SOLAR

Wellness culture meets urban legend in this infrared nightmare.

By Travis Brown

By Thursday morning, LaSherika’s entire algorithm belonged to Darnell.

Infrared sauna TikToks. Home sauna boxes shaped like shipping crates. Women wrapped in white towels smiling at camera filters while captions shouted:

DETOX! REDUCE INFLAMMATION! LOOK TEN YEARS YOUNGER!

For three straight days, Darnell had done nothing but text, DM, and tag her in sauna content.

Babe look at this one.

This dude said his knees stopped hurting after 2 sessions.

Infrared is different from steam, check this out.

She loved her husband. She did not love waking up to a feed full of wooden boxes and glistening strangers.

By day four, the universe decided to balance things out.

Now her timeline alternated between infrared saunas and their natural enemy: cold plunges.

Half her For You page was people sitting in steaming red light, the other half screaming in tubs of ice.

Still, when Darnell got like this—locked in on something new, something he’d heard the guys at the YMCA talk about after pickup—she knew how it would end. he’d bug her until she said yes, then probably forget about it after a week. That was the cycle with him and trends: protein coffees, barefoot shoes, collagen gummies.

Infrared saunas, though? She was curious.

“It’s downtown,” he’d said, grinning at his phone. “Not just some strip-mall spot. Real studio, real deal. Name’s Solar. S-O-L-A-R. Black sign, red lights. It look hard.”

She’d pulled it up on Yelp during lunch. The page was clean, professional. Photos of sleek wooden cabins glowing with orange light. Little side tables with chilled eucalyptus towels. Everyone in the pictures looked annoyingly refreshed, like they’d get eight hours of sleep even on a work night.

Reviews:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Staff is so kind and knowledgeable!”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Great couples session, super relaxing!”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “I’ve never sweat like this in my life (in a good way).”

And then, wedged between all the love, sitting there like mold on a wedding cake:

⭐️ “Do not ever go to Solar. You will die.”

That was it. No explanation, no story.

You will die.

The review had twenty little “Useful” thumbs and hundreds of “Not helpful” ones, but that didn’t matter. LaSherika stared at those four words until her lunch break was over.

That night, when Darnell came home from work and kicked his shoes off, she met him at the door.

“You see this Yelp thing?” she asked, shoving her phone at him. “About Solar?”

He squinted. “Some hater,” he said, shrugging. “People leave wild stuff on Yelp all the time. Probably somebody mad ’cause they missed their appointment fee.”

“You will die,” she repeated. “Not ‘you’ll be disappointed.’ Not ‘it’s too expensive.’ Die, Darnell.”

He pulled her into him, kissed her forehead like a peace offering. “We’ll research it,” he said. “Check their other reviews, maybe look at what else this person posts. You know how you do your FBI thing.”

He wasn’t wrong. That’s exactly what she did the next day. On her break, on the train, in the parking lot before she walked into work. She poked through Yelp, looked for usernames that matched, scanned other low-star reviews for the same tone. Nothing. Whoever wrote it either used a throwaway account or never posted again.

By the time she sat in her car late Friday morning, the unease in her stomach had grown from a pebble to a stone.

She stared at Solar’s website. It looked normal enough. Clean layout, lots of FAQ sections, photos of smiling staff. At the bottom, in small lettering: Call us to book or with any questions.

“Okay,” she muttered. “Let’s see.”

She pressed the number and lifted the phone to her ear.

“Thank you for calling Solar, home of the infrared saunas,” a bright young voice chimed. “Come in and let us melt and sweat away your horrible day.”

“Excuse me?” said LaSherika, sitting up straight. “What did you just say?”

A pause. Then the girl repeated, somehow perkier: “Thank you for calling Solar, home of the infrared saunas. Come in and sweat all your cares away. It’s the Solar way!”

“No, before that,” said LaSherika. Her heart ticked faster. “You said something about my day being horrible. How do you know my day was horrible?”

A nervous little laugh floated down the line. “You must’ve misheard me! I promise, that’s not part of the script. We just say ‘sweat your cares away,’ that’s all.”

“Mm-hmm,” said LaSherika, unconvinced.

“Yes ma’am, I see you right here. Saturday, nine a.m., Williams couple’s session, forty-five minutes,” the receptionist continued, apparently eager to move on. “Was there something else I could help you with? I’d be happy to tell you about all the benefits of infrared—”

“Nope,” said LaSherika, cutting her off. “I’ve been force-fed enough benefits through TikTok, thank you. I called about your Yelp page. Did you know there’s a review on there saying if you go to Solar, you will die?”

Silence. A longer one this time.

Then: “Oh! Yes, we are… unfortunately aware of that,” the receptionist said, words carefully arranged. “Our Yelp page was hacked a while ago. Someone left that comment as a kind of… gross prank. There’s some sort of coding bug preventing it from being removed. We’ve contacted Yelp multiple times, but they said the only way to guarantee it’s gone would be to delete our entire page and start over. And, well, with all our positive reviews, that would really hurt our business.”

“So you just leave you will die up there?” said LaSherika. “Like a little garnish?”

“I completely understand your concern,” the girl chirped, tone bright but forced. “But I can assure you, Mrs. Williams, we’ve never had a serious incident. You and your husband will be absolutely safe. You’ll relax, detox, sweat out toxins, and most of our clients book another session right away.”

“That’s fine,” said LaSherika. “But that wording? You will die? That’s not just a troll being funny. That’s… specific.”

Another pause. “I promise it’s nothing to worry about,” the receptionist repeated, like the phrase was printed on her screen. “We’re looking into ways to have it removed. In the meantime, we don’t want one bad thing to erase all the wonderful feedback from our community.”

They’d already put a card on file. If they canceled now, she knew, there would be a fee. Money they didn’t really have to waste.

“Okay,” she said at last, rubbing her temple. “We’ll be there. But if I see any nonsense? I’m leaving.”

“Of course,” the girl replied. “We can’t wait to sweat your cares away.”

---

Saturday morning dawned mild and gray, the kind of St. Louis day where the sky looked like someone forgot to render it.

They went through their routine like they always did. Light jog through Brentwood, trading jokes about the neighbors’ dogs. Breakfast: toasted English muffins, egg whites mixed with ground turkey, a spoonful of salsa, thin slices of avocado fanned over the top. It was comforting, normal. The kind of morning that should’ve stayed ordinary.

Darnell drove them downtown, music low, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

“You’re gonna like it,” he said for the fifth time. “Forty-five minutes. We’ll come out glowing. Brunch after if you’re good.”

“I’m good now,” she said. “I’d be better without the potential death appointment.”

He laughed. “You dramatic.”

There was plenty of parking, just like she’d figured. No ball game, no concert, no protest. Downtown felt hollow—the way it always did on off-weekends, all empty sidewalks and still glass.

Solar sat on a corner, a dark little jewel boxed in by office buildings. Its sign really was slick: black background, the word SOLAR in clean white letters, underlit with a subtle red glow. Inside the front windows, red light flushed over pale wood, giving the whole lobby a strange, warm heartbeat.

Under the main sign, smaller letters spelled the tagline: Sweating the New You.

“That’s kinda clean,” Darnell said. “They got branding.”

“Mm-hmm,” said LaSherika. “That’s what everyone says before they get murdered in a documentary.”

He rolled his eyes. “Come on.”

The door chimed softly when they walked in. The lobby smelled faintly of eucalyptus and something warmer—like heated cedar.

Behind the desk stood a young woman with pale skin, blue eyes, and brown hair pulled into a neat bun. A halo ring light glowed above her, whitening her smile.

“Welcome to Solar Infrared Studios!” she said, voice bright and rehearsed. “Are you ready to sweat your cares away?”

“Hell yeah, we are,” said Darnell, grinning.

“I guess so,” murmured LaSherika.

“Williams, nine a.m.?” the receptionist asked, hands already clicking over a keyboard.

“That’s us,” said Darnell.

“Perfect.” She slid two digital tablets toward them. “You’ve completed most of your intake online, so all I need is your signature on the waiver.”

“Before we sign,” said LaSherika, “there isn’t anything in here about what happens if we die, right?”

“Baaaabe,” Darnell groaned. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” she said without looking at him. “I just want to make sure there’s no fine print like, ‘If you perish in the sauna, Solar is not responsible for your crispy ass.’”

The receptionist laughed, but her eyes didn’t. “Our waivers are very standard, Mrs. Williams. We’re simply informing you of common side effects of sauna use—lightheadedness, increased heart rate, et cetera. There is no risk of… anything extreme. Our staff is highly trained.”

She said it so evenly, so smoothly, that it honestly made things worse. There was something too perfect about the cadence, too practiced. As if she’d trained herself to glide over the exact word that mattered.

“See?” said Darnell, nudging her. “We’re good. Sign the thing so we can cook.”

“You would use that word,” she muttered.

They signed.

“Wonderful!” The receptionist’s smile turned up a notch. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to your private suite.”

The hallway beyond the lobby was long and narrow, lined on both sides with closed doors. Above each door, a small rectangular light glowed yellow.

“We have twelve saunas total,” the receptionist explained as they walked. “Six singles and six larger cabins that can accommodate up to four people. You two are in Suite Five, our first couples’ cabin.”

Every door they passed looked the same—white, unmarked, with those yellow lights hovering above like waiting eyes.

“All the lights are the same color,” Darnell said. “That mean they’re empty?”

“It means they’re in session,” she replied, “but not to be disturbed. If the light turns red, that means a guest has pressed the assistance button.”

“How often that happen?” asked LaSherika.

“Almost never,” the girl said. “Here we are.”

Suite Five’s outer room was bigger than she expected: benches along the wall, a small basket of towels, a water cooler, and in the center, the cabin itself.

The sauna was beautiful, if she was being honest. A wooden box tall enough to stand in, with soft edges and a glass door. The interior was all smooth slats and built-in benching, warm light radiating from hidden strips along the walls. A discreet little sign was mounted near the handle: Pair your own music with SOLAR_GUEST on Bluetooth.

“There’s a red assistance button just inside the outer door,” the receptionist said, pointing. “If you ever feel faint, claustrophobic, too hot, anything at all—just press it, and we’ll be with you immediately. Maximum temperature is one-fifty-one degrees. We don’t allow it to go higher for safety.”

“What if the heat drops?” asked Darnell. “Saw online sometimes the temp goes down.”

“Just hit the button,” she said. “We can reset it from the front.”

She handed them each a plush white robe. “You’ll have forty-five minutes. Enjoy.”

The door closed with a soft click. For a second, everything was very quiet.

“Okay,” said Darnell, dropping his voice. “This is kind of nice.”

It was. She couldn’t deny that.

They slipped out of their clothes, down to swimsuits, wrapped themselves in the robes. The sauna cabin opened easily. Heat washed over her as she stepped in—dense but not choking, almost like being hugged by warm air.

Darnell connected his phone to SOLAR_GUEST and queued up some lofi beats. He tried to sneak in an old ’80s slow jam, but she gave him a look.

“Not in here,” she said. “I am not sweating to Jodeci.”

He chuckled and switched it back.

The first ten minutes were fine. Good, even. The heat seeped slowly into her muscles, unknotting stress she hadn’t realized she was carrying. Her shoulders dropped. Her jaw unclenched. For the first time all week, her mind went quiet.

By minute fifteen, Darnell was fidgeting.

“Whew,” he said, wiping sweat from his forehead. “She’s cooking.”

“You wanted this,” she reminded him.

He stood, walked to the door, hesitated.

“Don’t you—” she started, but he’d already cracked it open, spilling a wave of cooler air inside.

“Just for a second,” he said, stepping out onto the tile. “I’ll be right back.”

He stayed gone long enough to make her cuss under her breath.

“Close the damn door!” she called. “You letting all the heat out!”

When he finally stepped back in, the air cooled for a moment… then climbed right back up, hotter than before. Sweat beaded on her spine, slid between her shoulder blades.

They settled into a rhythm. Five minutes on, a quick step out for water, back in. Each time, a little more sweat, a little more heat. Around minute thirty, she rested her head on his shoulder.

“This does feel good,” she admitted.

“Told you,” he said, smug.

“Don’t ruin it by saying ‘benefits’ again.”

He chuckled. “Fair.”

They watched the timer mounted in the upper corner tick down: 3:00, 2:30, 2:00.

“You good for the whole thing?” he asked.

“I’m good,” she said, though her heart was thumping, skin prickling. “You?”

“Come on,” he said. “I could go another hour.”

At ninety seconds, they both shifted.

At sixty seconds, she was gripping his hand.

At thirty seconds, they were both halfway to the door, laughing through their discomfort.

“I knew I could make it,” he said.

“We ain’t made it yet,” she replied. “Open it.”

He pulled on the handle.

It didn’t move.

He frowned, pulled harder. “Huh.”

“Move,” she said, sliding in front of him. “You always do it wrong.”

She gave the handle a sharp jerk. The door didn’t budge.

They tried again, together this time. Nothing.

The glass felt hot beneath her palm. A pulse of unease kicked in her stomach.

“Maybe it’s stuck from the heat?” Darnell said. “We just gotta push—”

He leaned his shoulder into it. The door shuddered but held.

“Hit the button,” she said tightly. “The assistance thing.”

“It’s out there,” he said, looking through the glass at the outer room wall. The red button glowed faintly, just out of reach.

“How we supposed to hit it from inside the box?” she snapped. “That don’t make any sense.”

Their breath fogged the air between them. It fogged the glass, too—thick and white, until the outside world blurred.

At first, she thought it was just the heat creating patterns.

Then she realized the fog was changing in neat, deliberate strokes.

A letter appeared, traced as if by an invisible fingertip.

Y

Another.

O

She grabbed Darnell’s arm. “You see that?”

He stared, unable to answer.

U.

On the next line: A, R, E, N, apostrophe, T.

On the last: L, E, A, V, I, N, G.

Silence pressed down on them as the message hung there, wet and gleaming:

YOU AREN’T LEAVING.

“Oh, hell no,” Darnell said.

He snapped. Launched his foot forward. The glass boomed with the impact, spider-cracks leaping out from the point of contact. He kicked again. The cracks spread, webbing across the pane, the wood around the hinges groaning.

“Darnell—”

He didn’t hear her. One more kick, and the door burst off its frame, crashing outward. Cool air rushed in, harsh and chemical compared to the thick warmth inside.

“You’re gonna have to pay for that,” she blurted, adrenaline making her brain stupid.

“I don’t care!” he shouted. “Did you see what that said?”

They stepped over the broken door into the outer room. The linoleum felt blessedly cool for half a second.

Then the temperature shifted.

A low hum vibrated through the walls. Above the inner door, a panel slid open with a soft mechanical whine, revealing a digital timer and a temperature gauge they hadn’t seen before.

The timer flashed: 45:00

The temperature readout glowed: 151°F

Then the numbers began to climb.

“What the—” Darnell spun to the main door, grabbed the handle. It didn’t move.

He yanked harder. Nothing. Locked.

“Hit the button!” shouted LaSherika.

He slammed his palm into the red panel. It lit up brighter, the timer above them starting to tick down.

43:58… 43:57…

The room heated fast. Faster than felt possible. The air thickened, turned wavy. The once-cool linoleum under their bare feet went from pleasantly warm to searing in less than a minute.

She hissed and jumped back, toes screaming. “Ow—shit!”

She scrambled onto the wooden bench of the sauna cabin, swinging her legs up, curling them under her. The wood was hot but bearable, heat spread instead of focused like the floor.

The gauge climbed.

The air in the room felt wrong now—no longer just hot, but heavy, like it was being forced in around them. Each breath scraped.

“This is not happening,” Darnell panted, eyes wide. Sweat ran into his eyes and he blinked furiously. “This is a malfunction. A glitch. They gonna notice. They gonna come.”

“Then where are they?” she shouted back, throat raw. “Where the hell are they, Darnell?”

He didn’t have an answer.

He tried the outer door again, braced his foot and pulled until his muscles shook. The handle didn’t move. He slammed his shoulder into it. The door might as well have been part of the wall.

The timer rolled: 40:12… 40:11…

The heat kept climbing.

Her skin prickled, then burned, red patches blooming across her arms, thighs, chest. She pressed her hands to her stomach and felt the strange, awful sensation of warmth building inside her, deeper than skin.

“The Yelp review,” she gasped, vision blurring. “I told you. I told you.”

“Don’t say that,” he rasped. He staggered from the door back to the cabin, eyes streaming. “We are not… we are not dying in a damn sauna studio.”

The room around them shimmered, air bending. The glass front of the broken cabin reflected them like a warped mirror—two figures slick with sweat, hair plastered to their heads, hands shaking.

The temperature gauge ticked up.

The smell changed, too. Eucalyptus faded under something else. Something metallic. Something like… cooking.

Panic slipped into something quieter. A numb, disbelieving horror.

She curled her fingers around his and squeezed. “If we get out of this,” she whispered, “I swear I’m never listening to you about nothing again.”

He dragged in a ragged laugh. “We getting out,” he said. “We—”

His words dissolved into a fit of coughing, body shaking. He sank onto the bench beside her. The wood had gone from hot to unbearable. She could feel heat radiating up through the planks, as if fire licked just beneath them.

The timer overhead blurred, numbers swimming. She could still make out the pattern, though. It was moving slower than the temperature—but not nearly slow enough.

The gauge climbed.

Her lungs burned. Her eyes felt too dry and too wet at the same time, edges of her vision turning white. She closed them and saw spots.

Somewhere far away, she thought of brunch at Sundays. Of laughing with her girls over mimosas, of complaining about their husbands and bosses. Of telling them this story later, all dramatic, acting out how she’d read You will die on Yelp.

They wouldn’t believe her.

They wouldn’t get to.

Her last clear thought, oddly, was petty:

They are really sweating all my cares away.

When the heat finally overwhelmed them, it wasn’t dramatic. There was no screaming, no flailing. Just two bodies going very still in a box that had become an oven, organs gradually giving out as heat pushed past what flesh could endure.

Outside, in the lobby, the ring light still glowed. The receptionist’s smile still shone.

Another couple walked in, laughing about traffic, asking if the reviews really were as good as everyone said.

“Welcome to Solar,” the girl said brightly. “Are you ready to sweat your cares away?”

The yellow light above Suite Five quietly shifted from yellow to green.

Ready for the next session.