Never

 

The entire back wall was nothing but shelves, with rows upon rows of small glass jars.  They all had sealed tops on them and each had a label.  Different color liquid was in each container, with some having something floating in the liquid.  I couldn’t tell what.  A few of the jars almost glowed they were so vibrant. It looked as though they had a light shining on the inside.

The surface of the table in front of the shelves was empty.  There was one wall switch at the far end of the table with a word beneath it that read, NEVER.

Whatever was written on the jar labels was in a foreign language.  I couldn’t make it out, so there was no way of telling what anything was for or what it was, but I quickly wondered why, if nobody was to ever flip the switch, why have a switch in the first place?

I stepped closer, drawn despite myself to the glowing jars. One of them pulsed softly, as if responding to my presence. It was filled with a milky-blue fluid, and inside something the size of a marble spun lazily in slow, perfect circles. I leaned in, squinting. It wasn’t a marble—it had an eye.

Backing away quickly, I turned to the switch again.

NEVER.

It was carved into the metal, not just written. Deeply.
Whoever put it there wanted it to last.
Whoever put it there expected someone might forget.

Maybe that someone was me.

But if I wasn’t supposed to flip it, why leave it so temptingly isolated, like a dare?
What would it turn on—or off?
Was it even connected to the jars? Maybe it lit up the labels. Or maybe it was some kind of emergency venting system.

I looked back to the jars.

A few now had faint bubbles rising to the top, as though they'd just been shaken—or stirred by an unseen hand. One of them emitted a faint ping, like a wineglass tapped with a fork.

I took a breath, then let it out slowly.
I won’t touch the switch, I told myself.

But I also didn’t leave.  What was this place?