It's a bit of a work in progress, but I'd love to hear what y'all think! (I just got back from Louisiana, I may or may not have accidentally picked up a slight Southern drawl.)
The hallway was endless, and white. Row after row of bleached white tiles and whitewashed walls. The tiles were trying desperately to retain their pearly white coloring, and were carefully hiding the dirt that tended to accumulate, though they were cleaned every few hours. The walls, too, were scrubbed frequently, in a futile attempt to keep the whitewash pristine. It was obvious that a great deal of effort went into this hallway. Unfortunately, the fluorescent light bulbs placed every five feet or so created an unnatural glow that negated all the cleaning, as they gave the hallway a strange greenish tint. The man found himself counting his steps as they walked, trying o keep track of any progress as they walked past identical stretch of white after identical stretch of white. 65, 66, 67. The woman was several feet ahead, smoothing her hair and taking deep breaths every few seconds. He followed behind, trying to hold onto his air of defiance, but his panicked eyes, darting from side to side, gave him away. 83, 84, 85, 86, 87. The clacking of the woman’s heels echoed, bouncing off the wall, filling the silence. Clack, clack, clack. 104, 105, 106, 107. Each step she took became more and more deafening, until the man was sure he could stand it no longer. Contemplating saying something, anything, to distract himself from the clacking, he suddenly saw the door. Still far off, but an end to the hallway nonetheless. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, wondered if perhaps, like a thirsty man in a desert, he had summoned a mirage of his greatest desire. But the door was still there. In stark contrast to the rest of the hallway, it was black. As black as the blackest night, it almost hurt his eyes to look at it for too long.
With the end in sight, he was free to stop concentrating on the endless monotonous expanses of white and instead begin to ponder his fate. The door, which it seemed he had been longing for for an eternity, now represented something even blacker than the door itself. Who knows what would befall him behind those doors?
In front of him, the woman was wondering the same thing. This man’s life was in her hands. What would happen to him now? She had been convinced that this had been the right thing, but the closer the door came, the more she was doubting her decision. And now it was too late. There would be no exit save for that blackest of doors.
Behind the door, a single man sat. He was called The General. No one knew for how long he had been The General, or what he had been before he was The General. The room behind the door was decorated tastefully in subtle pastels with a grand mahogoney desk nearly filling the small space. Large shelves filled with thousands of books covered three of the four walls. The fourth wall was entirely glass, looking out on the entirety of The Village. It was small, but crowded. It had grown recently, and the population was now hovering at nearly 300 people. It contained somewhere near 100 small homes, each made of the same wood, with the same thatched roofs, and the same lightly tinted glass windows. The General turned his head, glancing at the village, then checked his watch. It was time for a Check. He opened the top right-hand drawer of the desk, revealing an array of colored buttons. He pressed a large dark green one, and one of the bookshelves slid to the side, revealing an entire wall of computer screens. He stood, walked over to the screen, and began observing. Each screen correlated to a home. The pictures on the screens flashed quickly, presenting a brief look at each room in each small house. The General rubbed his eyes, weary. He finally finished, satisfied that all was as it should be in The Village. He slowly moved back to his seat, settling in the chair and pulling out The Log. He began a new entry, documenting the Check and giving it the all clear. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. He looked up, at the black door, and gave an involuntary shudder. He turned one page back, reread the report from the Check of the day before. He sighed, and pressed a small black button in the drawer. Slowly, the black door swung open, revealing the man and the woman, finally having made it down the hallway.
...To be continued!
