(Is) anyone here?

When Malik opened his eyes, he saw that it was dark, and that he was staring up at a ceiling that he did not recognise.

It was extremely fancy and ornate, with swirling, gold patterns and ribbed edges, attaching it to the wall. The wall paper from the walls seemed to extend upwards to the ceiling, the patterns twisting and turning, reaching up higher and higher until the lines from both sides met in the middle.

Where the fuck was he?

Malik sat up, and looked around. There was a corridor with multiple doors leading to different rooms on his right, while on his left, most of the wall was filled with windows, looking out on a street that he did not recognise.

Malik shook his slightly and rubbed his eyes with his hands, before standing up. He moved towards the windows and squinted, trying desperately to find something, anything, that he could recognise. He looked to be staring out at an affluent neighbourhood, all the houses looking large and grand, with fancy German cars in their driveways.

Not a single street name, that he could see in the darkness, sounded familiar.

Malik looked up to see that it was night time. There was a full moon out tonight, which made Malik pause.

He distinctly remembered the last moon that he had seen being a tiny slither of a crescent, the last vestiges of silver, before the new moon.

How long had it been since he was last awake?

And where the fuck was he?

Malik wracked his brain for the last memories that he had.

He remembered bitching about the broken aircon and calling Jacob for somebody to come repair it. He remember it being repaired, and then him falling because of something, and hitting his head on the freezer, maybe.

Everything was fuzzy to Malik, but at lease he could remember his own name, which was a good thing.

He shook himself and decided that he really ought to go and find a front door. Considering he had no idea where he was, he picked a direction and decided to start walking.

He chose left, and began walking down the long corridor.

The house was noticeably silent, Malik's footsteps not even being too loud, the sound smothered by the plush carpet that he walked on.

All the doors were distractingly the same: a white frame housing a dark brown, wooden door which held a gold door handle.

There was no variation between the doors and nothing to identify one as unique from another. He was tempted to test the door knobs and see if there was something inside, but he held himself back, deciding that it was better to not disturb anything in the house, or get side tracked.

Malik felt relieved to know that he had chosen the right direction to walk, when he left the corridor to find himself in a big hall, after a couple minutes of walking.

His eyes were immediately drawn to a set of double doors in front of him, and he immediately skidded over, throwing out a hand to steady himself as he came to a stop, the floor changing from carpet to what looked like marble.

Malik suddenly realised something.

The house was impeccably clean, not even a single speck of dust on any surface, and a shiver ran through him.

He did not want to find out who was living here, and whether they had an army of cleaners.

He pulled on the handles of the double doors, and felt as if cold water had doused him.

The doors were locked.

Fuck!

Well then, Malik would simply smash a window to escape.

He looked around the room, and saw a fancy wooden table holding a vase, snug against the corner of the room.

The vase carried several flowers, also coloured gold, in full bloom. Malik did not know their species and did not want to know. He picked up the vase and placed it down at the side, before picking up the table.

He carried it back to the corridor that he had emerged from and lifted the table high above his head, ready to smash the first window that he saw. It did not take long, and he threw the table at the glass as hard as he could, moving his arms back to shield his face from the glass, bending over.

He fully expected that the table would fly straight through the window, and land on the grassy lawn outside. He fully expect that the glass would spray everywhere and that he would have a straight path to escape the building through.

He was not expecting the fucking table to bounce off the window, and be thrown back into the corridor, hitting the wall behind Malik.

The glass didn't even have a single scratch on it, not even the slightest evidence of what Malik had done. He looked over to the table as well, his eyes bulging as he saw no scuff marks, and no damage to the wall paper.

What. The. Fuck.

This wasn't real.

What was the window made out of?

It couldn't be glass if there wasn't even the slightest damage.

And that table couldn't be wood.

But it felt like wood. It weighed the same as wood. But it wasn't wood. It couldn't be wood.

Wood got damaged if you threw it at windows and walls.

Where the fuck was he?!

Malik immediately ran back to the giant hall, and desperately scanned the room for something metal, this time, to try and break the glass with. Maybe he could find himself a bat, or a wrench, or a crowbar.

But it was unlikely, considering he was in some giant, rich person's house.

He opted to throw himself at the door instead, pushing against the locks with his entire body weight.

He failed every single time, pushing himself harder and harder, motivated by the complete lack of pain that he felt. It was almost as if the door was absorbing all the damage that he was dealing to it, and throwing it right back at him. The door was still a solid object, but whenever he hit it, he felt that it was pushing back with as much power, sometimes even more.

There was something wrong with this house.

It was like it was its own supernatural being. It was like the house was trying to keep him inside.

What was this place?

Why was he here?

What did he need to do to leave?

Malik wanted his Grandma. He wanted her to scream at the problem until it went away. That usually worked with her.

He raked his eyes down the doors, looking between the seams, trying to find a weak spot, when he noticed that there were no locks on the door, that there was no clasp and no keyhole. The doors must be locked from the outside then, if he couldn't see anything.

This place was some kind of prison.

Malik decided that he would just have to explore the house and try and find a backdoor, a side door, a chimney he could climb up, some secret tunnel, out of this place. He would be leaving no matter what this house was capable of...