The 101st Floor
Adventure1 chapters
Start reading →The building’s official records state that it has 100 floors. The elevator buttons only go up to the 100th floor. But on the fire evacuation maps, there is a floor marked “101F.” The protagonist takes the emergency stairs and discovers an entire floor that appears to be fully operational. The offices are occupied. The lights are on. People are working as if nothing is unusual. When they see him, one of them looks up and asks: “Did you get the overtime notice too?”
Characters
Ilyan Sorev
Methodical, dry, and stubborn, Ilyan treats impossible discoveries like paperwork errors until the evidence becomes undeniable. He speaks in clipped observations and uses professional calm to conceal panic.
Ilyan is a foreign fire-safety surveyor who came to the city after his older sister, Vesna, vanished while auditing the building. He wants to find her and force the building's owners to acknowledge the existence of 101F. He hides that Vesna's last message told him to stop looking, and that he deleted it before showing it to the police because it suggested she had entered the hidden floor willingly.
Lida Maran
Calm, authoritative, and evasive in a practiced way; she treats dangerous irregularities as workplace procedure.
Lida oversees evacuation and safety compliance on 101F and appears to have known Vesna in a professional capacity.
Orren Vale
Practical, cautious, mildly irritated by irregular procedures, and quick to distinguish forms from the facts they record.
Orren works in the administrative records section of 101F and has encountered unauthorized arrivals before, though he does not openly explain what became of them.
Open Threads
Who is assigning the overtime?
Lida and Orren confirm that Ilyan's notice is a valid 101F assignment, though neither explains who ultimately issued it; the notice has now entered the floor's administrative record.
Did Vesna choose to stay?
Vesna is listed as present on the current shift sheet and as the floor's evacuation warden, suggesting an ongoing role rather than a simple disappearance.
Why does the building deny its own floor?
The hidden floor maintains formal attendance, safety, and access records despite being excluded from the building's official structure.
Can the workers be trusted?
The workers behave like ordinary employees but treat Ilyan's arrival and Vesna's status as routine, withholding information while still directing him toward her office.
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