A prison exclusively housing death row inmates. A man was one of the prisoners there, but he couldn't stand the smug, enlightened attitude of the newcomer who had just been moved into the cell next to his.
Rumors of a "transfer" were circulating inside the prison. According to the gossip, several inmates would be executed without ever being transferred. Taking advantage of this, the man decided to scare the newcomer with a fabricated story.
"You know how the hallway splits into two paths up ahead, right? Do you know what's waiting down there? I helped clean up the bodies of the executed, so I know." "If you turn right down the hallway, you're safe—that's the transfer. If you go left, you're dead—that's the execution..."
At first, the newcomer feigned indifference, but eventually, he began begging the man to continue the story. The man continued, gloating inwardly.
"...If you go left, there's a door, and the hallway keeps going past it. A certain number of lightbulbs are broken, and at a dead end, there's a door covered in handprints. Those handprints are where the paint peeled off because prisoners clung to it in a final desperate struggle. And waiting for you beyond that is the electric chair, where you get executed..."
The man felt satisfied seeing the newcomer become unhinged.
Then one day, the newcomer was taken out of his cell and led away. The guard and the newcomer turned left at the end of the hall. The man found it amusing to listen to the frantic newcomer screaming, but as time passed, he began to wonder why the newcomer never returned to his cell.
Before long, the man was also taken out of his cell and led away. The guard said nothing in response to his questions. When they turned left at the end of the hallway, the scenery was exactly as he had made up in his fabricated story.
The further he walked, the more terror gripped him. When he was urged to pass through the door covered in handprints, his terror reached its peak.
The guards were carrying the man's corpse. "Another heart attack..."
Beyond the door lay the outside world. He had actually been led away for his transfer.
The door wouldn't close properly. With practiced familiarity, a guard pressed his hand against the door to shut it. "I wonder when they're ever going to fix this sticking door."
The handprints were simply marks left by the guards over years of pushing it shut...
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