Chapter 65

Entering the building, I noticed how much colder it was than outside. I sure was glad I always have pointy nipples, because else they surely would have popped out. They maybe cringed a little from the cold, but I’m sure none of the others had noticed it.

Switching on our flashlights, we started to look around the room we were in. It was completely empty but the size of the room was astonishing. While it had already been obvious that this building was huge from the outside, standing in this room, the size of about the house I lived in, was only a small part of the cellar. Obviously, it would extend a lot to the right, but the wall we could see at the other side, wasn’t the other side of the building yet.

We all separated too look at different parts of the room. Except from some electric and other metal tubing attached to the ceiling and walls, with some modern light fixtures on the ceiling, there wasn’t anything to be found.

While looking around the room, I couldn’t help but thing, Strange! Shouldn’t there be a lot of cobwebs here?

Well, I knew how much spiderwebs there were in the cellar at my home every week. If we didn’t remove those cobwebs every week, those spiders living there would just take over our cellar. But here, I almost didn’t see any cobwebs, except for the few along the wall and the ceiling. I was about to say something about it when Brad announced to us all, “Hey, there is a door back here!” His voice came from the other side of the room, at the opposite side of where we had entered the building.

“And over here, there is a hallway,” Patrick added. His voice came from somewhere from the right side of the room.

In no time, the rest of us had our lights on both of them. Patrick was indeed standing at the right wall, and there was a large opening in it. The hallway he had found had to be three to four yards wide.

Brad was standing in front of a wooden door at the far wall. When I had him in the light of my flashlight, I saw that he was about to open the door. Me and the rest, started to walk in his direction, probably we were all curious if we would find something behind that door.

Before any of us reached him, he had already opened the door and gone inside. When I reached the door and went inside, I noticed that those that had entered it before me where already checking out the room with their flashlight. Again, we only found an empty room, and checking out all the walls, we didn’t find another door or hallway in it. It was just what it was, a large empty room, like the one we had just come from. Again, the ceiling had some industrial looking light fixture on the ceiling and some type and pipes.

The thing that surprised me, was how those tubes used for the electricity didn’t look old and those light fixtures, while looking industrial were also very modern. This was sure something I wasn’t expecting to find inside an abandoned building.

This made me wonder about something. I used my flashlight to follow one of those plastic tubes, until it came to a junction box with a tube moving in my direction. When I saw this, I quickly shone my light on the wall behind me and I didn’t take me long to find the light switch next to the door.

“Do you think it will work?” Nele asked. Her sudden question made me jump, because I had been so focused on inspecting the room and those tubes, that I hadn’t noticed that she had been this close to me. “Sorry,” she said sounding giggly, “I didn’t want to scare you.”

“You didn’t,” I responded, a little embarrassed that she had made me scare jump a little.

Nele didn’t wait for my answer on her earlier question and just flipped the light switch.

For just a moment, we heard a slight buzzing and then the ticking sounds of the fluorescent lamps coming on.

“Holy fuck,” Brad said, while he turned around to look at Nele and me. “Fuck! You scared the shit out of me!” He said while letting out a loud sigh

“Sorry,” Nele responded giggling.

“How the hell is this possible?” Brad asked while looking at Felix.

“I don’t know,” Felix answered.

“You’re sure this building is abandoned,” John asked Felix.

“My brother said it was,” he responded. He seemed as puzzled about this as all the rest of us.

“Then how is it possible that this building has electricity?” John asked, I noticed he had a concerned look on his face.

“I don’t know,” Felix answered. “Maybe ... they never disconnected from the net? Although, I wasn’t expecting this building to have electricity at all!”

While they had been talking, they all had moved closer to the door. It was eventually Patrick who said, “Guys, don’t you find it strange that there are almost no cobwebs in this or the previous room?”

“Now that you say it,” I responded. “I was already thinking that before, because I know we have a lot of spiders in the cellar at my home. We have to remove a lot of cobwebs every week because else those spiders take over the whole cellar with their webs.”

All of them started to look around the room again, and just like in the previous room, there were only a few cobwebs, mostly at the corners of the room.

“Do you think there is someone living here?” John asked no-one in particular.

Felix was scratching his head and looked like he was thinking.

“Looking at this and the previous room, it sure doesn’t look like an old abandoned building. It’s just too clean!” Patrick said, adding to our suspicion that maybe we couldn’t be alone in this building.

“I’m sure my brother told me it was abandoned,” Felix said. “I even think that I read somewhere that the last descendant who lived here died a little more than fifty years ago.”

“Guys, we need to make a decision. Are we going to explore further or are we leaving?” Patrick said. “If anyone is living here, we could get into trouble if caught. We didn’t break in, but still, this is trespassing!”

“Hmm,” Brad let out while thinking. “Did anyone notice something while we were walking around the building? I mean, did any of you see some movement inside?”

We all looked at each other and shook with our heads.

“I didn’t see anyone,” I eventually said, but I did notice that there were curtains hanging at the windows and also some chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. But the windows were too high to really look inside.”

“I noticed the same,” Nele added. “But I for sure didn’t notice any movement inside.”

“I’m not feeling right with this,” Patrick said. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.”

“So, are we going to leave then?” John asked the group.

“I’m staying,” Felix said. “I’m sure this building is abandoned and I want to see more of this building.”

“If Felix stays, I stay as well,” Brad responded.

Patrick was looking in my direction.

“Maybe it isn’t smart,” I started to say to Patrick, “But, I’m also curious about how the rest of this building looks.”

“Are you sure?” John asked, who was now standing next to me.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I told him. “We didn’t hear or see anything that would suggest that someone is here, except for the fact that these two rooms we have been in look very clean and that the electricity seems to be working. The only thing I can think of, is that maybe someone is still maintaining this building for potential buyers. I’m sure this building must be very expensive and difficult to sell. What do you think, could that be it?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Felix said. “That sounds reasonable. While there are maybe no descendants, this building eventually still has to be owned by someone. Maybe even the state? So, yeah, it sounds reasonable that those people would still make sure this building looks well maintained. Like you said, if someone would like to buy it, it’s probably more valuable if it looks clean and well maintained.”

“That can be,” John said. “But, that would still mean that we are trespassing.”

“Look,” Felix said. “There are a lot of people who make videos inside abandoned buildings. If someone would catch us, I’m sure that if we say that we thought it was an abandoned building, they won’t sue us or even press charges. It’s not that we are planning to destroy anything. We even used a key to enter the building, so ... And,” he held up the mini video camera he had in his hand, “if we film everything. We have proof that we didn’t do anything wrong, except for having a look around and maybe filming this naked nymph with us.” He smiled at me while he said that last part.

John sighed and said, “If you say it like that, yeah maybe, but still, I don’t want to get into trouble with anyone, especially not the law.”

“Come on,” I said while nudging John, “Live a little dangerous for once!”

“For once!” he snorted. He just smiled at me and eventually said, “Okay, I’m in!”

“Me too,” Nele said.

This made all of us look at Patrick. “I’m not abandoning you guys. So ... I’m in as well!”

And so, it was decided the exploration of the building would go on.

“Well, there isn’t another door in this room, so let’s go back and explore that hallway we found,” Felix told us.

After switching off the lights, we walked out of the room.

“Nice,” Patrick said, finding his enthusiasm back, “This little thing even has night vision!”

He showed me the back screen of the GoPro and when pointing at a dark area of the room, on the screen you could see everything very clearly. He then did a few steps back, pointed it at me and said, “Damn, your body really lights up on the screen!”

He then came back to me, and showed me what he had recorded. To my surprise, every nook and cranny on my body was very clearly in view. Those damn little cameras are sure very powerful, I thought.

We had now reached the hallway and we shone all our lights in it. We could see rather far, but still, we couldn’t see the end of the hallway.

“This hallway must go on to the whole other side of the building,” Brad said.

“Hey, here is also a light switch,” Nele said. Before any of us could respond, the lights in the hallway went on and indeed, this hallway had to go to the other side of the building. Well, the wall at the other side sure looked very far away.

“Switch it off,” Felix quickly said.

Nele quickly switched the lights off and asked, “Why?”

“If anyone else should be here,” Felix explained, “we probably will be less exposed when we only use our flashlights. And ... if anyone would come down to the cellar, they probably will switch on the lights and we will know someone is coming ... so we can hide.”

Brad looked at Felix and asked jokingly, “Done this before? Have you?”

Felix chuckled and said, “No, but it sounded smart.”

“Well, it is!” Patrick told Felix.

And so, we walked into the hallway and only used our flashlights to light the path we were following. By the way, seen from the front of the building we were now walking towards the left side of the building. Don’t forget, we entered the building from the back, so turning into the hallway to the right means that we are walking towards the left side of the building.

The hallway itself was completely empty, and now and then we found a door to the left or right. Some of them we could open and others were locked. Behind the doors, we only found more empty rooms. It quickly became obvious that the cellar wasn’t used by anyone. Except maybe for those with locked doors. We for sure didn’t have a clue what could be behind those doors.

We moved on slowly, because we never passed the opportunity to see if the door we found would open and if there was something interesting behind. Eventually, we reached about the middle of the long hallway. It was there that we found something new and interesting.

“Look, a staircase,” Felix said while shining his flashlight at it. The staircase was going up we saw.

“What do you think, explore the rest of the cellar first, or going to see what is up there?” Brad asked.

It was quickly decided that going up the stairs would probably be more interesting.

And so, with Felix leading the way, we started to climb the stairs. The staircase itself, had four turns to the right and was also very wide. You could easily walk with three people next to each other.

Eventually, we ended up at the top of the stairs, in front of a closed door. I saw how Felix put his ear against the door.

“I can’t hear anything,” Felix said and asked, “Are we proceeding?”

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” Brad responded.

I agreed, we had come this far, so no point of turning back. And ... if somebody should be here, and we get caught, we just needed to tell them the truth and we probably wouldn’t get in to much of a trouble. At least, that’s what I was hoping for.

Felix carefully opened the door slightly, listened for a few seconds and then looked what was behind the door. He took his time but after he had made sure nobody was out there, he pushed the door open while saying, with a lowered voice, “The coast is clear!”

He just walked out of the staircase and the rest of us started to follow. To say that I wasn’t expecting what I saw is an understatement. We had walked into what looked like a large lobby. The large door we had seen from the outside was at the other side of the lobby. Looking to my left and right, I saw another hallway leading to both ends of the building. Even without the lights on, the lobby was well lid from the sun shining through the windows.

“Wow!” Nele said. “This looks ... almost like the lobby of a big hotel!”

“You’re right,” Patrick said while looking into the lobby.

“It even has a reception area over there!” John said, while pointing to the right side of the lobby.

“And look at all the furniture!” Brad added.

In the middle of the lobby, stood a lot of tables with chairs around it at the left side of the open area. On the right side, closer to the counter of the reception counter, were also a lot of large sofas with some coffee tables placed among them.

We all walked towards the middle of the lobby when I noticed at the left side of this open area, something that looked like a fancy barista counter.

“Guys!” I said, “Do you think someone is turning this building into a hotel?”

“I think so,” John said while looking at all the things that could be seen.

“Fuck,” Felix let out.

“What?” Brad asked, alarmed.

“Sorry! Didn’t mean it like that,” Felix responded. “It’s just not what I was expecting to find here.”

“I think none of use expected this!” Brad said, relieved that Felix hadn’t seen anything to get us all in trouble.

We were now standing in the middle of the lobby, turning around and taking in everything. While all if it looked very functional, we also notice that the furniture and all the other stuff had something rustic about it. Like we had stepped back in time. Most of the design looked like it had to be from the 1950-60’s.

“Oh, wow,” Nele said. “Look up guys! There is a huge shiny chandelier hanging down the ceiling.”

We all looked and saw one crazy large chandelier hanging there. We hadn’t noticed it straight away, because the ceiling at the middle of the lobby was open and the room extended up all the way to the ceiling of the second floor. We saw that the second floor had a walkway around this opening with balustrades to make it safe. From where we sere standing it was difficult to see, but I think I saw opening in the wall up there, which had to be the doorways to the rooms. There weren’t any doors handing in the opening, so I guess the renovation of the second floor is still an ongoing process. It made me think that we were probably lucky that we had come here during the construction leave because else there would have been a lot of people around.

“We can’t deny it anymore,” John said. “This building isn’t abandoned. But it is being converted into a hotel for sure!”

“You’re right,” Felix said, sounding a little sad. I guess he was hoping to find an old, slightly rundown building to explore. Instead, we were finding a nicely renovated building turned into a hotel, it seemed.

“So, what now?” Brad wanted to know.

“It still seems we are alone,” Felix said, sounding a little less enthusiastic then before. “I sure haven’t seen or heard anything that would suggest that anyone else is around. So, let’s just go explore the rest of the building.”

I noticed that Brad looked at all of us, but none of us were objecting. While this wasn’t what we were expecting, I think we all were still interested in seeing how the inside of this building looked like. It was obvious that this building wasn’t used yet and I for sure thought that nobody else was around at the moment. Whoever was renovating this building wasn’t doing any work right now. Else, we for sure would heard if that was the case.