Exit Strategy short story by Otatade Okojie

Nobody noticed the exits until they started disappearing. At first it was small things. A door in the back of a restaurant that led nowhere. An emergency exit in a cinema that opened onto a brick wall. A fire escape that vanished overnight from the side of an apartment building. People joked about it. Shared photographs online. Invented conspiracy theories. The world has a talent for laughing at things it doesn't yet understand. Then the disappearances spread. And suddenly nobody was laughing. --- Mason Pike first noticed the phenomenon on a Monday morning. He worked as an architect. A man who spent his life designing ways in and ways out. Buildings made sense to him. People often didn't. The call came from a client. An office tower. Twenty-two floors. Four emergency exits. Except one of them no longer existed. Not damaged. Not blocked. Gone. As though somebody had erased it from reality. Mason inspected the building himself. Blueprints confirmed the exit should have been there. Employees remembered using it. Security footage showed people walking through it only days before. Yet now there was only concrete. Solid wall. Impossible. The sort of impossible that keeps rational people awake at night. --- Within weeks, similar incidents appeared across the country. Hospitals. Schools. Shopping centres. Airports. Exits vanished. Routes disappeared. Escape became increasingly difficult. Scientists searched for explanations. Governments denied panic. News channels fed on confusion. Nobody possessed answers. Then people started disappearing too. Not dying. Vanishing. Always individuals trapped between decisions. A businessman about to leave his marriage. A student deciding whether to abandon university. A woman preparing to move abroad. Every victim stood at a crossroads. Every victim was searching for a way out. And then they were gone. --- One rainy evening, Mason discovered a note slipped beneath his apartment door. No name. No address. Only six words. **The exits aren't disappearing. They're choosing.** The sentence disturbed him. Because deep down he already suspected something impossible. The phenomenon seemed intelligent. Purposeful. Selective. As though reality itself had become a maze. And somebody was rearranging the walls. The following night, another note arrived. **Meet me at Terminal Nine. Midnight.** No city. No explanation. Just instructions. Mason almost ignored it. Almost. Curiosity has guided humanity into every great discovery. And every terrible mistake. --- Terminal Nine had been abandoned for decades. An unfinished railway station buried beneath the city. Dust covered the platforms. Darkness filled the tunnels. The place felt forgotten. Hidden. Waiting. At exactly midnight, a woman emerged from the shadows. Grey coat. Silver hair. Eyes carrying a lifetime of secrets. "My name is Evelyn." Mason nodded cautiously. "Who are you?" The woman smiled. "The last person who escaped." The answer landed like thunder. "What does that mean?" Evelyn looked down the endless tunnel. Her expression darkening. "It means somebody built a prison." Fear tightened inside him. "A prison for who?" Her answer arrived softly. "For people who stopped living." --- The story sounded insane. Yet every strange event suddenly fit together. Evelyn explained that the disappearing exits were not physical. Not really. They were symbolic. Manifestations. Reflections. The world responding to humanity's growing fear of change. Millions of people trapped in routines they hated. Relationships they had outgrown. Dreams they abandoned. Lives they endured rather than lived. The exits vanished because people stopped using them. Not doors. Possibilities. Choices. Freedom. Mason wanted to reject the explanation. Instead he found himself thinking about his own life. The promotion he never pursued. The relationship he never repaired. The novel he always wanted to write. The risks he never took. How many exits had he ignored? How many opportunities had quietly closed behind him? --- Then came the revelation. The disappearances weren't random. The missing people had been offered one final choice. A doorway invisible to everyone else. A chance to leave behind fear. To embrace uncertainty. To begin again. Some accepted. Some refused. Those who vanished were not trapped. They had stepped through. Into lives they had been too frightened to pursue. The truth felt both beautiful and terrifying. Because it left Mason facing a question he had avoided for years. What was he waiting for? --- Three nights later, the final exit appeared. In his apartment. Exactly where his bedroom wall should have been. A simple wooden door. Nothing more. Nothing less. Beyond it lay possibility. Failure. Adventure. Loss. Success. Love. Pain. Life. Everything worth experiencing. And everything worth fearing. Mason stood before it for a long time. Listening to his heartbeat. Thinking about certainty. Thinking about safety. Thinking about regret. The door remained patiently open. Waiting. Not demanding. Not persuading. Simply offering. Like every meaningful choice ever made. Finally, he smiled. Then stepped forward. --- The next morning, neighbours discovered Mason's apartment empty. His belongings remained. His furniture remained. His unfinished architectural plans remained. Only Mason was gone. Some assumed he moved away. Others believed stranger explanations. Nobody knew the truth. Years later, stories still circulated about the disappearing exits. Most dismissed them. Legends thrive where certainty fails. Yet every so often, somebody standing at a crossroads notices a door that wasn't there before. A possibility. A chance. An escape from the life they no longer want. And if they are brave enough, they step through. Because the greatest prisons are rarely made of steel or stone. They are made of fear. And the greatest exit strategy has never been running away. It has always been finding the courage to move forward. Even when you don't know what waits on the other side of the door.