The corporate offices of Morana Air are the furthest one can get from a professional environment. From the few employees that do show up, most arrive at work an hour late and spend most of their morning smoking and chatting in the parking lot. The break room is filled with half empty liquor bottles, the fridge smells like a morgue during a heatwave and there’s loose pills sitting in one of the kitchen cabinets.

You’d never guess that Morana Air had daily flights from just about every major airport in the Northern Hemisphere.

No one in the office is a day over thirty, everyone seems generally confused about what their actual job is and I wager a solid half of the employees are under the influence of something. I have no idea how the service is on their flights and I don’t care to find out — but the state of their offices definitely reflects in their tax documents.

When I first arrived at Morana Air the receptionist nearly had a panic attack. No one told her about the audit and she had no idea who to contact about it. With some convincing from my side, she let me set up shop in an empty conference room that smelled of spilled beer. Then, she left. When she returned, nearly half an hour later, her eyes were pink with calmness. I was allowed to work out of the conference room, she said, but everyone in charge of records was out sick for the week.

I would have to find whatever paperwork I needed myself. Whatever words of protest I had fell on deaf, stoned ears. In all my years conducting audits I had never witnessed a business this disorganized.

My first day at Morana bore no fruit. After a search that took the better part of the afternoon, I found the CFO sleeping under her desk. She had braces and messy hair and no idea what her job description actually meant. Once I explained to her who I was and re-explained to her who she was, the CFO joined me in searching for the illusive financial documents.

We made our way through the entire office building. The CFO moved with no urgency whatsoever and seemed wholly annoyed with my presence. Yes, there was a records room somewhere, she claimed. Problem was, she couldn’t remember where. Nothing approaching financial records showed up on our search. Instead, we found a game of poker, a bunch of employees drinking cooking rum and a maintenance closet filled with rags that smelled overwhelmingly of sweat. Since the CFO couldn’t remember what parts of the building we had searched, we found the maintenance closet twice.

The CFO went home early that day. So did I.

When I reported Morana Air’s inability to assist with the terms of the audit, my boss told me he would run the complaint up the chain and get back to me. I wasn’t excited about the prospect of going back to the offices, but I figured there was nothing left there to surprise me.

I was wrong. Dead wrong.

The CFO was beyond frustrated to see me in the lobby the next day. She told me that this was her first job out of uni and that she didn’t really know what she was doing and that she’d really appreciate it if I just covered for her. When I reminded her I was an auditor and not her friend the CFO rolled her eyes so hard it looked as if she was going through a petit mal seizure.

The CFO strolled through the office and asked every employee we met if they knew where the financial records of the company were. When no answers were provided and the CFO grew tired of me following her she started to take extended bathroom breaks.

She’d excuse herself to go to the bathroom, hide in it for twenty minutes and then look extremely disappointed when she found me standing outside waiting for her. It was on the third of these prolonged toilet breaks that I noticed the door.

‘FINANCIAL REPORTS’ read the sign next to it.

I was sure it was the maintenance closet with the strange rags. The air outside of the door smelled gently of sweat and I had been familiarized with the closet twice before. Yet, as the minutes outside the bathroom dragged on I found myself less confident.

Out of duty and partially out of boredom, I opened the door.

To my surprise, I was not greeted with a pile of filthy rags. Instead, in front of me, sat a tight, dim hallway. For a couple seconds I searched the walls for a light switch but then I realized that the fluorescents above me weren’t off. They were still flickering, just very weakly. I chalked up the busted lightbulbs to more ineptitude and let the door close behind me.

The topography of the hallway seemed wholly nonsensical. The number of sharp turns I made through the jagged path seemed more reminiscent of a maze rather than an office. Something at the pit of my stomach was telling me that it would be wiser to turn back and retreat to where the lights still worked. The prospect of spending more time with the Morana Air’s CFO, however, was irritating enough to keep me walking.

I made my way through the winding hallway until it opened up to reveal a room full of filing cabinets.

Again, something at the base of my spine told me something was wrong with the room. It might’ve been the menagerie of dead plants sitting on top of the furniture, or the office chairs randomly strewn around the room, or that the gray carpet was filthy with spills and mud and footsteps. It might’ve been any of those things, but the filing cabinets, their mere existence — they made me ignore my gut.

The plastic labels on the filing cabinets were hard to read, but when I found one titled Q1 – Q3 (15) I reached out and pulled the metal handle. The cabinet didn’t budge, instead I found the tips of my fingers covered with a lukewarm transparent slime. I tried to wipe it off on the edge of the cabinet, but my hands only got stickier in the process.

It’s in that moment, with the strange goop dripping from my hand, that I decided to go back to the CFO. My discomfort about the room had manifested itself into action. It’s in that moment, just as I was getting ready to flee the strange backroom of the office, that I realized there was no escape.

The hallway that had led me to the room was gone.

It took less than a minute for the panic to set in. The room of filing cabinets was big, but not big enough to hide the hallway that I came in through. The only exits that led out of the room of filing cabinets led to rooms with empty cubicles. With my clean hand, I reached for my phone. I wasn’t sure if the stoned receptionist would pick up my calls, but that quickly became irrelevant.

There wasn’t a single bar of signal on my phone.

I kept composed. I had no idea where I was or how I would get back, but I kept composed. I did multiple circles around the room, looking for the tight hallway that had led me there. When that provided no results, I called out — casually — if anyone could hear me. I was doing my best to keep composed, but my will was starting to slip. I was desperate enough to scream. Just before I lost all composure though, I heard it.

A flute.

Barely noticeable beneath the flickering of the fluorescents, coming from one of the office rooms beyond — I heard a quiet flute. The song it played lacked all melody or rhythm and, once again, I found goosebumps springing down my back — but, with nowhere else to go, I followed the flute.

The faint music led me from one room of cubicles to another. With each doorway that I passed the work space got more and more disorganized. Where once the cubicles sat in orderly rows they were now scattered across with no rhyme or reason. The air had turned humid and hot and sweat started to crawl down my back. I was as careful as one can be when I took off my jacket, but I still managed to dirty it with the strange goop that was on my hand.

I was sweaty and scared and the office around me was starting to look like it had been hit by a tornado, but I kept on following the toneless music in front of me. When I finally saw the flute player my stomach urged me to stop once more.

This time I listened to it.

The cubicles were all pushed to the edges of the room, giving the man with the flute ample space for his performance. His face was wrinkled with effort and his hair was messy and grey. The man was a janitor, or at least he wore a uniform that would suggest that job. When I first saw him, I almost cried out for attention, but that eerie feeling of something being wrong gave me pause.

In that pause I saw the flute-players audience.

Immediately, I ducked behind one of the turned over cubicles. A fresh crop of sweat flushed through my body. For a moment my rushing heartbeat overpowered the sound of the flute, but the instrument quickly grew in its volume. I tried to convince myself that I was just seeing things, that I had done nothing but stumbled upon a man poorly playing the flute in the backroom of an office.

One peek from behind the cubicle dispelled all of my doubts. What I was seeing was far from normal. What I was seeing was beyond the scope of comprehension.

The janitor was playing his strange flute song to an inhuman audience.

At first glance they were simply filthy rags strown across the floor, but with each note of the monotone music the crusty pieces of cloth moved. Like tiny dancers they spun and hopped in union with the rhythmless tune. My mind was already on edge from my strange environs, but the sight of the dancing filth sent me over the edge.

I clenched my fists and stifled a scream. At first I managed to smother the shriek, yet one look at my hand forced a terrified groan out of my throat. Where the goop had once been translucent it had now filled up with specks of grime. Just as the change in the slime hit me, so did the smell.

It smelled of aged sweat. Just like the rags in the maintenance closet.

My hand was starting to tingle. With each note of that shrill flute the grime on my hand pulsed with unexplainable energy. As the rhythm of the janitor’s music sped up, so did the grip of the sludge on my hand. With each note it squeezed harder and harder until, just before its grip became painful, the ooze of filth jumped from my hand to the shaggy carpet of the office.

Like a being with a mind of its own it crawled through the grey carpet leaving behind a trail of grime.

When the maddening dark blob pulled itself past my hiding spot, I felt the gentlest breath of relief. With my body tucked away behind the cubicle and the strange slime off my skin I could at least pretend that my circumstances were slightly less maddening. For a moment I felt the slightest pang of relief.

It only lasted for a couple of notes.

Without warning, the strange music of the flute came to an end. All that could be heard was the flickering of the spotty fluorescent lights and the sound of wet rags shifting.

‘Hello? Is anyone here?’ yelled the janitor. His voice was gruff and held no trace of friendliness. ‘Come out immediately! You don’t belong here!’

A part of me wanted to cry out to him. A part of me wanted to hold on to the idea that the janitor was someone who could get me out of those strange backrooms. I wanted to have hope that he would lead me back out to the hallway so I could escape the Morana Air offices once and for all — but deep inside I knew the man meant me harm.

Quickly, the janitor’s composure broke. He started to scream. With a furious and vulgar zeal he threatened to murder me unless I show myself at once. His threats barely connected into words. The pure rage in his voice stole away all meaning and turned into human barks.

As terrifying as his threats were, the janitor’s constant screams gave me clear indication of where he was. He was searching the other side of the room. I decided my only chance of escape was to sneak out whilst the murderous man was searching elsewhere. The moment I tried to move my feet, however, I found myself stuck.

My heels were fused to the floor. The shaggy gray carpet had intertwined with my shoes and made any movement with them impossible. The janitor’s shouts were getting closer. With no time to spare I ripped my feet out of the shoes and crept away from the violent threats.

I managed to follow the wall to an exit from the room, but I could still hear the janitor’s nonsensical fury. The positioning of the cubicles in the next room was like that of a maze, but I did not concern myself with the details of my environs. I simply moved as quickly and silently between the plastic walls in hopes of not being murdered.

I was well inside of the maze of cubicles when he found my shoes. It seemed like the janitor’s fury was at its zenith, but when he found concrete evidence of my existence he screamed even louder. He said that when he would find me he would crush my skull. He screamed that I had ventured into a place that no one was to know about.

I moved even faster. When I was sure he wasn’t behind me, I started to run.

Adrenalin was surging through my body and I was already drenched in fearful sweat, but the further along the maze of plastic I ran the more it became clear that the floor was wet as well. The deeper I ventured into the backrooms the louder the squishes of my footsteps became. I paid no mind to the nature of the floor or the rhythm of my heart — my focus was wholly on getting as far away from the mad janitor as I could.

His threats were terrifying, yet the more I ran the fainter they became.

When the janitor’s cries were no longer audible I breathed a sigh of relief. When the plastic walls of the cubicles parted to reveal a familiar tight hallway that sigh turned into a cry of happiness. The carpet had turned into a puddle of God knows what, my chest ached with exhaustion and I was drenched in sweat — but the tight hallway seemed familiar enough to give me hope.

After a couple turns of the corridor, however, my heart dropped once more. I heard the shrill notes of the flute again. They weren’t coming from a specific part of the office. The terrible rhythm-less music permeated from the walls themselves.

I continued walking, trying to ignore those terrible notes that danced around me. The music, however, was not the only thing that scared me. At first, I thought it was just a trick of the eye. I thought that maybe through the sheer exhaustion of my ordeal I was seeing things, but after just a couple of the strained notes I knew I could lie to myself no longer.

The ceiling of the office was dropping lower and lower with each note. The hallway was closing in on me. I hoped that each turn through the jagged path would be the last but the corridor shrunk before me without an exit.

It wasn’t just the ceilings of the hallway that were changing. With each corner I rounded the floor grew wetter and wetter. The carpet was no longer gray, a thick layer of grimy water rendered it jet black. As the ceilings grew too low for me to sprint, I started to feel something tugging at my feet from beneath the black water. When the ceiling grew low enough for me to have to crawl, I was certain of it.

Each note of the shrill flute was accompanied by a tightening of the carpet. It was as if the hallway itself was trying to trap me. With each note of the shrill flute the grip from beneath the lukewarm water grew tenser and tenser.

I heard the janitor again. He screamed vulgar threats between each of the notes. He described, in detail, how he would break my bones and rip out my tongue if I was to ever tell anyone what I had witnessed in the hallway. He threatened to brutalize my body if I ever escaped, so I crawled through the dark sludge as fast as I could.

There was scarcely room for me to crawl when I finally saw the end of the hallway. There was no door. Instead, there was a mess of cloth gathered at the end of the corridor. The cloth moved much like the janitor’s eldritch audience, from beneath the water I could feel tendrils of something cold and malicious reaching beneath my fingers. The air reeked with ancient sweat and my mouth tasted of battery acid. The sight of the squirming wall of rags made my stomach turn, but I knew that the janitor would not spare me if he caught up with me.

Gathering every ounce of courage I had in my drained body, I launched into the wall of filthy cloth.

The smell was overpowering and the rags reached out for my body like malicious tentacles. As I crawled through the shifting mess of filth the flute and threats grew more distant. I crawled and I prayed and I held my breath — until I could crawl no more.

My skull hit something solid. Before panic could wholly consumed me, I realized I could stand up. It took me a mere second to find the door of the maintenance closet.

I found myself standing in the familiar well-lit offices of Morana Air. I did not stay long. Shoeless and covered in grime I sprinted out of the building, got in my car and promised to never return again.

I’ve been reassigned from the audit, but I doubt my boss believed a word of what happened to me. He kept on saying he would send someone else to do the job, that Morana Air would be forced to cooperate with the audit eventually.

I don’t know what fate awaits whoever comes in next week in my stead and, honestly, I won’t allow myself to worry about that. I’m just happy.

I’m just happy I escaped the backrooms of Morana Air.