Do you guys believe in the underworld? I got my hands on a certain ○○○○ that's said to summon entities from the other side. The story went that if a human consumed ○○○○, it would connect them to the afterlife. Given my line of work, I occasionally come across rare antiques like this. I'm bound by strict confidentiality, so you'll have to forgive me for not revealing what ○○○○ actually is. Feel free to look it up yourselves. Naturally, I didn't believe it at first. But ○○○○ was so ancient that it piqued my curiosity, and I couldn't resist testing it out. That really was all there was to it.
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I decided to use my coworker, Nakamura (not his real name). I secretly crushed up a tiny bit of ○○○○ and sprinkled it over his lunch. I figured it was probably just some ancient hallucinogen anyway. The weirdness started that afternoon. Nakamura blurted out something bizarre.
"Taniguchi was calling for you."
.....Who the hell is Taniguchi?
"Huh? What's wrong with you? Taniguchi is Taniguchi.
Hurry up and go see him. Right down at the far left end of the hallway, on the stair landing. He said he's waiting for you there."
Oh... I see. Thanks.
For the record, I don't know a single person named Taniguchi, either in my personal or professional life. On top of that, our office is a single-story building—there aren't any stairs anywhere. Nakamura should have known that full well. So it really was a hallucinogen after all. It definitely seemed to have worked. That was what I was thinking.
But... When I walked down to the far left of the hallway just as Nakamura said, there was indeed an ancient staircase standing right there. I let out a pathetic shriek and fell flat on my ass. I didn't have the courage to go down those stairs.
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The next day, the ancient staircase that was definitely there yesterday had vanished without a trace. Nakamura claims he has no memory whatsoever of our exchange from the day before.