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“You need a better name,” Coworker said thoughtfully while they were on break.
He looked up from his cubicle, his nose still buried in meaningless paperwork. “Huh?”
Coworker grinned. “Newbie isn’t cutting it anymore, is it?”
There was that flash again. A moment of quiet sincerity, as if something was clawing out of him.
Then Coworker said, “Of course, nobody’s better at their job than me, but still.”
He smiled a little despite himself. “What do you have in mind?”
Coworker grinned. “Protag!”
“...Protag?”
“Short for Protagonist.”
He waited.
“Because you’re so full of yourself, obviously.”
“I-”
“Nope, that’s your name, I get to choose it and nobody else.”
“That’s…not how names work.”
“It is now!” Coworker chirped happily. He wiggled his eyebrows in a…rather disturbing manner. “I am your favorite, after all.”
He thought about that.
He hadn’t had a name since he first walked in through the elevator doors.
He offered a shy smile, just like the ones he used to have from so long ago. “I think…I think I’d like that.”
Coworker blinked.
There was that something trying to push out of his eyes.
Protag nodded to Coworker, a feeling of fullness coming back from the dark abyss inside him.
A feeling he’d forgotten.
Coworker was wringing his hands as if he was unsure what to say.
Protag smirked. “Get back to your office before the rats scurry over instead.”
His entire body went rigid with the thought, and he yelped out a “Bye, Protag!” offhandedly before running off.
That man.
Protag’s smile didn’t leave his face for the entire day.
*.*.*
Protag walked in the elevator, feeling a strange excitement for the day. It was…new.
He thought it could be a good sign.
That was his first mistake.
As usual, the elevator got stuck. This was predictable.
Coworker was there, still yapping his ear off.
Also predictable.
Protag rolled his eyes at a random quippy remark, eyes focused more on the buttons than anything else. He pressed floor two, just to see what it would be today.
The elevator shuddered for a moment, the classic ding piercing through the stuffy air just a bit louder than usual.
The doors opened to a room of mirrors.
Well.
That was new.
Protag studied the room, wondering what the gimmick was. Even in the most innocent looking places, there was always a way to die.
He almost didn’t catch the way Coworker stiffened beside him.
Almost.
Coworker was staring.
“He-um…hello?” Protag tried.
No response.
This was not predictable.
This was real.
Protag tried again, this time gently shoving the taller man.
Coworker’s eyes were hazy. “Where…are we, Protag?”
Protag blinked.
That wasn’t a question he’d prepared the answer to.
“The elevator,” he answered, but his hesitance made it sound more questioning than he liked.
Coworker still wasn’t moving. “Since when did we have mirror floors?”
Protag didn’t know.
But he stepped forward nonetheless. If he was going to die because of some strange gimmick, then so be it.
Coworker was still unusually stiff as he stood behind the doors, not even making a snide comment on how he was the ideas man.
Protag walked onto the floor.
Nothing happened.
It was just…mirrors. Thousands of little versions of him stretching endlessly into the beyond.
Well.
He didn’t need to look around anymore, then. He’d come back later if he needed to.
He turned back, ready to move on.
Coworker stared into the reflection, hand outstretched.
Looking for something.
Protag frowned, stepping into the elevator, unsure whether to try and snap the man out of it. He hesitatingly rose a hand to gently touch him, to snap him out of it, but suddenly Coworker lurched forward before Protag could properly stop him, feet moving one step to the next in a way far too unnatural and Protag felt a twinge of fear for the first time in months-
Click.
The sound of something all too familiar.
Click, click-
A small flame burst to life from the lighter he never meant to return.
Protag needed to help, needed to do something, because this was twisted in an incomprehensible way and they both needed to leave this floor before the light was too much.
But then Coworker looked back.
An awakening.
And then the floor exploded.
.*.*.
Well.
That was new.
There had been a seemingly random aspect to every single death in the elevator, but one factor always remained constant: the elevator would remain untouched. No radiation poisoning seeping through the walls, no creature reaching in to find it's feast, no safety team stepping beyond the careful line between them and the doors. The only time they’d died in the elevator was in the fire.
…And now.
The inconsistency made him want to make sure Coworker was alright.
Protag rubbed his eyes, the lingering shock from the lights still buzzing in the air. Black dots flitted in and out of his vision, the discoloured walls around him hazy as he gathered his bearings. The elevator remained untouched. Nobody looking would believe the horrors it's cheery ding held.
Nobody would know except him.
“Protag…”
Coworker was alive, too, then, despite the unusual circumstances of their deaths. He let out a breath. Everything else had returned to its proper place; it was silly of him to worry. Time to resume the conversation. What were they talking about before the blast?
“Did…did we just-did we just die?”
…What.
Protag stared.
The dots were dancing through the room, haze fogging up his vision as he tried to focus on the man in front of him. It took effort, resistance on his very essence trying to force his eyes away. He wasn't sure if it was because of ‘lingering effects’.
It took a second to focus.
Coworker’s form doubled, vision still trying to spite him, before crashing back together in a final act of defeat.
What was left was a man.
Coworker's shoulders were hunched, hands fidgeting uncertainly as his eyes darted around the space. It was like he was making himself smaller. There was something raw about this version of him that Protag didn't know existed.
He remembered Coworker asked a question.
“Um…yeah.”
Coworker picked at his fingernails meticulously.
“...How?”
Was this who was underneath the shiny persona?
“The elevator gets stuck.”
It wasn't a good answer. But Protag didn't know if Coworker expected one in the first place.
“Gets?”
Protag knew what he was asking. He didn't know if he should say yes.
Coworker seemed to take his silence as an answer. “What the fuck.”
They stared at each other.
And then Protag laughed.
A bitter, hysterical, relieved laugh.
“It’s been like this for a year.”
Silence.
Coworker's eyes were unfocused, hands trembling slightly with each systematic movement.
Protag remembered his first death. The emptiness of knowing he was the only one he could trust.
He-gently, hesitatingly-raised an arm. Coworker stared at it blankly. Protag took that as permission. He wrapped his arms around Coworker’s stiff form.
Coworker shook, tremors of horror wracking his body. As if time was flowing back to him all at once.
Protag stayed.
It wasn’t perfect. But it was real.
And if he felt a streak of tears fall down his cheek when Coworker reached up, nobody else would have to know.