I will, and then I’ll rub it in all of your stupid faces when nothing happens."
"Yeah, you’ll be proving an internet post wrong," Ray mutters sarcastically, "Whoa, alert the media. Someone was wrong on the internet."
Michael figures that this is probably the most stupid RT Life that they’ve ever filmed. It’s literally just the four of them standing in front of an elevator talking.
When discussing and agreeing to do this on the podcast, he didn’t think it would actually happen. Twitter ended up exploding with countless people excitedly asking when the video would come out or giving him stupid advice. Some people telling him he shouldn’t do it and others hoping that it’ll be funny. Even after a week of not mentioning it on camera or any social media, the community was still abuzz with excitement.
He’s slightly regretting it now, not because he believes it will work, but because the hassle is just a major inconvenience. He’s supposed to be editing a Rage Quit video right now, not disproving some stupid demon-elevator trick.
Well, maybe he’s kind of hyping up his annoyance for the camera. He’s known to the fans as the angry guy, so bitching and swearing about this is probably the best way to handle it. But he is honestly a little ticked off over everybody making such a big deal out of nothing. This is a video that they won’t even get content out of because nothing is going to happen.
"You press four, then two, then six, two again, ten, then five. Then some poltergist chick comes on but I’m not allowed to talk or look at her. Then I press one but it’ll take me to ten. Then I’ll be to the other world," he recites, already knowing the combination off by heart since it’s been repeated so much over the last few days.
The internet post has also been a hot topic around the office ever since the podcast, and everybody has been coming up to Michael to talk about it.
Burnie nods as his eyes skim through the actual post on his phone. “Yeah,” he confirms Michael’s words, “That’s about it. And how do you get back?”
"Does that really matter? This crap isn’t going to work anyways."
"Michael," he states, glaring with a hint of mocking playfulness beneath. It’s obvious that he isn’t taking this seriously either, but then again, nobody really is.
He lets out a dramatic sigh, “Do the whole damn thing all over again, in the same elevator, and then when I go to the fifth floor I press one. While going to the tenth floor I press some other number to cancel it out. Then when I reach the first floor I’ll be back here.”
"Perfect. Now just make sure you don’t forget it while you’re there."
"How long do you really think I’m going to be there?"
"I don’t know, you didn’t pack a suitcase or anything so hopefully not too long," he grins.
Michael rolls his eyes and chuckles, “Shut the hell up.”
"Do you want to take the camera with you," Burnie asks him, the device still pointed towards and recording him.
"Doesn’t it say that they usually don’t work there?"
"Yeah, but what’s the harm in taking one?"
"Literally nothing because nothing is going to happen. You’re either going to get footage of me just standing in an elevator, or no footage at all because the camera won’t work."
"True, we’re better off just using this camera to film you going in then coming out rather than not getting anything."
"We could go get another camera," Lindsay suggests.
"That requires effort, Lindsay," Ray says.
"Just get in the damn elevator before the battery on this thing dies," Burnie says, shoving Michael by the shoulder roughly towards the open elevator doors.
"Fine, fine," Michael mutters and rolls his eyes before stepping in. The camera is still facing him so he smirks before pressing the button four, and says “Don’t miss me too much.”
"Yeah, we’ll try not to." Ray manages to say before the elevator doors close and leave him alone.
It’s weird how quiet elevators are nowadays. There’s none of that stereotypical smooth jazz music playing in the background, but that’s probably a good thing.
One thing about working in an internet company is that you learn to appreciate moments of silence like this at your work place. Usually the day is spent screaming at video games, throwing a fit on camera, or goofing off with other co-workers.
The door opens on the fourth floor but he doesn’t get out, and simply presses the next button.
Two.
It closes and he briefly wonders why everybody was so scared of this stupid thing. It’s literally just pressing buttons in an elevator.
There’s no downside or upside to this. He’s literally just going up and down floors in an elevator instead of spending his time doing other important things. Like, ya’know, his job.
Six.
Which you think he would be doing while at work. Sometimes it’s hard for him to wrap his head around the fact that he actually works at a place where they have fans excited by the idea of him doing pointless crap like this.
Ten.
Just pressing stupid buttons on an elevator.
Five.
When he reaches the fifth floor and the doors open, he’s momentarily confused when somebody else steps in. At first he thinks it might just be a coincidence and somebody else in the building needed to use the elevator, but they didn’t come in from the well-lit office area that he knows floor five to be. Just a dark and empty room with no doors or windows.
He can’t examine it any further because the elevator doors begin to close, and he doesn’t exactly fancy the idea of getting out at this point.
What the hell.
Didn’t that post say something about a girl getting on at floor five?
But this is a guy.
Michael doesn’t look straight at him, but from his peripheral vision he can make out that he’s just a skinny boy with light brown hair.
“‘Ello,” the boy greets, turning to face him directly, but Michael doesn’t dare turn to look at him.
He has a thick British accent but his tone isn’t threatening or scary in any way. It’s actually light and pleasant, as though he’s amused at the thought of meeting another person in an elevator.
Michael ignores him and presses button one, and then looks up to see the screen indicating the current floor is going up instead of down like it should be.
If that internet post is correct then that means he’s done it right.
"Are you okay, lad?" the boy asks him.
The door opens and instead of it being the tenth floor that he’s expecting, always bright and lit up by the numerous fluorescent office lights, it’s fairly dark. He’s still able to see everything, almost as though the room is being only partially lit up by natural light. But there’s no lights on. They’re all completely off.
He scrunches his eyebrows together and walks out of the elevator.
"Where are you going?"
There’s nobody else around.
There’s usually a lot of people on the tenth floor, just because it’s the highest in the building and everybody likes to have lunch in front of the windows.
Michael’s also struck with how quiet everything is. No gentle hum of the building, shouting or laughter from his other co-workers, or silly videos being recorded in other rooms.
The building is usually so loud, especially since it’s an internet production company. Somebody is always running around in a mocap suit or with a million documents. You can hear Gus complaining or JJ yelling for his intern, Blaine, to come assist him.
It’s odd that everything is just silent.
He also feels lighter. Not like he’s about to float off into the air, but his body doesn’t feel as heavy or weighed down by gravity. It’s an odd feeling to describe.
He walks over to the light switch near the door and flicks it a few times, but no lights come on and the brightness of the room remains the same. “That doesn’t work,” the boy points out, alerting Michael of the fact that he’s following him, “Lots of things don’t work around here.”
Michael doesn’t respond but the boy continues to try and communicate.
"What are you doing?" he asks, following him as he walks through the empty office and out of the door. Michael notes that the sound of their shoes against the floor doesn’t make any sounds. He purposely drags his sneakers more and more with each step, but they don’t make the usual squeaky noises that he’s been accustomed to hearing whenever he walks along this floor.
The hallway is just as empty and quiet.
"Hello?" Michael calls out, cupping his hands over his mouth. There’s no response, not even an echo. After a few moments of just standing there in the silence, he finally smirks and rolls his eyes, "Okay, very funny, assholes."
This is a dumb prank, even for them, but he has to give them props for their dedication. To empty out the entire building all while he was in that elevator for a few moments must have been tough. It wasn’t like there was a distinct lack of people at work today, so everybody must have been in on it.
"Who are you talking to?" the guy continues to ask. Now coming up to walk beside him instead of behind.
You’re not supposed to talk to the demon or whatever that enters the elevator with you, but the internet post mentioned nothing about it following you around and asking non-stop questions. Also, it’s not like this is real anyways. What harm could there possibly be in talking to the guy they’ve asked to participate in the prank.
"My friends," Michael responds, still not turning to look at him, "I assume they’re hiding somewhere."
As they walk around he peeks into as many rooms as he can, searching for any signs of movement. He also notes that every computer and television is turned off. Nothing displayed on their monitors except a black screen which indicates that they aren’t on.
"Why?"
"Because they always do stupid crap like this. I’m sure it’ll make a funny video, my confused face as I get off of the elevator and all of that crap, but I think it’s time for it to end. How much more content could they possibly get from this?"
"Content?"
"Yeah," he nods, walking down the main staircase to look in the Achievement Hunter office, "RT Life videos usually aren’t very long, so they have to jump out and say ‘Gotcha!’ at some point."
"That sounds like fun, do you think they’ll do it soon?" he asks.
"Hopefully, but aren’t you kind of ruining the prank by responding to this conversation?"
"I’m currently not in on any pranks," the boy sounds thoughtful, as though he’s thinking back to any recent jokes that he’s agreed to be a part of, "Do you think I’m being pranked too?"
"What? No, that doesn’t even make sense."
"Hm," he agrees, "Well I’m still not exactly sure what you’re looking for."
"My friends, moron." Michael rolls his eyes, they really succeeded in picking the right actor for this. He’s both odd and annoying, also very good at improv if he’s able to come up with such confusing responses so quickly.
"They aren’t here," the boy responds easily, sounding slightly confused, "There’s nobody here besides me."
"Well where did they go?"
It’s not like they could have taken everybody off of the property this quickly.
"They’re back where you came from, aren’t they?" he asks, "Or did you take them with you?"
"Take them with me where?"
At this point they’ve walked to the main floor and are now standing in front of the entrance to the building. He’s expecting everybody to be crowded around there with video cameras and grinning faces.
"To this world," the boy says.
Michael wouldn’t believe him if it wasn’t for what he was looking at. From where they’re standing they can see out of the glass doors of the entrance, and he can see the parking lot, still filled with the cars of his co-workers, but not a person in sight. That wouldn’t be that odd, because they could still be hiding in the back, but what’s weird is that there is nobody else around.
No cars driving down the usually very busy road.
No people walking down the street.
No lights or sign of life in the buildings across from ours, which are usually bustling with people.
"I’m…" Michael murmurs out, unable to speak at a volume any louder, "I’mhere?”
"Yeah!" the boy says, and Michael can hear the happiness in his voice, "You’re here with me! Isn’t this fun?"
He shakes his head and rubs his eyes, but when he opens them everything is still the exact same. The sky isn’t as bright, more like the sun has already gone down but everything is still easily visible.
This isn’t a prank.
That stupid internet post thing was fucking real and now he’s in this whacked up ‘other world’ with an weird demon thing that won’t leave him the hell alone.
What the ever living fuck.