There was a problem. There were two ramps. One up and one down, pretty standard actually. The problem was what was next to the ramps. Or the lack of something there.

To properly explain, the family had followed the signs all the way to the ramps. The ramps seemed to be along the edge of the car park and where you’d expect to find another concrete wall, but you just didn’t. There was no wall. There was nothing, literally.

The siblings peered out into the darkness and recoiled when they realised the darkness was peering right back at them. Nick felt the same tension in his head as when they’d fallen into this place.

“Let's not let dad look at this stuff again.” Lily stated.

“Good call sis.” Benny chirped.

Henry was still crashed out in the back of the car, complaining about a headache. He did seem to be recovering a bit though.

Nick and Benny quickly started a competition of who could stare into the void longer before backing out as Lily moved to inspect the ramps.

Using her phone flashlight Lily noticed that there was a clear difference between the two. The one leading upwards had more signs of foot traffic than the one going down. There were dusty footprints and worn out scuff marks all over the ramp leading up but considerably less on the one going down. There was still a decent amount on the down ramp, but it seemed like more people were travelling between the higher floors than the lower ones.

“Hey idiots, I found something weird.” She called out.

The two idiots stumbled over, a little woozy. Lily explained what she had found to them.

“Good eyes as ever Lily, knew you’d find something cool.” Nick said, as if this was all according to plan of his.

Lily only rolled her eyes at his usual antics.

“Does that mean we should go up?” Benny asked.

“Well it’s certainly not your average car park, maybe up is out instead of down? A non-euclidean space type deal?” Nick suggested.

“Bro you’re using big words again.” Benny complained.

“He means space that doesn’t work the same way as usual.” Lily clarified.

Benny nodded his head. “So we’re going up?”

Nick shook his own head. “Nah, we should probably go down. Exits are at the bottom of things and other than this weird darkness, old cars and strange folk, the car park has been rather normal so far.”

“We did fall down into this place though Nick.” Lily countered.

“Good point, but do you think we could just drive up and out of here?” Nick asked.

“Well why don’t you lean over the edge and look up? Then we could see.” Lily suggested.

Nick’s face lit up in surprise. “This is why I leave the heavy thinking to you Lily.”

He ran over to the edge of the car park and leaned over, instantly being hit with an intense vertigo.

“Holy moly, we’re pretty high up guys. Or at least there’s a heap of floors below us? I’m not sure if we’re above sea level anymore.”

At his exclamation the other two siblings hesitantly peered over.

It was Lily’s face’s turn to light up in surprise, Benny’s in amazement.

“WOAH!” Is all Benny managed.

“If we’re underground… then this goes incredibly deep…” Lily muttered.

“If we were underground where would this light be coming from though?” Nick questioned, the car park wasn’t pitch black. Very dark yes, but there was still some light level.

“Yeah no clue, unusual cave, space, thing, for sure.” Lily said.

Nick held onto a support pillar and leaned out to look up.

“Oh I think I can totally see the top.” Nick cried out. He could make out about six or seven floors before what he assumed was the roof of the building.

As the siblings were contemplating their choices a loud rumbling emanated from the lower floors. Nick leaned over and watched as water seemed to rise up the lower floors, weirdly filling up what he could see of each floor. He couldn’t understand why but the water didn’t flow over the edges of the building, it just filled up each floor and kept climbing. He could barely make it out but the water was definitely rising the floors towards them.

“Okay, so definitely an unusual space. Very unusual.” Nick said.

“Yeah up is looking like a better idea now.” Lily said.

With that the siblings piled back into the car and ventured up a floor. What greeted them was unsurprisingly, more of the same. Eerie car park as far as the darkness would let them see. Though each of the siblings could see a sign that was rather significant.

A big ol’ 69.

“Nice.”

“Nice.”

“Nice.”

All three of the siblings said simultaneously.

“We’re in a 69 floor car park?” Lily pondered.

“It’s probably about 75 actually.” Nick chipped in, remembering what he saw.

“Damn, this a big ass building just for cars.” Benny said. “That’s a lotta cars.”

Lily took a moment to inspect the walls for graffiti. She found another interesting sign near the floor number.

“I don’t think it’s just a car park guys, check that out.” She pointed towards another sign with an arrow.

It read ‘Hotel’.

“Okay what’s the bet the hotel is just as creepy as this place?” Nick joked.

“It could be super nice!” Benny’s voice filled with hope.

“I think we just keep going up for now. I don’t really want to drown here.” Lily chimed in.

With that the siblings followed the road around and went up the next ramp. Where they met quite the serious obstacle between them and the 70th floor. There was a blockade of cars stopping them from being able to drive up any further.

“Well, that’s the end of the rideshare. We’ve hit the walking part of the journey it seems.”

“Guess there isn’t much else we can do.” Lily replied.

Thankfully Henry was a bit less groggy now and could mostly walk. He wasn’t very talkative though and was more than happy to just listen to what he was being told and follow along with a groan.

The family grabbed what they could from the car, which wasn’t much other than some water bottles. They’d only been going out to meet a family friend that night and hadn’t brought too much. A few snacks that had been stashed away was the only food they had with them and whatever was left in their water bottles. Their supplies certainly weren’t bountiful.

“Well onwards and upwards!” Nick cheered.

What greeted them appeared far nicer than the previous floors. The first apparent difference was a significant reduction in weird shadows. Nick couldn’t explain it but most of the shadows here felt normal, with the strange darker shadows being much more a minority. The abandoned cars were mostly pushed against the walls, clearing up a lot of the space and making it feel a lot safer in general. Less spaces for sickly folk to creep out from. Comfy looking sofas and chairs littered the area around the ramp, but there were no other people in sight.

“Well I don’t need Lily’s eyes to work out there are other people in here.” Nick proclaimed.

“The footprints on the ramps gave that away doofus.” Lily chided.

“Hey they could have been from the not-zombies!” Benny offered.

“Uh huh, did those things look like they’d like to chill out on a sofa?” Lily replied.

“I’m with Lily here chief, even if it’s just to be optimistic.” Nick agreed.

Henry didn’t contribute to the conversation, he instead shuffled over to one of the sofas and plopped himself into it. It took a lot of effort for the siblings to convince their father to get back up, the man seemed content to just slumber until his headache subsided. Only after explaining that he’d probably drown if he stayed did he reluctantly get back up. The siblings made the decision to keep climbing up the ramps, aiming for the top floor.

At the top of the next ramp they were met with a similar encampment, though this one seemed a lot less fortified and with less seating scattered around. Lily also noticed something about the area.

“The amount of foot traffic in each area is increasing with each floor guys.” She pointed out the increased scuff marks and on the concrete, showing that there was a considerably larger amount of traffic than the lower floors.

“So the higher up we’re going, the more people have been here?” Nick concluded. “Then where are they now?”

Lily thought for a moment. “What if they knew the flooding was coming? They all went to where they knew would be safe?”

“That makes sense, do we keep climbing?” Nick asked, deferring to his sister's judgement.

Lily nodded and so they kept climbing, dragging their groggy father up to floor 72. Unlike the previous two floors, the encampment here was in ruins. Nick made his siblings stay back on the ramp and he ventured into the ruins to work out what was going on.

He found that the makeshift barricades had been absolutely crushed in some areas, like a rhino had torn through them. The sofas and chairs were in disarray, either completely destroyed or thrown asunder. After scouting around for a bit Nick couldn’t find whatever might have caused the destruction and went back to his siblings.

“Lily I can’t work out for the life of me what happened up there, something big seems to have destroyed everything.”

“Alright, let me give it a check.” And so the siblings began to explore the ruins together. Nick leant over the edge to check the water level and was shocked to see that it was getting surprisingly close. It had made it to what he estimated was about floor 50. It had only been at about floor 20 when he had last checked.

“Guys we really need to get a move on! That water is rising quickly!” Nick yelled out.

When he didn’t get a response he jumped up and turned around to see what was happening.

“Well you found what caused the damage huh.” He said.

“Not the time for jokes Nick!” Lily said, panicking.

Nick looked at the beast that was emerging from the shadows of the car park. He could feel it’s steps reverberating through the concrete, It stood about two metres high, on four legs. It’s head looked built for destruction, covered in what looked like thick plates or scales. It had piercing red eyes and black mist wafted out from beneath the plates. As it emerged from the shadows Nick could see that it’s body was covered in the thick scales, though some of them seemed to be pretty damaged. Deep gouges and slashes revealed the purple flesh hiding underneath.

Nick's mind leapt to action. The beast was currently looking at his sister.

“HEY!” Its eyes snapped to him. It was going for the loud noises.

Nick looked at his family. Nick was closer to the ramp than then, the beast almost halfway between them. He then saw the sign for the hotel, and that his family was standing near the aisle that the sign pointed down.

Keeping his eyes on the beast he called out loudly. “Lily! Don’t reply, I’ll keep this big boy’s attention! I think the hotel might be where everyone is, though I’m betting you’re already thinking that haha!”

The beast stomped towards him, it was only about 10 metres away now. It opened up it’s maw and Nick could see gruesome, jagged teeth.

“Yup, heck! You and Benny drag dad to the hotel! I’ll meet you there okay?!”

Lily nodded and made the move, slowly at first. Nick didn’t look, but he could hear the shuffling of feet.

“Let’s dance big boy!” With that Nick ran. He wasn’t big into cardio, but he’d make an exception in moments like these. At his sudden movement the beast let out a deafening roar and started it’s own sprint.

Nick ran into the aisles, now pretty unhappy about the mostly cleared cars. What he would give for something between the beast and him. He looked over his shoulder just in time to see how quickly it was closing in on him. He desperately threw himself to the side and the tank hurtled past him. It quickly stopped itself and turned back on him.

“You’re far too agile for a fucker that big.” He complained. Things never were fair were they. The beastie was clearly out for blood and quickly started galloping back towards him. Nick really didn’t want to run back the way he’d just come, so he needed to get past the lad somehow. He looked to the closest wall and the few cars that lined it. He bolted towards them.

He dove out of the way again as he was charged and the beast collided with the junked cars, creating a jumbled mess.

“Well that was eas-” He couldn’t even finish gloating before the beast was wrenching itself free from the cars. “Yup, too easy huh.”

Nick started bolting again, noticing that there were even less spooky shadows on this floor, which he was thankful for. He was sprinting through the dark, barely able to make out his surroundings. The stomping behind him not quite giving him the freedom to pull out his phone for light.

Nick neared the wall again and then dove, letting the beast collide with the cars. He might actually be getting the hang of this.

The beast shook its head, sending mangled metal flying. One large piece smacked into Nick and he went sprawling into the concrete.

“Goddamnit. Hang of it my arse.” He dragged himself to his feet, he didn’t feel great but nothing felt too damaged from the blow. He started running again and tried to piece together a plan to at least lose this thing long enough to get away.

Looking back he saw the beast was already back on his heels. So far he’d only run straight, hoping to give his family as much space away from the terror as possible. Though this had limited his options to the aisle walls and cars along those walls. So for a while he just ran from wall to wall, diving out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed, then rolling away before he could be hit by any shrapnel. It quickly devolved into a very repetitive grind, which Nick found kinda depressing.

Here he was, risking his life fighting a nightmare beast and he’d actually found a way to make it boring. He’d run, dive, roll, repeat. He was certainly getting tired though. He looked at his adversary after the next collision. The beast, despite its nightmarish appearance, actually looked pretty tired too. Whatever was fueling it, probably human suffering or something, seemed to be running out.

“Getting tired too bud?”

The creature roared back at him, considerably quieter than the last time.

“I can do this all day.” Nick joked and back to the grind it was.

Nick eventually spotted a problem, for the beast that is. He was reaching the edge of the car park, he could see the empty void in front of him, not just flanking his right side. He wondered if the beast was even aware, though he took a gamble on it. Mustering the last of his draining energy he repeated the grind for the last few walls up to the edge. The beast didn’t even notice its impending crisis.

It didn’t notice anything until at the last wall before the edge Nick took a dive the other way. The change in pattern startled the beast, clearly used to banging its head on the left side. It tried to correct its charge towards the new direction of Nick but all that it managed to do was trip itself up.

Then momentum did it’s work and the beast slid. It slid and slid, right off the edge of the car park.

His first life threatening fight didn’t end spectacularly, it ended in a mindless mistake after an almost mindless slog.

Nick didn’t get up from his dive, he leaned against the wall and looked out at the void for a bit.

“Man, that sucked.”