Endless hallway leads to a high school cafeteria

Endless hallway leads to a high school cafeteria

I was late for my shift at the coffee shop, sprinting down the hallway of my apartment building. The hallway kept stretching, like the same beige carpet and fluorescent light flickering forever. When I finally reached the door, the buzzer said "Unit 7B" but the nameplate read "7C" and the hallway outside was the lobby of my old high school. I pushed through the double doors and found the cafeteria filled with my former classmates, all wearing the same navy aprons I wear now. They were serving coffee to a line of strangers who looked exactly like my neighbors, but each had a tiny LED badge on their wrist that pulsed with a soft blue light. I tried to hand a customer a latte, but the cup turned into a holographic projection of the drink, hovering over the counter. I felt a knot of panic, then a sudden relief when the manager—who also looked like my dad—smiled and said, "Don't worry, it's just the new system." Then the alarm rang, I woke up, still half‑expecting the hallway to keep going.