Few people looked forward to Mondays. They usually meant an end to whatever weekend fun you might have been having and a resuming of the drudgery of work or school. Today, however, on this particular Monday, John felt excited. Starting a new job was always a bit nerve wracking but this job looked to be different. Sure, it was still an office job, but this office was built inside an arboretum. His desk sat beneath leafy boughs that dappled his work area in warm sunlight. Back in college, his favorite study spaces were like that and the place made him feel ten years younger.

“Welcome!” the cheery receptionist said as John arrived. “If you have any questions, feel free to ask.”

He’d already had his orientation so he just smiled and waved as he made his way over to his desk. There were paths winding their way through the artificial forest, along with signs telling you to stay on the paths. In just a few minutes he had his laptop on and was going over the first few files of the day. Spreadsheets and receipts filled most of his morning. Even though the work was similar to what he’d been doing ever since college, everything felt new and exhilarating here. His day was flying by when he got up to get a drink. He walked by a few other desks, all vacant, on his way to the drinking fountain. There was an option to work from home so the empty desks didn’t surprise him too much.

It happened as he was getting a drink. He wasn’t sure at first, but he swore he heard, very faintly, someone scream. Looking around all he couldn’t see anyone else. Even the receptionist was gone from her post.

“Hello?” John called out.

No one responded.

He walked over to the receptionist’s desk to see if she was nearby but all he found was a placard stating she was out to lunch.

John had a habit of working through his lunches and today was no exception. He put away his concern, figuring the scream must have come from outside and was not something he needed to worry about, and went back to work. He snacked on some trail mix he’d brought with him to tide him over until he got home. He’d always been more of a grazer, preferring to snack throughout the day rather than have set meals.

As the day wore on and the shadows lengthened, John found himself glancing up from time to time at the receptionist’s desk. The woman there had yet to return even though it was well past the lunch hour. He did like the fact that he wasn’t being interrupted every five minutes but the lack of other people was beginning to wear on him. Perhaps it was simply because it was Monday? Did people work from home more on Monday? That had to be it, though it didn’t explain the receptionist not coming back from her lunch break.

When the workday ended, he packed up his laptop, cleaned up his desk a bit, and began making his way towards the exit. The path took him passed the still vacant receptionist desk with the same placard still there stating she was out to lunch. Had she been the one who screamed? It was hard to tell. He continued on the little path, mimicking a nature trail, towards the exit, only to find himself back at the receptionist’s desk.

He must have gotten turned around. He couldn’t see the exit from where he was, but he knew what direction it was in. He walked that way once more but after five minutes he still hadn’t reached the exit. He couldn’t have taken a wrong turn because there weren’t any branches off from this path. He stopped and turned around, looking in all directions. He could see a few of the support pillars, disguised as more tree trunks, holding up the glass dome that covered the office but he couldn’t see any of the outer walls. The trees and other foliage were too dense to see for more than a few dozen feet in any direction.

“Hello?” he called out but got no response. “The exit’s on the west side,” he muttered to himself and, using the setting sun as a reference point, started moving in that direction.

This time he ignored the trail and cut straight through. The terrain wasn’t terribly difficult, though the farther from the trail he got the denser the undergrowth became. After a few more minutes of walking he stopped and looked around once more. He couldn’t see anything that he recognized. No desks, no paths, not even any of the support pillars. The sky above was turning a deeper shade of purple as the sun began to set and John felt the first tingle of fear run down his neck.

“I should just call them,” he smacked himself in the head and pulled out his cellphone. He called his manager and waited as it rang, eventually going to voicemail. “Hey,” John said as he recorded a message, “I got turned around in here and got lost. I can’t seem to find my way to the exit. Could you give me a call back?”

He hung up and then picked up his pace as he resumed his march westward. During his orientation he’d been told that the dome overhead covered the entire city block but his desk was only a short way in. He should have reached the exit long before now and yet, as he continued to press his way through the undergrowth, no exterior walls came into view. As night descended in full he found himself lost in the dark. The canopy above him blocked out whatever moon and starlight there may have been. In orientation he’d been shown the little lights that would illuminate them in the dark but even those were nowhere to be seen.

How embarrassing was it to get lost like this on his first day? Surely he wasn’t the only person this had happened to, but he didn’t like the idea of having to spend the night here. He kept stumbling along until a gnarled root caught his foot and he twisted his ankle. It wasn’t all that serious but he figured that was his sign to give up on getting out tonight. He munched on some more trail mix for his dinner, such as it was, and then spent a few hours watching videos on his cell phone until the low battery warning came up.

John tried calling his manager one more time but with the same results. With nothing left to do, he used his jacket as a pillow and went to sleep. It was a rough night, being on uneven ground and in a strange environment but he managed to get a few hours of sleep. When the sun rose it woke him up and he had to stretch for several minutes to work out all the knots in his back and neck. He tried to check the time on his phone but the battery had died during the night.

“Great,” he grunted, regretting wasting so much of the battery last night.

In the light of the new day, John cast around, hoping to see any familiar landmarks but, as had been the case the night before, nothing stood out to him as something he’d seen before. He set the rising sun to his back and continued walking west, still aiming to find the outer wall. At least then he could follow it around until he found the exit.

He walked for a long while, an hour at least, he thought, but found no outer wall. He walked until the sun was directly overhead, and still there was no sign of the wall. He stopped and finished eating the rest of his trail mix, wishing he had a water bottle to quench his growing thirst. To his surprise, as he put away the empty trail mix bag, he heard the unmistakable sound of running water. He followed it and found a small stream running along between a row of tall trees. John cupped a handful of water to his mouth and tasted it. It had an earthiness to it but wasn’t bad. He figured it was fairly safe since it was all inside the building.

Rather than keep scooping water, he pulled the trail mix bag out and used it as an impromptu cup. That allowed John to let the water sit in the bag for a minute and so the sediments settled to the bottom before drinking the water.

“That’s better,” he sighed.

He looked around once more, though his hope of seeing anything remotely familiar was diminishing fast. As expected, nothing stood out to him so he resumed his westward march. In his mind, John knew he’d gone far enough that he should have already run into the outer wall. Large though this building was, it wasn’t miles across and he’d been walking for hours.

“I need to see from higher up,” he realized as he spoke out loud.

His limited view from the ground was likely leading him in circles. That would explain why he hadn’t found the wall, or even any other trails. He picked a good, sturdy looking tree and began to climb. This one was so tall it almost reached the top of the dome, though John had no intentions of climbing that high. At about halfway up, he paused and looked around. He was well above the ground foliage, as well as most of the smaller trees. It was high enough that he could see from horizon to horizon, and what he saw both baffled and terrified him. The dome stretched out as far as he could see in every direction with no sign of any walls. The enclosed forest spread out for miles in every direction and besides the dome itself, there were no other structures of signs of other people.

For a long while he sat there in the tree, dumbfounded. This was impossible. He knew the building wasn’t this big, and yet here it was right before his eyes. When at last he climbed back down he sat on a nearby stump. His mind was overwhelmed by what he’d seen and he still couldn’t quite accept it. It was impossible, and yet, he couldn’t deny what he’d seen. It lined up with how long he’d been walking without finding the outer wall as well.

He sat there until night closed in around him and he curled up and went to sleep.