The Other Lobby

The Ashford Tower has twelve floors. Everyone who works there knows this. But on certain nights, when the elevator doors slide shut and the numbers begin to climb, a thirteenth option flickers into existence: a small, unlit button marked 0. Ethan Blackwell has ignored it for years, the way people ignore cracks in old plaster. Until the night he doesn't. The doors open onto a lobby identical to the one he left seconds ago, down to the dead potted plant by the front desk and the coffee stain on the marble floor. But the building is empty. No staff, no guests, no sound but his own footsteps and something that might be an echo, or might not. As Ethan searches for a way back, he discovers he isn't the only one who has pressed that button. Mara Whitlock has been trapped on the other side for longer than she can measure, and Daniel Cross knows exactly why the building keeps its true floor a secret, because he helped bury it. Together they must uncover what the Ashford Tower is protecting beneath its foundations, and what it takes from anyone who finds Floor Zero, before the real hotel forgets they ever left it.

Connor Hayes CH writes psychological horror and paranormal thrillers exploring the fear hidden in ordinary places, elevators, hotels, offices, and the small decisions that lead people somewhere they can't return from. Drawing inspiration from liminal spaces and forgotten architecture, Hayes crafts unsettling worlds where reality quietly bends.