There’s a building in my city that people pretend isn’t there.
Not an abandoned building. Not some forgotten warehouse or condemned apartment complex.
I mean a perfectly functioning office tower.
Forty-two floors of glass and steel, right in the middle of downtown.
They call it Ascension Tower.
I used to work there.
Used to.
When I got the job, my supervisor gave me the usual tour. Cafeteria on the fourth floor. Human Resources on twelve. Accounting on twenty-seven. Executive offices on forty-two.
“Forty-two floors,” she said.
I remember that because I thought it was strange.
The elevator panel went from 11 to 12, then 14.
“No thirteenth floor?” I asked.
She laughed.
“Lucky thirteen. Some buildings skip it.”
I shrugged.
That should have been the end of it.
It wasn't.
Three months into the job, I was working late.
It was 11:47 p.m.
I remember the exact time because I was watching the clock, desperately waiting for midnight so I could go home.
The building was almost completely empty.
I packed my things and entered the elevator.
I pressed the button for the lobby.
The doors closed.
The elevator began descending.
Then it stopped.
The lights flickered.
The display changed from 27 to 13.
I stared at it.
For several seconds, I thought I was imagining it.
Then the elevator doors opened.
There was a hallway outside.
It wasn't like the rest of the building.
The walls were bare concrete. The ceiling lights flickered weakly. Water dripped somewhere in the darkness.
And the carpet was gone.
I didn't step out.
I just stared.
At the far end of the hallway was another elevator.
Its doors were open.
Something was standing inside.
I couldn't see its face.
It was tall.
Far too tall.
Its head nearly touched the ceiling.
I pressed the lobby button repeatedly.
Nothing happened.
The figure stepped out of the other elevator.
One step.
Then another.
I heard something that sounded like a whisper.
“Employee?”
I stopped breathing.
The figure took another step.
“Employee?”
I slammed my hand against the emergency-close button.
The doors began closing.
The figure suddenly ran.
Not walked.
Ran.
It moved impossibly fast.
The elevator doors slammed shut just as something struck them from the other side.
BANG.
The elevator shook.
Then everything went dark.
When the lights came back on, the display said 12.
The doors opened.
I was standing on the twelfth floor.
There was nobody in the hallway.
I ran down the stairs.
The next morning, I told my supervisor.
She went completely silent.
Then she said something I'll never forget.
“You didn't see the thirteenth floor.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No.”
“I saw it.”
She looked at me.
“You saw something.”
“What does that mean?”
She leaned closer.
“There's no thirteenth floor.”
I laughed nervously.
“Okay. Then what did I see?”
She didn't answer.
Instead, she asked me a question.
“Did it speak to you?”
I told her what I'd heard.
Her face went white.
She told me to forget about it.
I didn't.
That evening, I searched the building's history.
The original construction plans showed forty-three floors.
Not forty-two.
Forty-three.
Floor 13 was there.
So were floors 1 through 43.
But someone had removed the thirteenth floor from every modern document.
I kept digging.
Eventually, I found an old newspaper article.
It was dated 1978.
The headline read:
THIRTEEN WORKERS VANISH DURING ASCENSION TOWER CONSTRUCTION
The article said a construction accident had occurred on the thirteenth floor.
A section of the building had supposedly collapsed.
Thirteen workers were never found.
The company claimed the floor was sealed permanently.
Construction continued.
The building eventually opened.
And somehow, over the decades, Floor 13 disappeared from the official plans.
I found one final paragraph buried at the bottom of the article.
It said:
“Workers reported hearing voices coming from behind the sealed elevator doors.”
I stopped reading.
I heard my apartment elevator ding.
I lived on the fourth floor.
Nobody should have been getting off.
I opened my front door.
The hallway was empty.
My elevator display read:
13
I slammed the door.
The next morning, I quit my job.
I never went back to Ascension Tower.
At least, that's what I told myself.
Three weeks passed.
Then I received an email.
No sender.
No subject.
Just one sentence.
You left something on Floor 13.
I deleted it.
Another email arrived.
You left us.
I deleted that one too.
Then came the third.
Come back.
I shut down my computer.
That night, I dreamed about the hallway.
The concrete walls.
The flickering lights.
The elevator at the end.
And the tall figure.
This time, I could see its face.
It looked like me.
I woke up at 3:13 a.m.
My bedroom door was open.
I always sleep with it closed.
My computer was on.
The screen displayed an email.
FROM: me
TO: me
SUBJECT: Welcome back.
Below it was a photograph.
It showed the elevator inside Ascension Tower.
The doors were open.
Standing inside was the same tall figure.
But there was something else.
Someone was standing beside it.
Me.
I hadn't taken the photograph.
I hadn't been there.
At least...
I didn't think I had.
Then I noticed the timestamp.
The photograph had been taken tomorrow.
I didn't sleep that night.
At 8:00 a.m., I called my old supervisor.
She answered immediately.
“I know,” she said.
“How?”
“Because you're calling from the thirteenth floor.”
I looked around my bedroom.
My stomach dropped.
The walls were concrete.
The carpet was gone.
The ceiling lights were flickering.
And my apartment door was no longer there.
I was standing in the hallway.
At the far end, the elevator doors opened.
The tall figure stepped out.
This time it smiled.
It pointed toward the elevator.
Then it spoke.
“You've been promoted.”
I tried to run.
But the hallway stretched endlessly in front of me.
Every door was numbered.
13.
13.
13.
Hundreds of them.
Maybe thousands.
And behind every door, I could hear people working.
Typing.
Talking.
Laughing.
Then I heard my own voice coming from one of the rooms.
“Don't open the door.”
I froze.
My hand was already on the handle.
The voice spoke again.
“Whatever you do…”
A pause.
“Don't let them know you can still see the thirteenth floor.”
The lights went out.
Something breathed directly behind me.
And then I understood.
The thirteenth floor wasn't hidden.
It wasn't abandoned.
It wasn't haunted.
It was full.
Full of people who had disappeared over the years.
People who had entered the elevator after midnight.
People who had discovered the floor.
People like me.
The lights came back on.
The hallway was empty.
Except for a single piece of paper lying at my feet.
I picked it up.
It was an employee directory.
Every name was crossed out except one.
Mine.
Beside my name was a new job title:
Building Manager — Floor 13
Underneath it was a note.
Your first employee arrives tonight at 11:47 p.m.
I looked at the clock.
11:46.
Somewhere behind me, an elevator began to rise.
The display changed.
12
13
The doors opened.
And a frightened man stepped out.
He looked around the concrete hallway.
He saw me.
“Where am I?”
I wanted to warn him.
I wanted to tell him to run.
But something inside my head whispered the words before I could stop it.
“Welcome to Ascension Tower.”
The man stared at me.
I smiled.
And somewhere far above us, an elevator bell rang.
Ding.
The display changed.
14.
Then 15.
Then 16.
The building was growing.
And I finally understood the truth.
The thirteenth floor doesn't exist.
Not anymore.
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