Chapter Text
“Alice, you’re fired.”
It had been a stressful night. My stupid manager had fired me for something that I hadn’t even done.
It was another coworker who had been stealing supplies from the back, but of course, we didn’t have any cameras, so she didn’t believe me when I said that Jessica was blaming it on me.
I had already been on thin ice from lashing out at a customer about a month ago, so this incident was all that she needed to fire me.
I work- well, worked- at an old gas station around 10 miles outside of town. It was the kind of place where the pay was sketchy and the customers sketchier.
I had been sent home early, so I took the opportunity to go on a relaxing walk to calm myself down.
It was just around 1:00 PM or so, and I decided to take a different route than usual, so I found myself in an unfamiliar part of town.
It was pretty barren,with only a few houses that had probably seen better days on one side of the street, and a playground on the other.
It had a few swing sets, a see-saw, and a slide. It was one of those tube slides where when you went through it you built up so much static electricity, when your feet hit the ground, it felt like lightning bolts in your toes.
I was walking on the side where the playground was located. As I was passing it, a sudden idea ran through me.
I stopped and turned around. Walking over to the play equipment, I noticed everything had a bit of rust on it, like it hadn’t been taken care of in many years.
Unfortunately, since I didn’t want to get Tetanus from the chains that the swings were holding on to, I turned my focus to the slide.
It was about 7 feet tall and had a metal ladder leading up to the top of it, where a small platform stood right before the entrance of the slide.
The slide itself was plastic and purple, with patches of dirt near the top and bottom.
I decided it looked less menacing, and I probably wasn’t going to get a serious disease from something so harmless, so I figured it was worth the minor risk.
I strolled over to the ladder, which had minimal risk patches on it. It was steep, so I had to use some effort to get to the top, but after a few seconds, I was looking at the entrance of the slide.
It was like a mouth, gaping open at me, begging me to slide down it.
I had a strange feeling, almost indescribable. I felt like I shouldn’t go down it, not because of whatever gross things could be inside of it, (well, that could have been a minor part of it), but something else.
Something else I couldn’t quite understand. However, there was also a strange pull, a sudden desire to go down that slide.
The sudden urge was strange, but it overwhelmed the strange fear, so I sat down at the edge of the platform, putting my feet inside of the slide.
I pulled my butt up so I was sitting at the edge of the slide. I peered down to the bottom, where I could see faint light pooling just at the end.
It looked just like a regular slide, because why else wouldn’t it be?
I shook the thoughts telling me this wasn’t a good idea away, justifying them as just paranoia or lingering stress from earlier.
I took a breath and pushed myself off. I had good momentum and was actually feeling good, happy even.
This moment of happiness was short-lived, though. For some reason, I was going down for a lot longer than I realistically should have, with how fast I was going.
I was getting suspicious, concerned even. I hadn’t even seen it get brighter yet, which would signal that I was near the end.
I had been sliding for what had to have been over a minute. Suddenly, I felt a drop.
The slide veered straight down to the ground?! I saw it approaching quickly and braced myself for impact.
It didn’t happen, though, at least not when I was expecting it to.
I had shut my eyes tightly when I saw myself nearing the ground, so I was really confused when it didn’t happen.
What happened instead of me hitting the ground was the feeling of being in the… air?
Before I even had a chance to process what was happening, I hit the ground. But it wasn’t mulch.
It was a hard carpet.
I landed with a thud as I fell on my ass. I finally opened my eyes and saw.
I was in some sort of building with large corridors that went in every direction.
“Where...am I…?”