Surrealevator

When the door opened, Ryan hopped in. Almost instantly he found himself pacing the edges of the box. Going around as the elevator pulled him up. The pockmarked, grimy tiles passed beneath his polished tennis shoes - four steps on the left, six steps along the back, four steps on the right, six steps across the front.

And he went again, four steps along the left, six steps along the back, three and a half steps along the right. He stopped, taking a look at the side he just crossed.

Wait a second. That can't be right.

Counting the tiles along both sides of the elevator, they matched. It had to be wrong. He knew it had to be wrong, just a miscalculation made by taking a step too long. He turned and counted his steps, making sure they weren't any longer or shorter than a normal step. One, two, three, four... and a half.

He searched the walls for some sort of camera. Someone had to be playing a joke on him, but no one could make a trick elevator car without something showing up, like some scraping across the floor or a wall that didn't quite match. Shaking his head, he went back to the first wall and started counting steps again.

One. The hairs on his arms stood on their end. Two. A chill went down the base of his spine. Three. The colors of the walls washed out for a moment as he stared at the distance between him and the wall. Would that be enough for one more step? It should be. He lifted his right leg up to make the step and...

The elevator stopped.

And his foot came down.

As the doors clanked open, he stared at the space between his toes and the back wall of the elevator. There couldn't be more than a couple inches there. But he remembered his toes crunching there, bending back with a satisfying solidity. No way. There's no way that this is any different than what it was.

He walked into the hallway when the doors opened.