The 11th Floor: Awakening Read Free

you have to be kidding me!” Luke yelled out. “This crap can’t be happening again!”
    Luke stood there looking at the dead body on the bed next to where he was lying, wondering if he was about to relive his nightmare from months ago, when he noticed this was different. Gone was the brick room with a single window. Gone were the table and chair and the blood-covered knife. He found himself now standing in a small room with only a bed and a desk. The wall nearest the bed had a curtain and the farthest wall had a wooden door with a chain lock.
    He listened patiently, but heard nothing. Upon approaching the curtain, he peeked around the edge and saw it was indeed covering a window. The curtain was thick and managed to sufficiently conceal the daylight that was attempting to light the room. He pulled back the curtains. After the initial blast of light, his eyes adjusted.
    “Holy crap, I’m on a boat?” he asked himself.
    With his face pressed against the pane of glass, he could see nothing other than the ocean. He rushed to the other side of the room and listened quietly by the door. Not a sound could be heard. A quick glance out the peephole only revealed an empty corridor. Certain that no one was around, Luke slowly unlocked the chain and pulled the door open.
    The view from the peephole was correct. This was indeed an empty hallway. A nearby sign on the wall indicated the deck was to the left. Surely he could find someone out on the deck, even if it was just an old woman sunning herself.
    The journey down the hallways was quieter than he would have liked. Once out in the sunlight, it became clear to him that this was most definitely a cruise ship. Present was a giant pool, a water slide, and music playing loudly. Missing were all signs of life. Not a person was to be seen anywhere. Several lounge chairs were scattered around the pool area and, by his quick count, a good 50 percent of them were overturned.
    “Hello!” he yelled out, to no response.
    He pulled his cell phone from his back pocket. It had no reception.
    “Well, this is the middle of the ocean. What’d you think? Idiot,” he said quietly to himself. “Well, at least this time there’s no Wi-Fi signal either. Different is good, I suppose.”
    He began walking around the pool to the other side of the ship when he heard a loud caw sound from overhead. When he looked up, there was a giant black crow flying past.
    “A crow? On a cruise ship? That has to be a first.”
    He put his phone back into his pocket and followed the bird around the ship, trying to keep up. Surely the bird was a pet of some sort, perhaps the captain’s, and it would lead him to someone. A few seconds later, the bird circled around the ship and out of sight. The disappearance of the bird was shortly followed by the sound of a door closing a few floors up above.
    Luke knew that sound meant someone was up there. He rushed over to the nearest set of stairs and began to make his way up to the location from which he believed the sound had come.

Chapter 5
     
    A few flights of stairs later, Luke was now on one of the upper levels of the ship. At this height, he could see most of the entire lower ship by leaning over the railing. As his earlier assessment suggested, the ship appeared to be deserted.
    “This is too much like the last time, except I’m not in a city,” he thought.
    Trying to orient himself, Luke kept looking down over the railing to pinpoint the location of where he was standing when he heard the door close. Feeling certain that this was the correct level, he began knocking on doors.
    Luke worked his way down the corridor knocking on every door, with no response. Occasionally yelling out “HELP” proved to be useless. He figured it was the car alarm effect. Someone else’s problem was not their problem, so they ignored it. Luke could think of many instances where a car alarm was going off and no one even bothered to look. Honestly, he didn’t blame them. Who would