Malik scanned the room for anything useful.
He let his eyes wander over the spotless, marble floors, existing without any tracks, or indication of his presence on them. He focussed on the seams where the tiles blended almost seamlessly with the carpet. He looked at the tables, carrying vases with fresh, golden flowers within them, tucked away at where the walls met the floors.
These same walls were decorated with the same wall paper that had been used in the corridor from before. There was a giant staircase at the front of the room, a grand and majestic, and almost gaudy sight if it wasn't illuminated so hauntingly well by the moonlight.
There was a giant, gleaming chandelier, dangling from the ceiling and glistening in the silver light.
Malik knew that the thing was probably made out of gold as well, and began to look for a light switch. The walls contained nothing for him to use and there no indication of where it could possibly be, the entire room looking completely symmetrical and completely like a set put together, as if it were a set of one of those nativity stage plays where the wise men wore tea towels on their heads, perfectly well made for their purpose but littered with small tells of juvenility.
It looked to be the exact image of a rich mansion that you would see in cartoons. A mansion made completely to look as if it were made to only be a mansion, and not a home for a family with little personal touches and memorabilia.
The only object in the room that destroyed the image of perfection was the old grandfather clock, tucked away in the shadows, just to the left of the staircase, draped in the darkness. It's face showed the time to be 11: 57, only three minutes until midnight.
Malik was thankful for the time at least, and decided that he needed, desperate to go and leave this place.
He chose the corridor, opposite from one where he woke up in, and decided to wander down it.
It looked exactly the same as the one he came from: the wallpaper matching exactly, the wooden doors matching exactly, the windows matching exactly, and the emptiness matching exactly.
Malik felt the need to increase his speed, slowly being driven insane by the never ending path that only seemed to lead to more red carpet, more doors, and more windows. He began to sprint down the pathway, and gave a sigh in relief when he saw a corner.
"Fucking finally," he mumbled to himself, seeing the first change in the hallway in a while, and he turned the corner, only for his face to drop.
It was exactly the fucking same as before.
What was this shit!?
Was he stuck in some kind of terrible maze?
There wasn't even a branching path!
It was just the same fucking corridor again.
Malik looked out of the windows, hoping to find some kind of idea of where he was going.
There was a row of houses outside the window, not quite identical to the ones before, thank God. These ones were smaller, and had ivy running up their sides, reaching out to engulf their rooves, with steep slopes functioning as their driveways, garages at the end.
So at least the houses were different. Malik was facing a different street, with different houses.
He could assume that there were two different streets, with the road running around the sides of the manor. In the morning, he could run up and down the corridor, waving his arms to try and get somebody's attention to help him.
As stupid as he would probably look, it was needed and necessary.
Around the corridor, the layout of the corridor had the windows and door flipped. There was no view of the outside, following the previous pattern of the windows showing the streets running around the house. Instead, the view now showed an enclave, an inner garden which the mansion seemed to wrap around.
There was a set up of a table, with a parasol, surrounded by chairs, sitting quaintly near a pond, lined with perfectly arranged rocks, with a paved path of bricks - holding the tea party set up - and leading to the pond.
It looked too perfectly arranged, just like the hall.
Malik sprinted down the corridor, hoping to see something else, anything else.
Another turn in the hallway came up, and Malik looked out of the windows, first and foremost.
And Malik saw the exact same houses that he had first seen, when he had first woken up.
So the corridor, that he had been running through, was a giant loop.
Malik began to hate this place, and gritted his teeth.
He was ready to try and smash the window now.
He was fucking done.
He moved to take off his shirt and take a swing at the window.
If the outer windows were somehow, fucking invincible, then he would take a swing at the inner windows. If the house was trying to keep him out, then he would simply break in, further into the house. If he could get himself into that little garden, then he could climb out over the rooves and escape outside the house.
He could easily climb the fence that would put him on the street. He had climbed fences before.
The first time he had done so was when some chuckle fuck had set the park on fire, when burning their school uniforms and books, after their GCSEs. Grandma had wacked him over the head for simply being in the park at his age, when he was twelve.
At least those bastards had gotten arrested.
Just when Malik was about to pull his shirt over his head, to cover his fists, a loud, clanging bellow echoed through the house.
The noise ricocheted through the walls, bouncing up and down through the corridors, not allowed to escape, and thoroughly coating every surface with that painful, ringing noise.
It fucking hurt.
The noise knocked around his brain, imbedded itself into his bones, wrapping around his skin, and briefly chocking him, like a cold hand, wrapping around his airways and keeping him hostage to the mansion, and the clock.
That fucking clock was the only thing in this house he liked. It was the only thing that didn't fit in, and the only fucking, useful object. He hated it now. The little shit had apparently made him deaf. He couldn't hear anything else but its stupid noise.
Malik shoved his hands over his ears and waited for the noise to stop.
He had no idea how long he was stood there, waiting, but soon enough, the corridor went silent again.
He found it as merciful as it was, whenever a large gaggle of customers finally left his shop.
Thankful that he no longer had to keep smiling, and being polite, despite their stupidity and sometimes illiteracy, but regretful, now that he wasn't selling anything anymore, and his life would go back to doing whatever he could for the next sale.
Malik was thankful that the pain in his ears had vanished, that he was finally able to hear again, but pained slightly at the notion that he was reminded of how lonely he was, standing in a silent mansion, spotlessly clean, with nobody else hear.
He didn't want to associate with anybody, but at the same time, he felt himself to be desperately lonely. The first thing he would do, when he got home, was to drown a bottle of tequila with Grandma. He would enjoy it. She would enjoy it. And it would be a nice night in, all in all, celebrating his return.
Malik looked out to the corridor, from where he stood, at the corner, and saw a shift in the air.
Something looked different, but he could not place what the change was. The air had somehow shifted, and Malik began to feel sick to his stomach. He turned to look at where he had run from, to find himself at this place, and saw that the same change had taken place there.
A soft scraping sound came from the corridor that Malik had looked away from.
He squinted to see down it, scanning the area for any minute shift.
He looked at the table that he had left behind, when he had began searching for a front door, and saw that it had now moved.
It had bounced against the wall, and had been left, touching it, but now, the table had begun to shift away from the surface, not a single part of it touching the wall, it had once rested against.
The scraping sound emerged again, and Malik kept his eyes locked on the table. Something was pushing it away from the wall.
It looked to be thin, and deeply embedded in the carpet, barely visible to Malik.
The table jerked again, now almost reaching the middle of the corridor, and what was pushing it now was visible.
It was a hand.