The walls were gray and the empty room had a feeling of nothingness like television static. It was a perfectly square room likely constructed by an obsessive compulsive mathematician. One rusted metal door with seven locks was the only thing that distracted me from the almost tangible feeling of nothingness in the air and in my brain. 
I was alone when I awoke in this silent chamber. My memory was run over by gray storm clouds blocking the truth from reality. I tried to remember how I had gotten there, but one single scene was on repeat in my head. In this scene, I was falling through the air.
Was I dead? Was nothing the feeling of death? Was this hell or… heaven? This certainly couldn’t be heaven unless something wonderful was behind these walls. If this was hell then what had I done to deserve this? I was just a regular seventeen-year-old girl. I mean, sure sometimes I forgot to do my homework, make my bed, or clean my room, but I wasn’t a bad person or was I? Did I really deserve eternal damnation or whatever this was?
I was thinking these things over and over again when I heard a knock at the door. My heart began to race. Was it a monster, a devil or a clone of my mother who was going to yell at me for eternity for not making my bed?  After a few moments of hesitation, I decided that anything was better than a lifetime of waiting. So I began to slowly unbolt the locks and wait for the intruder to appear.
As the metal door slowly creaked open, a blast of light shone into the dark room showcasing a boy. He looked about my age and I admit he was extremely handsome despite having a scruffy beard. Yet what was most attractive about him was the way his smile shone as he caught my eye for the first time. For a second he fumbled with his words like a terrified child trying to ask his crush on a date. 
After a few seconds he finally said, “I’m sorry miss... I just haven’t seen such a beautiful face in as long as I can remember. I’m Sam by the way… Sam Mason… It’s nice to meet you.”
It may have been the light, but I think my face melted in that moment and so did my heart. No boy had even called me beautiful and I was dying all over again. For a second, it was just the two of us and nothing else mattered. It wasn’t until a minute later that I realized that I hated being called “miss” and I was also terribly ugly. I mean I had just died and I probably looked like a monster with no makeup on and bags under my eyes. But in that moment, it didn’t matter. In my mind, he was down on one knee, we were getting married, having children, living forever and not dying of course.
After I reappeared from my fantasy, I nervously  shook Sam’s hand and tried to form words.
“I..I...I’m Celia...Celia Chase… nice to meet you… and where are we?” I asked.
“That’s a very good question, Celia. I’ve been wandering around here for quite some time and I still don’t know for sure. The only thing I know is we can’t escape this place.”
  After a moment of silent fear, I finally asked, “Are we dead? And is this heaven or hell?”
“I really don’t know, but this doesn’t seem like heaven to me… at least not until you came. I’ve been really lonely and scared for as long as I’ve been here and I’m just glad you’re here. I thought this was just gonna be another empty room or a monster, but it was you.”
If Sam and I were friends I would have called him out for being corny and all, but it really seemed sincere to me. So I decided to go along with it.
“I feel the same way,” I answered.
We both mutually joined hands like two super heroes making a pact. As he grasped my fingers, I could feel a bolt of electricity run through my body. My heart felt like it was on fire. If this was the fire of hell then I wouldn’t mind an eternity.
“Hey… Do you want me to show you around?” Sam asked with a nervous laugh which revealed that this tour would not be like one at Disney World or the Caribbean. It would be different... 
“Okay,” I said as he gracefully lifted me forward into the empty hallway.
“Remember your room number is 404,” Sam whispered in my ear. “It’s not safe to sleep in the halls.”
“Okay.”
As we began to walk forward, I noticed that the the hallway seemed to go on forever. Rooms were placed on each side of the hall and all the doors looked almost identical to mine only they were all slightly cracked open.
“ Most of these rooms are empty,” Sam explained, “other rooms… aren’t.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Do you want to see one of them? It might be scary, but I'll hold your hand,” he offered with a smile. 
Anxiety was beginning to scream for help in my chest but the warm fire in my heart kept it at bay. So I nodded and we peeked inside one of the doors.
It was dark inside the room, but the hallway light illuminated a… woman? Monster? Creature? I’m not sure what she was at all. She had sharp hairy claws and black furry legs which were chained to a wall. But her face looked remarkably human despite the death glare in her eyes.
“Hello Dolores,” Sam called out to her. In response, she clattered her chains and yelled out a fierce growl and then a high pitched scream which lasted for an entire minute.
“Her name is Dolores?” I asked as my whole body trembled with fear.
“No,” Sam called back, “I just got bored and named her.”
Sam showed me many other rooms that day. In one room, there was a terrifying man whose whole body was covered by infected tattoos.  He was also chained to the wall and claimed he would kill us if we unbound him. In another room, there was a hungry looking lion that roared at us. Luckily, It was also chained to the wall so it couldn’t eat us. I finally told Sam that I couldn’t take it anymore. He probably thought I was scared, but in truth, I was just worried. I couldn’t help thinking I had done something wrong in my life.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, I finally gained the courage to ask Sam something.
“Are...are you a bad person?”
“No… I don’t think so,” Sam answered with a laugh. “Why would you ask that?”
“I was just thinking that maybe this is Hell and bad people go to Hell. And… I don’t think I’m a bad person either.”
“Well Christianity might not be right and this might not be Hell… Or maybe we were put here by mistake?”
“They make mistakes?” I asked with surprise.
“I guess… I really don’t know.”
“I just really wish we could escape this place. I mean you’ve walked around like a thousand times. There must be some way out.”
Sam thought for a moment and then finally whispered, “Okay… So I know I neglected to tell you this, but there is a door outside.  But there are guards protecting it… and I don’t think we can get out.”
“Can you please show it to me?” I begged him.
“Okay, Celia, but you might be scared.”
I just nodded as Sam led me down the hall. It only took a few minutes to reach the large circular opening in the hallway. In this opening, there was a large metal door. It looked almost identical to other doors in the building only it had a large doorknob instead of seven locks.
“This is the door,” Sam whispered. “Do you want me to open it?”
“Okay,” I answered, even though my heart screamed no.
Sam had only cracked open the door when the hands came. There were all sorts of hands, some large, some small, some had sharp claws, some had hair and some were very bony. However, they were all pushing us back with incredible strength. They grabbed our arms, pushed our chests and knocked us down multiple times. It may have been a minute, but it felt like an eternity of struggle. Sam kept pushing at the door over and over again until he finally forced it closed. Even after the door was shut, I could still hear the screams of the creatures outside. They were almost as loud as those inside my head.
After a minute of loud heavy breathing, Sam said, “That’s why I was afraid to tell you about that. Are you okay?”
I just nodded, but I wasn’t okay. My heart was still in pieces as I glared back at the metal that had once seemed so innocent. All the while, I kept thinking and thinking until an idea struck me.
“Yeah...I think I know a way we can escape,” I said.
“What do you mean? This is the only way out!”
“I know that, but I have an idea. What if we use the creatures to defeat the guards? If we unshackle them then they’ll chase after us. So we’ll run as fast as we can to the door. Then the creatures will attack the guards while we make our escape.”
Sam’s eyes were wide with awe or fear as he said, “Okay… but what if they attack us first?”
“I mean we’re already dead, so what do we have to lose?”
“I guess you’re right…” Sam said uncertainly. “And I know where the keys are. They’re on top of all the doors. It’s almost like they wanted us to find them…”
We both felt a strange uneasiness about the plan, but I finally convinced Sam to go along with it. I decided to release Dolores and Sam agreed to release the lion.  They both made me shiver with fear, but they didn’t seem as dangerous to us as the tattooed murders and the other murderous creatures in the building.
Right before I entered Dolores’s room, Sam grabbed my hand and pulled me against the wall for a second. I thought he was gonna say something sentimental and all, but instead he went in for a kiss. It only lasted for a few seconds, but my whole heart felt like it was on fire again. I never wanted it to end.
After a second of strange silence, Sam nervously asked, “So if we actually aren’t dead and we make it out alive and all… Would you ever wanna go on a date with me?”
“Of course,” I answered in nervous laughter.
“It was nice knowing you,” he said with a warm smile as he made his way toward the room. 
I was terrified as we entered our separate rooms, but I couldn’t stop smiling. Despite this, I had an uneasy feeling inside of me that I would never see Sam again.
As I entered Dolores’s dark room, my heart started racing and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but I had to continue with the plan. I knew Sam would. So I took the key from the top of the door and began to unlock the shackles on Dolores’ hands and legs. As I undid the locks, she growled and jerked her hands and legs about as though she was having a seizure or maybe I was. As soon as I unlocked the last metal shackle, I ran as fast as could. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her following me, but she  fumbled and jerked about as she ran. Luckily, she couldn’t catch up to me.
Suddenly, Sam was running at my side, breathing heavy. I caught his hand and we ran together. I ran faster than I ever had in life (or death.) All the while, I could hear the lion’s growls and the woman’s screams close at our backs. If they caught us, it could have been the end of this afterlife.
Finally, we reached the opening in the hallway. The creatures had finally caught up to us so we did not hesitate to open the  large door to the outside world. As soon as we did, the hands came again, but, this time, we had protectors. I had expected the lion to go first for our meaty bones, but he seemed to ignore us. Instead he attacked the guards and so did Dolores. The lion bit at their fingers and arms. Dolores scratched them with her sharp fingernails  until they began to bleed. During this commotion, I began to open the door inch by inch until there was enough room for us to sneak through. I was so caught up in escaping that I only glanced quickly at the faces of the guards. Most of them looked remarkably human, while others were covered in hair, scars and tattoos. They looked very similar to the inmates of the building, but they all had enormous muscles. I’m sure there were many creatures that I didn’t notice, but that was all I could process as I made my escape. 
Still hand and hand, Sam and I pushed through the cracks and ran as fast as we could into the open world. To our surprises, the building stood on top of a cliff. The grass on the rocks was neon green, but this was the only thing that brought color to a gray world. The sky was gray and empty and everything below the cliff looked gray like an infinite trench of nothingness. I couldn’t tell if there was ocean, ground or nothing at all below the cliff. There was nowhere to escape.
I looked back at the completely metal edifice that still seemed to go on forever. The lion was still fighting the guards, but two of them had escaped and they were running towards us. I could hear them screaming, “Don’t go over them! Don’t go over there! You are forbidden to go further!” Of course we didn’t listen to them.
As we reached the edge of the cliff, Sam and I stared at the each other for one last time. Even without speaking, we both knew what we had to do in that moment. So we grabbed onto to each other’s hands and then we jumped.