The Warehouse

Chapter 5: The door out of nowhere

I'm cold as hell. Anna is guiding us through the Warehouse's corridors. Jack is poiting to some things and beings. He's probably trying to explain those "artifacts" properties but his voice is muffled in some way. The shock of what's happened to me is starting to take its toll on me. I can feel it filling me up, little by little. My body feels like filled with cotton balls. A whistling covers all sounds, slowly. My lips tickle and my lungs burn. 
A hand suddenly pats my shoulder. I shiver and the adrenaline overwhelms me as if I just had woken up from a dream:

"It's gonna go away," Layla tells me. "We all went through that."
"And that is a dad joke book. You can't stop reading it and die of laughter. People we saved from it still do dad jokes regularly to this day," says the mechanic.

I offer one of my really rare smiles to the young woman and look at the book. It floats, lazyly, lightened by the purple lines on the floor:

"THE BEST 100 DAD JOKES"

The title is proudly written on the paperback. It's dog eared, torned in some places and the cover is loudly colored. A fat man drinks bear and a 50's bimbo sats on his lap. Both characters are laughing with too much teeth.

"This... thing truly has magical powers?" I ask, trying to hide my perplexity.
"You shall ask the widows of the three agents that died retrieving it," Anna snaps back at me.

Our small group stopped moving in the middle of a corridor. The secretary's icy voice pierces through me and the anger reappears. Nevertheless, I ignore her. She stands in front of an oak shiny door. The golden elegant door handle is perfectly polished. However it isn't built in any wall. It's just here. Going nowhere. Before I can ask any of my many questions, Anna opens the door:

"Please, follow me," she says, going through.

Through the high rectangle, I can see a beautiful victorianish office. As the other obey, I go around the door. On the other side, the same image. Anna is sitting in her high leather armchair. Behind her, a beautiful big window showing the Thames. I turn around the door again. On both sides of the dark wooden desk, two high bookshelves with leatherbound books. The others sat down on four of the five chairs facing Anna. Their back are facing me.
Annabelle turns her face towards me and says:

"Come on in, don't be scared."

Fighting against my most powerful instincts, I put my foot on the thick bottle green carpet. Shivering, I hear the sound of the door locking itself slowly behind me.