It started off like any other boring weekday. Andrew went to his job, sat down at his desk and worked like the good worker bee he was. He didn't mind his work, it wasn't flashy but it brought a paycheck that was hard to argue with. He sat in at a desk in a large office space with an open floor plan. The light hum of a few of his coworkers mingling in the break room around the corner. Sometimes he would listen to his favorite music or podcasts while he worked. Today his poison of choice was a 2000's punk playlist that reminded him of being a teenager.

Andrew started to feel the call of nature so he got up to use the restroom and started walking towards the breakroom hallway. The sounds of his coworkers voices slowly get louder as he nears the corner, he thinks he recognizes his friend Margrets voice along with a couple he doesn't recognize. He rounds the corner and he see's the back of Margret's head as she is talking with two men whom he doesn't know. She hears his footsteps and glances behind her, her eyes light up when she sees Andrew.

Margret waves for him to come over and says, "Oh! Hey Andrew! Come meet Phillip and Jim!"

"Hi, are you two new here?" Andrew asks as he turns to walk over to them, pausing his music and taking out his earbuds.

"They work in R&D downstairs and they are saying that they've been developing something that will change the world! I'm trying to convince them to spill the tea, but they won't say much more than that." Margret says with childish glee.

"Well that certainly sounds exciting!", Andrew says.

Jim checks his watch and motions to Phillip towards the exit and says, "Speaking of, we have a test coming up in a few minutes so we should get going. It was nice to meet you, Andrew."

As they leave the room Andrew turns to Margret and asks, "What could they be working on that would be so life changing? We don't do anything that exciting here. Do we?"

"I didn't think so! That's why I was hoping to find something out from them. I've been hearing rumors that they've come up with something, but no one has been able to tell me anything concrete.", she says.

"Huh, you'll have to let me know if you hear anything else. I've got to go, but it was nice running into you.", he says as he turns toward the restrooms starting to feel the call of nature more urgently.

"Yeah, I'll keep you in the loop. It was nice seeing you too.", Margret says.

Andrew opens the door to the restroom and stands over the urinal.

He thinks to himself, “It's strange that people are making such a big deal out of that. We just build microchips. I didn't even know we had an R&D department...”

Andrew steps back and washes his hands at the sink. As he grabs some paper towels to dry them he notices a faint buzz in the air that is slowly getting louder. He looks around the restroom but doesn't see anything that could explain this new noise. He takes a step back but then quickly throws his hands to his head and grimaces as the buzzing becomes suddenly unbearable. It feels like he is standing next to a Tesla coil just before it arcs. The taste of copper on his tongue, he turns towards the bathroom door. Reaching out for the handle he sees the hairs on his arm standing on end. He flings open the door and dashes through it, trying to get away from the crushing agony of the noise.

He barrels out of the restroom eyes tightly shut and hands hands over his ears. He feels arms all around him trying to catch him as he careens past. He makes it about five yards when the buzzing abruptly stops and he trips over his own foot. He lands face down in the dirt, the dust getting into his mouth and nose. Spitting out dirt he looks up and see the the sky peeking through the boughs of trees unlike any he has ever seen before. He jumps up confused.

"Hello?!", he shouts.

The only response is the sound of leaves and branches fluttering in the breeze far above him. Andrew feels himself starting to sweat, the liquid pooling on his skin refusing to evaporate. He turns back the way he had run from and sees just those same odd trees and foreign plants. No sign of a restroom door and no sign that a restroom door had ever been there.

Those leaves must have been the hands I thought I felt, he thinks.

Frantically spinning around looking for any signs of human life, he yells, "Is anybody there?! Where am I?!".

Only the sounds of the forest answer him back. He try's to find his footprints in the dirt to retrace his exact steps, the foliage makes them difficult to find but he spies the faint marks of his shoes. He traces them back several yards and sees a very thin line burnt into the forest floor. The leaves just a few feet above seem to have had the ends clipped off with with a laser, a faint whisp of smoke still visible.

Andrew hears a strange mechanical thumping off to his right, but the way the canopy reflects sound back down to the forest floor make it difficult to tell if the sound is close or is coming from much further away. Cautiously Andrew starts making his way through the forest towards the noise. After maybe 15 minutes of walking, the thumping steadily getting louder the closer he gets, Andrew begins to worry whether the makers of the noise might be responsible for bringing him here. Or whether they might be his salvation.