#gaslit too close to the sun

[gallus-rising]

one of my favorite parts of hnk is how Rutile started as “ooooh~ sexy doctor. a leggy boy. stern hot doc lady w some lovely legs ;) leg so hot. hot hot leg. leg so hot u fry an egg” and ended as “unwashed maniac living in the wilderness clutching their dead ex’s kidney stone”

[videogamelover99]

Fellas. Fellas. The Fifteen Manga is such a good adaptation it's embarrassing. Not only do they perfectly convey one of the best scenes in the entire book, but they end up adding to it in a way that makes the dynamic between Chuuya, the Sheep, and Dazai even more clear. Shirase's manipulation, Chuuya's emotions, Dazai's delight and anger (on behalf of someone else?? For once???) are all drawn out so well. Hoshikawa I applaud you.

[mariana-oconnor]

The Beryl Coronet pt 1

Another one where I remember the title and then literally nothing else. There are a lot like that. I swear I have read most of these before, and watched the entire Granada series, but apparently my memory is just appalling.

One assumes that there will be a beryl coronet involved. i think beryls might be emeralds? (The Internet says both aquamarine and emerald are examples of beryl, my fleeting interest two decades ago in precious and semiprecious stones finally pays off!)

“Holmes,” said I as I stood one morning in our bow-window looking down the street, “here is a madman coming along. It seems rather sad that his relatives should allow him to come out alone.”

So we're starting out strong here. In one paragraph we have established that Watson is living with Holmes ('our bow-window') (where is his wife?) and with some period-typical judgement of mental health. I'm guessing the man in question is probably agitated from whatever incident has sent him to request Holmes' assistance, and not suffering from a mental illness, but the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Or it could be the onset of brain fever...

For a while he could not get his words out, but swayed his body and plucked at his hair like one who has been driven to the extreme limits of his reason. Then, suddenly springing to his feet, he beat his head against the wall with such force that we both rushed upon him and tore him away to the centre of the room.

Well that definitely sounds like he does have some condition. And if he didn't before, beating your head against a wall that hard is liable to give you some brain damage if you're not lucky. Glad that Watson and Holmes stopped him.

"Public disgrace I might have faced, although I am a man whose character has never yet borne a stain. Private affliction also is the lot of every man; but the two coming together, and in so frightful a form, have been enough to shake my very soul. Besides, it is not I alone. The very noblest in the land may suffer unless some way be found out of this horrible affair.”

Oh, no, I was right the first time. He's just agitated by his misfortune. Wow... this guy lacks coping mechanisms. He's really hyping this up, though, Public disgrace, private affliction, shaking his soul, the very noblest in the land (not that I particularly care about them, but the stakes they are high). I assume from the title that it's a beryl coronet that has been misplaced in some publicly noticeable way. If it turns out that he just misplaced the meat for his dinner, I will be judging him hard for all this melodrama.

“I feel that time is of value,” said he; “that is why I hastened here when the police inspector suggested that I should secure your co-operation. I came to Baker Street by the Underground and hurried from there on foot, for the cabs go slowly through this snow. That is why I was so out of breath, for I am a man who takes very little exercise."

Mr Holder: Time is of the essence.

Also Mr Holder:

We don't need to know how you got to Baker Street, we already know you arrived. Maybe if things are so urgent you should... start with the urgent thing and then talk about how unfit you are and how you need to do more exercise.

“‘It is absolutely essential to me,’ said he, ‘that I should have £50,000 at once. I could, of course, borrow so trifling a sum ten times over from my friends, but I much prefer to make it a matter of business and to carry out that business myself. In my position you can readily understand that it is unwise to place one's self under obligations.’"

First off, hello BofE inflation calculator: 50k in modern money is approximately £5.2 million today.

Second, 'I could just ask my friends. I totally could ask them and they could all give me this money easily. I'm only here because I want this to be business. I don't want to be obliged to them.' Why does this very famous person (Prince of Wales?) feel so defensive about this? He doesn't need to explain why he's asking a bank not his friends. That's literally what the bank is there for. This feels like what someone would say if they didn't have any friends. Or if they'd already borrowed millions from their friends and never paid them back.

“‘Next Monday I have a large sum due to me, and I shall then most certainly repay what you advance, with whatever interest you think it right to charge. But it is very essential to me that the money should be paid at once.’"

I know this guy is famous and (probably) royal and therefore by the rules of these stories therefore probably above reproach, but I would not want to give him a 5 million pound loan. The 'I could totally ask my friends' and this 'I'm totally going to pay you back on Monday. I've got loads of money coming on Monday' are warning signs for me.

"‘You have doubtless heard of the Beryl Coronet?’ “‘One of the most precious public possessions of the empire,’ said I."

Yep, my money is on this being Albert, Prince of Wales, him what would become Edward VII. Iirc he had a bit of a reputation for being a party boy prince, so if he really can't get any money from his friends (even if asking for 5 million were a reasonably thing to do) I wouldn't be surprised if it was because he wasn't good at paying people back.

This mfer just casually totes around some of the crown jewels, though. Just got 10 million in a case that he's carrying around. No one will miss it for a little while. I guess at this time they weren't on display at the Tower of London. I really want this coronet to be stolen so bad, and I have a feeling it's going to be.

"...imbedded in soft, flesh-coloured velvet..."

Whytf did you call it 'flesh-coloured'? Is the colour that important that you needed to specify it, and even if you needed to specify it, why choose those words? Why? Couldn't it have been red, or blue, or green? Why 'flesh-coloured'? ACD, I just want to talk.

"'Is the security sufficient?’ “‘Ample.’"

Well, if this guy says there's ample security, I guess there must be. Clearly that's enough reassurance for me to leave my ten million pound shiny hat here with no problems at all. Details? Who needs details? Pah. It's just a priceless object that technically belongs to the state rather than me.

I don't want this coronet to be recovered. I want it to be lost forever. Whoever stole it should get a gold star.

But it's okay because he makes it very clear that it shouldn't be lost or damaged.

"When I was alone once more, however, with the precious case lying upon the table in front of me..."

And then walks out leaving it just on the desk of this random guy he's never met before.

"I already regretted having ever consented to take charge of it."

Should have thought about that earlier, my dude. Also, if you know it's a national possession, is it even legal for the Prince of Wales to use it as collateral for a loan? Surely it would have to actually be one of his possessions to be valid. Or at least having the signature of the actual owner (Queen Victoria in this case, although possibly parliament?) to be used as such. Nothing about this loan is a good idea.

If he doesn't repay it are you just going to... keep national property?

"However, it was too late to alter the matter now, so I locked it up in my private safe and turned once more to my work."

You just... put it in your own private safe?

WTF even is this buffoonery? How is this... What is this... I can't even. Does the bank not have a secure vault? With guards etc.? But no, any safe will do.

"I determined, therefore, that for the next few days I would always carry the case backward and forward with me, so that it might never be really out of my reach."

I guess the bank does not have a vault. Or a night watchman, or literally ANY KIND OF WAY OF DEALING WITH ITEMS LIKE THIS. When it seems that this is something that they are in the habit of doing, although maybe not on this level. And they clearly have £1000 notes hanging around. Do they just all have them in their individual safes as well?

"I did not breathe freely until I had taken it upstairs and locked it in the bureau of my dressing-room."

Super secure. A+ job.

I've seen those old bureaus, the locks are so simple I could pick one with one of my hair pins!

I am fully on the side of any and all thieves in this escapade (unless it turns out the Prince of Wales has hired them himself for nefarious purposes) but at this point in time I have lost most of the sympathy I have for these people.

The only reason I don't think it should be stolen right now is that, honestly, it presents so little challenge to any potential thieves it's actually insulting.

"She came with an excellent character, however, and has always given me satisfaction."

Language evolves, meaning changes, this does not mean what it looks like it means. But still, it gives me the ick. Nope. No thank you. Especially when followed by the description of how pretty she is.

"My family itself is so small that it will not take me long to describe it. I am a widower and have an only son, Arthur. He has been a disappointment to me, Mr. Holmes—a grievous disappointment."

Oh boy. So you took a ten million pound coronet and locked it in a desk in the same house as a son who is perpetually in debt and cannot be trusted with money. Even if he didn't take it, which seems likely as he's clearly being marked as the most obvious suspect. I stg you should not be this foolish.

“And, indeed, I could not wonder that such a man as Sir George Burnwell should gain an influence over him, for [...] I have found myself that I could hardly resist the fascination of his manner. He is older than Arthur, a man of the world to his finger-tips, one who had been everywhere, seen everything, a brilliant talker, and a man of great personal beauty. Yet when I think of him in cold blood, far away from the glamour of his presence, I am convinced from his cynical speech and the look which I have caught in his eyes that he is one who should be deeply distrusted. So I think, and so, too, thinks my little Mary, who has a woman's quick insight into character."

Add a fae to the tally of Sherlock Holmes supernatural encounters. Also, I'm going to call it now, Arthur is blameless and Mary is in love with Sir George Burnwell and they're going to run away together, or that's what he told her when he convinced her to steal the coronet. That's my theory. We shall see...

"She is a sunbeam in my house—sweet, loving, beautiful, a wonderful manager and housekeeper, yet as tender and quiet and gentle as a woman could be."

A thief? Honestly I want her to be even more after this description. The Victorian ideals of femininity were so trite. I hope she stole that coronet.

"I think that if anyone could have drawn him into the right path it would have been she, and that his marriage might have changed his whole life; but now, alas! it is too late—forever too late!"

... it is not a woman's job to fix a man, Mr Holder. If this story ends with her marrying Arthur I will be very sad. Although from the 'too late' is one of them dead?

“When we were taking coffee in the drawing-room that night after dinner, I told Arthur and Mary my experience, and of the precious treasure which we had under our roof, suppressing only the name of my client."

You just... told them about it. Just... He says be discreet. It's 10 million pounds (£100k at the time). Your son has money problems. And you're just out here chatting about how you have essentially part of the crown jewels of the British Empire in a drawer upstairs.

My dude...

My actual dude...

You should have just taken the coronet out and used it as a centrepiece. it would have been less obvious.

Also, it's part of the crown jewels, how much use do you think 'suppressing the name of your client' is going to bloody be. There aren't a lot of people who can just help themselves to national bloody treasures.

“‘Where have you put it?’ asked Arthur. “‘In my own bureau.’ “‘Well, I hope to goodness the house won't be burgled during the night.’ said he. “‘It is locked up,’ I answered. “‘Oh, any old key will fit that bureau. When I was a youngster I have opened it myself with the key of the box-room cupboard.’"

That's what I said! Also... this is evidence in Arthur's favour because only the stupidest person in the world would say 'I could steal that' and then steal it. Although... given the levels of intelligence his father is showing, we can't hold out much hope for him. Perhaps his mother was the brains of this operation. I hope for Arthur's sake he takes more after her than his father.

"I started to go round the house to see that all was secure—a duty which I usually leave to Mary but which I thought it well to perform myself that night. As I came down the stairs I saw Mary herself at the side window of the hall, which she closed and fastened as I approached. “‘Tell me, dad,’ said she, looking, I thought, a little disturbed, ‘did you give Lucy, the maid, leave to go out to-night?’"

I'm going to try not to make this a Naval Treaty situation again. Data, data, data, etc. So instead of making an accusation here, I'm merely going to ask what Mary was doing at the window before she closed it, and point out that she is drawing attention to another possible suspect and also has good knowledge of all ways to access the house and ample opportunity to leave something open or unlocked.

These may all be coincidences. There are potential valid explanations for all of these things.

Or she might have just sent a message to Sir George Burnwell and planning to steal a coronet this evening.

“‘She came in just now by the back door. I have no doubt that she has only been to the side gate to see someone, but I think that it is hardly safe and should be stopped.’"

Though the narrative now wants us to think that Lucy is meeting with Sir George Burnwell... but my money is still on Mary. We already know Lucy has lots of suitors who hang around the grounds, she might well have been meeting with one of them.

"Are you sure that everything is fastened?’ “‘Quite sure, dad.’"

Only her word for that.

Not that I'm accusing her of anything. I'm merely... pointing things out. Factual things.

“‘Arthur!’ I screamed [...] "He appeared to be wrenching at it, or bending it with all his strength. At my cry he dropped it from his grasp and turned as pale as death. I snatched it up and examined it. One of the gold corners, with three of the beryls in it, was missing. “‘You blackguard!’ I shouted, beside myself with rage. ‘You have destroyed it! You have dishonoured me forever! Where are the jewels which you have stolen?’"

Some other facts that have been established. Arthur loves Mary and has asked her to marry him on multiple occasions. Just throwing that one out there. If he is trying to cover up a crime/take the blame for someone... perhaps...

Also, Mr Holder 'You have dishonoured me forever!'? Sure, but you dishonoured yourself first by being so very, very bad at your job. You had one job.

“‘You have called me names enough,’ said he, ‘I will not stand it any longer. I shall not say another word about this business, since you have chosen to insult me. I will leave your house in the morning and make my own way in the world.’"

Arthur making some interesting choices here. Like 'I know I was just found with my hands on a broken national treasure, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to walk out of this one a free man.'

When you said he was spoiled, Mr Holder, I didn't think you meant that he really didn't understand the meaning of the word 'consequences' at all.

Although maybe you should have listened to him before biting his head off. I know things look pretty damning, but maybe talking would have been a better approach. "Hey, son. What you got there?" But I get that it's a little difficult to remain calm when you're looking at the twisted remains of both a ten million dollar mistake and your entire career/life.

"Mary was the first to rush into my room, and, at the sight of the coronet and of Arthur's face, she read the whole story and, with a scream, fell down senseless on the ground."

Convenient. First, that she was so close to the room that she would be the first to rush in, and second, that she's now unavailable for questioning.

But seriously, Mary, I am behind you all the way on this. Keep at it! I am cheering you on. I hope your performance was Oscar worthy.

I don't know what Arthur expects his father to do here. Lie, maybe, and say 'I don't know what happened to it, Your Royal Highness. Must have been a random thief and absolutely not the son who I told the location to and who I found red-handed with it.' I firmly believe he's innocent and his father walked in on him trying to fix the thing, but even so he's coming across as kind of naive here. I get maybe hoping that Daddy wouldn't turn him in, but he must have thought it was a possibility.

“‘At least,’ said he, ‘you will not have me arrested at once. It would be to your advantage as well as mine if I might leave the house for five minutes.’"

Before Sir George can get away with the missing gems.

Mary, keep playing dead, if you faint for long enough you'll miss all of it. Although your... maybe potential boyfriend... might ditch you. Probably will ditch you. If that's what's happening. I really hope he's not just playing you and the two of you are going to take those gems, get them recut and sold, and sail off into the sunset (hopefully not interrupted by a random shipwrecking incident), but something tells me Sir George Burnwell is playing you.

"...I implored him to remember that not only my honour but that of one who was far greater than I was at stake; and that he threatened to raise a scandal which would convulse the nation."

This is not a convincing argument. Honestly, if I was told that what I was doing might cause a scandal for the royal family, I would absolutely have the impulse to do it harder. I get that I am not the Victorian son of a gentleman, but still. 'You have to save the royal family from scandal' would just make me laugh. They wouldn't be in a scandal if they hadn't done something scandalous.

"A search was made at once not only of his person but of his room and of every portion of the house where he could possibly have concealed the gems; but no trace of them could be found, nor would the wretched boy open his mouth for all our persuasions and our threats."

When would he have had time to hide them that well, considering he was still holding the coronet when you found him? Also, if he is, as I suspect, covering for Mary, then he's probably sure he's doing the noble and honourable thing by protecting her reputation or whatever.

"My God, what shall I do! I have lost my honour, my gems, and my son in one night. Oh, what shall I do!”

Well, maybe you start by inventing time travel to go back and tell your past self to do better.

Tbf, regarding his mental state, if I had, through my own fault, lost/damaged an object someone had entrusted to me that was worth ten million pounds, particularly someone with as much power as the Prince of Wales, I would be in a catatonic state. So yeah. But also, any sympathy I have had for Mr Holder has been lost at every single step of this process. Why does the bank not have a vault for this purpose? Why did he take it home when he didn't have anywhere safe to put it? Why did he tell anyone he had it? Why did he not move it after being told by his son how insecure the bureau was?

And, to back up my theory with text. Reasons I suspect Mary:

She was present during the conversation when Mr Holding told them about the coronet and where he put it.

She also heard Arthur saying how easy that bureau was to break into.

She was at the window that night for an unknown reason.

We only have her word as to the house being locked up that night.

Arthur is unwilling to say anything in his own defence, which makes me think he is covering for someone. The only person we have been given reason to believe he would protect in the text (other than maybe his father) is Mary. He could be secretly in love with Lucy, but given we already have evidence of his affection for Mary, that would be an abrupt turn.

So that's my theory: Sir George Burnwell and Mary are secret lovers and Mary, hearing about the golden opportunity her foolish uncle has presented her with, tells her lover, then either Mary or both of them, go to steal it. Arthur, who honestly might have been in there trying to get £200 for his own debts, witnesses this, attempts to stop it. The coronet is broken. Either Burnwell gets away with the jewels, or Mary does and gives them to him (through the window we saw her at earlier perhaps?) and then hears the yelling and runs upstairs just in time to give the theatrical performance of her life.

[hcdgepcdge]

Goldi's goals of friendship:

You feel pretty✨

You feel special ✨

✨You are loyal above all else✨

[winterswake]

#when you gaslit too close to the sun

[longlatitude]

Update:

I DID NOT MEAN IT LIKE THAT

DRV3 chapter 4, my initial thoughts upon finishing the trial:

I want that purple twink obliterated

(Memes and little spoilers under the read more)

Ok but forreal, looking at the fanart of this guy ... are... are we all just gonna pretend he didn't say these things? Does he do something really cool later is that why everyone likes him so much?

[thestarlightforge]

ohhh man. stephen gaslit gatekept boybossed a little too close to the sun, I fear 🤭

[g0blinm0d3]

Ody gaslit, gatekept, girlbossed too close to the sun, so of course he was imprisoned for 7 years by the queen of gaslight, gatekeep, girlbossing

[mvshortcut]

@serial-serializednovelreader Hi there I am! Actually losing it! So you would actually be correct because Jeffers is his real name,

However I am simply in awe of the power of the mbs fandom. If we work hard enough we can simply convince everyone that he's been Jeepers all along. How long until imdb is edited, do you think.

[bonesbuckleup]

I think I gatekept gaslit girlbossed too close to the sun this time my guys

[what-if-nct]

Felix: Where's Chan?

Lee know: He's in time out.

Chan: *sitting in a cage sadly playing guitar and singing* Sometimes I give myself the creeps.

Felix: Why?

Chan: Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me.

Lee know: Oh he knows why.

Chan: It all keeps adding up. I think I'm cracking up.

Lee know: Chan tell him what you did.

Chan: I may have parasocialed too close to the sun and gaslit our fans for my own entertainment but I didn't mean to hurt all of my girlfriends.

Lee know: That tells me you need more time in the cage.

Hyunjin: Can he hurry it's almost my bedtime.

Lee know: You can sleep in my bed with me.

Chan: *singing* Am I just paranoid? Or am I just stoned?

Hyunjin: I'd rather sleep in the cage with Chan.

[bigdumbbambieyes]

oliver really gaslit and gatekept and girlbossed too close to the felix sun didn’t he??

[showrunnerihardlyknowher]

We May Have Gaslit Gatekept Girlbossed A Little Too Close To The Sun

You know why you shouldn't work late nights at an office job? Because you might become the new obsession for something in the shadows that shouldn't exist in the human realm. Unless you're into that kind of thing, of course.

Serena, unfortunately, wasn't.

--

AO3 Link

(This fic is broken up in 6 chapters on AO3 which may be easier to read for some! I was not going to spend an hour posting and tagging each part here on Tumblr lmao)

WE'RE BACK BABY!!!

Guess who got her little monsterfucker heart broken by an indie horror game and decided to write an obscenely long fix-it fic in under a week agaaaaaain (<- it was me)

Anyways, The Lancaster Leak Episode 2: Crisis At Call Center is very good and I encourage everyone to check out their series (: So hyped for Episode 3 lads they really stepped up their game compared to the first one!!!

Heavily, HEAVILY inspired by the storyline in Crisis At Call Center -- like almost beat for beat. I need to emphasis that this concept is only half original content and a majority of the plot is taken from the game, I claim no originality for that.

The formatting for the bolded note sections may be formatted kinda funky between Tumblr and AO3. Ain't much I can do about that chief it looks good on Google Docs /:

General warnings for gore and death and whatever you already know what I write

Word Count: 36K

--

FEDERAL WARNING

The following tape is to be viewed only by Abnormality Breach & Containment (ABC) employees with a clearance level of three (3) or higher under supervision.

Unauthorized duplication - including, but not limited to: video, audio, audio transcripts, still images - and distribution is strictly prohibited and offenders will be prosecuted. Agents caught tampering, destroying, or editing tape will be immediately terminated. 

BY PROCEEDING, VIEWER HAS ACKNOWLEDGED RESPONSIBILITY

–

CS# 1763-87 - ABNORMALITY AB299

Abnormality Behavioral Observation

Date Range: [N/A]

Observation Status: COMPLETED

Abnormality Status: CONTAINED

–

ABNORMALITY DEBRIEF

Picture Left [ID - CCTV still frame of darkened corner. No discernable shapes can be made by human eye. Abnormality only visible as two contrasting dots in upper-right corner – These are Abnormality’s eyes.]

FN# AB299

Threat Level: D 

Containment Capability: Low

Management Capability: Extremely Low

Intelligence Capability: Mid-High

–

AB299 OVERVIEW

Abnormality first sighted three months before successful containment. Abnormality has breached the facility a total of seven (7) times during captivity as of this recording.

Abnormality is of great stature at approx. ten (10) times the size of an average human male.

Abnormality walks crouched on all four limbs. Abnormality’s pitch black coloring allows it to blend in shadows aside from red-ringed yellow eyes. 

Abnormality is seemingly able to manipulate technologic frequencies and dimensional planes. The latter is believed to be how Abnormality travels unnoticed despite large build. 

Abnormality is able to interfere with the following technologies [as of this recording]:

Video Feeds

Computer Software [All Access]

Phone Lines

Note: AB299 unconfirmed to have abilities related to manipulation of localized power sources.

Note: Technological interference documented to be rudimentary and overall harmless. 

Abnormality only sighted outside of the facility when actively on a hunt. DO NOT ENGAGE DURING THIS TIME PERIOD.

–

THE FOLLOWING OBSERVATION TAKES PLACE ONE (1) WEEK AFTER ABNORMALITY’S SEVENTH (7TH) TOTAL CONTAINMENT BREACH.

CS# 1763-87 STUDIES NEW BEHAVIORS NOTED OVER A SIX (6) DAY SPAN.

–

Picture Left [ID - CCTV still frame of interior shipping office at WerTech Production Headquarters taken from Camera 17]

Location: WerTech Production Headquarters

Note: It is believed Abnormality chose this location to hunt due to wide corridors and tall ceilings, in addition to spacious attached warehouse and storerooms. 

ABC tracked Abnormality to site but did not engage in recapture protocol. Attempts at containment during active hunting are ill-advised with a fatality rate of 92%. Highest success rate of recapture achieved immediately after hunting period.

Under Clearance 3 supervision, ABC agents were permitted to observe Abnormality’s behavior in an uninhibited environment for research purposes.

ABC implemented the following observation protocol:

Phone Line Wire-tap

Computer Access [All Levels]

CCTV Access

Electronic Recording

Call Redirection

No WerTech employees were notified of enrollment.

–

Picture Left [ID - A young woman of African-American descent. She has dark brown eyes and black hair. She is smiling. Image taken from employee database.]

SERENA BOYD

Serena Boyd (26) was a college student employed at WerTech Production Headquarters as an intern for course credits. She primarily worked night shifts and completed after hour duties for additional time signed off. 

Abnormality seemingly selected her as prey, likely due to late hour solitude.

The following footage and accompanying notes document the unusual correspondence captured between Boyd and Abnormality. Updated overview for AB299 will be provided at the end of observation recordings. Future research of new and/or atypical behavior necessary and pending.

–

BEGIN ABNORMALITY BEHAVIOR OBSERVATION

First Day

–

Filing was not a difficult task. All that needed to be done was to stack the packets in descending order of completion date, or alphabetically by vendor name, or even separated with color coded labels to differentiate job types. The point was that it should not be this goddamn hard to keep files in any semblance of order for longer than a week, Gregory. 

Whatever. As much as it was the bane of her existence to have to repeatedly move order receipts from the Zuckermann account out of the filing drawer clearly labeled for names starting with ‘E-H’, it at least killed a full hour of Serena’s time with minimal effort. Besides, she quite liked the freedom that came with being in a near empty office past closing time while finishing up her menial tasks. She could hum, she could bitch, she could coyly look at her manager’s family photos and wonder just how good his salary must be to keep a wife that pretty smiling in every shot. 

One more week, Serena reminded herself with a sigh. One more week of unpaid overtime and she should have just enough hours completed for her internship. An internship that she accepted under the impression that she would, of course, be learning more about machine operations and less about how to draft an invoice that was outside of her job description. That was kind of the whole purpose of getting an extended degree with a trade concentration – to actually learn the trade. But it was her second to last course needed before she could graduate and…well, on her resume it would still say she completed her full hours at WerTech, it just wouldn’t elaborate that she managed to get absolutely zero experience in the ten weeks she was there.

It still counted as being fully certified though, right?

Oh well, she could learn all the useful tips and tricks on the job, the real job she’ll be qualified for by the end of the semester. A job that actually put to use all her months and years of studying and testing and cramming rather than wasting her efforts on clerical duties. Serena couldn’t help but wonder if her age or gender or race or some culmination was the reason why her manager insisted she work anywhere but the operations department. Then again, as demonstrated by the fact that Gregory thought an unsigned six-month contract was a great coaster for his coffee, it was more likely the fault of general incompetence. Good thing he was the one with the yearly bonuses and shiny title placard on his door.

She felt her back crack when she rolled her shoulders a few times, groaning at the stiffness from being hunched over for so long. Corporate America: destroying spirits and posture one 9-5 at a time. Or 9-8, in Serena’s case, though that was a choice of her own doing. The more hours she packed on, the sooner she could be signed off.

Speaking of signing off, she went ahead and mosied back to the cluster of cubicles down the hall from the managerial row. The common people, separated from their superiors with distance and private closed doors, with rows of desks jammed into neighboring spaces and flimsy walls to divide the departments. A place Serena wouldn’t wish for any damned soul to spend a moment of eternity in, especially her own, as it was just on the opposite end of the building where the computer hardware manufacturing was done. So close, yet so far away.

Instead, all she could do was drop into her hand-me-down chair that had about two decades of strange stains on the fabric and wake her desktop from sleep mode. A quick refresh of her email showed Gregory sent her a new message thirty minutes prior, which unfortunately meant she was obliged to check and carry out whatever his request was. Saying that she hadn’t seen it in time before she left would imply she had left earlier than she really had, cutting a full half hour from her overtime that he’d be approving on her weekly log. 

That was time wasted she refused to give up. 

–

[Email Transcript]

Sender: Gregory Jules

Recipient: Serena Boyd

Subject: Trash Run

Hey Serena,

Hate to be a bother, but can you do me a favor before you head out? There’s a cart out in Warehouse B with a few boxes of damaged motherboards the guys forgot to throw away. Can you pitch those in the dumpster so that we don’t miss the morning trash truck?

You rock!

Gregory Jules

–

“And this can’t be done by the first shift crew because…?” she mumbled with a roll of her eyes. Fine, fine, she could toss a few boxes of crap out back, it wasn’t like it was a job involving backbreaking labor and grueling hours to complete. She may not be thrilled about it, but maybe if she dawdles out there long enough she can squeeze an extra twenty or so minutes for her hourly log.

Double checking that she had her keycard in her pocket, she punched in the door code for the warehouse and pushed through one of the massive doors with a small grunt. Okay, as eager as she was to get her hands on a couple soldering tools, she couldn’t deny that the amount of manual labor needed out here was far beyond the physical strength she could manage, and these employees flung open boxes and bay doors like they were nothing! No, online application, she could not move and lift approximately fifty pounds as part of her daily duties. 

On second thought, maybe these boxes would involve breaking her back…

It seemed that good luck smiled upon her tonight in the way of simple yet mind numbing tasks. There on a two tiered rolling cart parked by a bay door ramp were the aforementioned parts she was asked to toss out, packed tight into rows of neatly stacked cases no bigger than a shoebox. The good news was, if they really all were just broken hardware, they shouldn’t weigh more than a couple pounds. The bad news was there were probably twenty boxes on both platforms of the cart, which meant she was going to have to throw almost all of them individually as the mouth of the dumpster would be too high for her to drop full armloads. 

Well, she said she wanted those extra twenty minutes. 

Immediately after pushing the cart outside, Serena was cursing at herself for not grabbing her sweater. The chill that racked down her spine only made the tense muscles in her shoulders ache worse. In and out, dumpster and back, finish and go home. The only person prolonging this miserable task was herself. Though perhaps she was only feeling so on edge because of the fact she was outside. Alone. In the near dark. As an unarmed woman. She shivered again and pushed herself to walk faster towards the dumpster that felt like it was half a mile away rather than thirty feet. 

There was nothing to worry about, she was making herself paranoid for nothing. The glow of the ‘WerTech Production’ sign illuminated the backlot of the warehouse enough for her to see, not to mention the security cameras positioned at nearly every junction to ensure no thefts during shipping and receiving hours occurred. So, if she was jumped or kidnapped or murdered or somehow all three of those things at once while being outside for five minutes, Serena could take solace in the knowledge that they may or may not be able to catch her attacker on film. Yippee. 

Christ, no wonder she was getting so worked up around throwing away some trash, she was her own worst enemy when it came to reassuring thoughts. What if, instead, she stopped worrying about becoming a television cold case and imagined a scenario where she finishes this stupid chore before going home? And then maybe she’d get a call from Gregory explaining that he had made some mathematical error on her time sheet and accidentally signed off on an extra forty-three hours? And because it was already submitted to her course instructor at the time, she was cleared to receive her credit hours and never had to come back to this place ever again or stand unguarded in their dimly lit backlots?

Her fantasy was unlikely, but it never hurt a girl to dream. Still, she gave a quick scan of her surroundings every few moments to reassure herself that nothing had mysteriously changed. No unmarked cars or headlights appearing, no hulking figure in the distance waiting to charge, just a chilled breeze and the ambient noises of the evening keeping her company. As much as she would love to stay in this half state of anxiety, she found herself all but jogging with the cart back to the safety of the warehouse before the final box had the chance to smack against the dumpster’s walls. For some reason, moving felt safer. Being stationary meant she’d be easier to focus on and attack, whereas keeping a fast pace would make it harder to snag. 

Assuming there was anything remotely after her. A mosquito, perhaps. Knife-welding boogeyman, probably not so much. 

And yet, the way Serena felt her heart stutter when her eyes caught sight of the property fence somehow validated and heightened her wariness. The tall, netted metal was used to block out any unwanted visitors of the human and animal kind, preventing access into the building unless they went in through the main doors to the reception desk or had a company keycard. There were a few locked gates within the fence to make it easier to enter or exit from one particular side of the building or another, and maybe something to do with OSHA standards for fire safety or whatever. Where Serena stood with her white knuckle grip on the cart, she could see straight down the gap between two shipping containers at one of the gates, despite it being blurred into the natural shadows of night.

And it was open.

And maybe she ran up the docking ramp at an impressive speed and slammed the door behind her, jabbing the lock button in rapid succession under the illusion she’d secured herself ten times more than usual. 

And maybe it took an embarrassing amount of minutes for her to steady her heart rate with deep breaths. 

And maybe afterwards, she mentally berated herself for acting like a child who was afraid of monsters in the dark. 

Where had this newfound apprehension come from? She’d never been like this before, and she certainly never had any problem with working late in an office by herself. Hell, she never even felt an ounce of this kind of nervousness walking out of the front doors to her car every night, although that could be because she was more relieved to pick up a late dinner and crash on her couch than she cared about an ax murderer in her backseat. 

Right, dinner. She hadn’t had dinner yet and it was already close to half past eight. These were probably just jitters in relation to low blood sugar, coupled with typical work related aggravation and excitement at being so close to wrapping up her internship. No wonder it felt like her nerves were dialed up to an eleven. On the way back to the finance office (that still made no sense for her desk to be there), she could buy a quick snack from the vending machine outside of the break room for a little pick-me-up. Or potentially a full dinner. The twisting in her stomach was making her appetite more finicky than usual and eating an entire cereal bar sounded pretty daunting right now. 

That still didn’t stop Serena from bumping the vending machine with her shoulder just as the metal coil dropped her chosen snack, slyly knocking the one behind it off the rack as well and giving her a two for one of blueberry whole grain breakfast bars. You learn a lot of neat tricks when you’re a starving college freshman that still come in handy as a hangry college graduate. 

She pocketed one of the packages and tore open the other, trying to trick herself that she was feeling hunger rather than agitation. Each bite was a little easier to swallow than the last once her body realized it was actually getting some form of nutrients that it had been craving since her lunch break at noon. Yet she couldn’t ignore the feeling of the hairs on her neck prickling, like she was being watched no matter what angle she turned herself to check for shadows.

So, she started walking, because moving was safer. 

The same sensation of being observed followed her no matter what hall she dipped into or what speed she tried to maintain. Hopefully, the calories of the cereal bar she hastily stuffed into her mouth would work their magic soon. She was damn near tempted to inhale the second snack in her pocket with the belief her unbalanced emotions would be regulated twice as fast. Instead, she ducked into the women’s restroom as soon as she caught it from her peripherals, the one private place she was sure she –

[Note: Full coverage achieved by use of hidden cameras in rooms otherwise unmonitored]

– could have a moment of peace. It worked that way during normal operating hours, she saw no reason why it couldn’t provide that same comfort now.

Her shoulders slouched in relief at the imagery sensation of a dozen watchful eyes finally shutting themselves. The thumping of her pulse in her ears faded just as quickly as it had begun, another sign of faux trepidation that was soothed in a matter of seconds once she settled down. With a deep sigh that was definitely not meant to help steady her heartbeat, she stepped over to the sinks and peered at her reflection in the mirror, bracing her hands on the cool counter to further ground her.

It was amazing how quickly unwarranted consternation could turn someone into a hot mess. Or there was a chance that was just how Serena always looked these days, a gradual decline in rationality after being temporarily employed at an office job. Her blouse was bunched up near the collar from where she had grabbed her chest, baby hair slicked on her forehead out of place by sweat and curls frizzy at the end. The bags under her eyes looked more pronounced, or was it that the shadows made them appear deeper while she overworked and under-ate? At this rate, she had every damn right to be stressed and it was only now that her body was finally taking it out on her. Late nights bred insomnia more often than not, meals were replaced with junk food or beverages with way too much caffeine, her eyes flickered between computer screens and files and textbooks until they watered.

She really wished this physical and/or mental breakdown would have had the decency to wait until the end of the week. At least then she could have suffered her panic attacks in the comfort of her own home with a bag of frozen peas on her stomach and the entire series of Overruled! playing for the millionth time as a familiar white noise. She still could, if she wanted.

Serena splashed cold water on her face, uncaring how it wet her hair and dripped down onto her clothes. It wasn’t like she would be seeing anyone when she walked out, it didn’t matter how unkempt she looked in the final ten minutes it would take to lock up the building and walk to her car. The touch felt nice on her burning cheeks, a contrast to the frigidity shooting through her core from being outside in the new spring air. 

“Okay, okay,” she said to no one but her mirror image. Leveling a firm gaze with the other woman, she tried to even out her voice into something more persuasive. “You’re tired. You’re stressed out. You’re so fucking done with this place. Just…just go home, girl. That’s all you gotta do. Go home and sleep and finish strong.”

She wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince the reflection or if she was hoping the reflection would convince her. Either way, she took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly, and walked out of the restroom determined not to let her insides jumble themselves up over nothing. If anything, doing her rounds to lock up the building should provide her with a sense of comfort in knowing she was safe all along. Each locked door relaxed her a smidgen more, though flicking off the lights immediately returned the foreboding she just got rid of. Much like a parent, she had to console her inner child that nothing was going to magically appear that hadn’t been there two seconds before she turned off the lights just because it was dark now. 

Even if some of those decorative plants looked awful menacing in the shadows.

Luckily, the routine of triple pressing lock buttons and turning off hall lights was well ingrained in Serena’s mind, helping her breeze through closing up without much of a second thought. Before she knew it, she was already walking down the darkened main hallway back to her desk to clock out, her path illuminated only by the fixed lights of the vending machine and overhead exit signs. Sure, having her back to total darkness and the end of a long, gaping hallway behind her made her neck itch with the overwhelming fear of being observed that had no business being in WerTech headquarters. But as long as she didn’t turn around to confront her fears, it was like it was nonexistent. Schrodinger’s horror movie, in a way. 

No way in hell was she going to be sacrificed as the token black character. Serena Boyd was a goddamn final girl. 

[Note: Subject remains unaware of Abnormality’s eyes behind her. Abnormality does not close in for the kill, keeping distance in Hallway 3.]

Firing off a reply to Gregory’s email to confirm all requests were done and logging her time out at a quarter to nine, she was out the door and locking the main entrance while her desktop was still running its shut down screen. This time when she was outside, strangely enough, no feeling of dread weighed down her heart until it sank to her stomach. If anything, it was as if that pressure had been lifted off her back, alleviating her tension more and more with every step to the driver side of her car. By the time she was pulling out of the parking lot, the anxiety was completely gone, almost instantly forgotten.

The curse of corporate hell, she supposed.

–

END OF FIRST NIGHT

–

Picture Left [ID - CCTV still frame of Abnormality’s eyes in darkened Hallway 3.]

Boyd shows no acknowledgement of Abnormality’s presence.

Abnormality choosing to prolong hunt is unusual deviation from previous observations.

–

Second Day

–

MORNING OVERVIEW

Abnormality has not been spotted on CCTV or by witnesses during daylight operating hours.

WerTech Production employees remain unaware, including Boyd.

Manufactured request anonymously submitted from ABC has guaranteed Boyd will stay later after hours in building alone.

Abnormality continues to pursue chosen prey more intensely. 

–

It took everything in Serena’s power to not lean over her manager’s desk and flick him right between the eyes.

“Custodial work,” she repeated back to him.

Gregory raised his hands in defense of her unimpressed frown. “Look, I get it, I know it’s not what you signed up for here,” she didn’t sign up for most of the bullshit he assigned to her, frankly, “but it’s just for tonight! And…maybe tomorrow, too. I’m not sure yet.”

“Greg,” she groaned. Because last night hadn’t given her enough heart palpitations, now she needed a migraine on top of it.

Serena didn’t bring up anything about the eeriness of her previous closing shift.

This time, however, her after hour duties couldn’t be helped. Gregory had received an email that morning reminding him that the company’s hired cleaner would be out the remainder of the week for a pre-approved vacation, so he would need to ensure the biweekly tidying of the offices were taken care of to prevent any build up of messes. Sure enough, that time had been blocked out on his computer’s calendar with a note regarding Gloria’s absence, but for the life of him he could not find any email or written document first notifying him she’d be gone. That absolutely did not surprise Serena in the slightest; the man was lucky his coffee mug could find its way to his mouth some days.

“I promise it’s nothing too bad. Just grab the trash from the bathrooms and conference room. Oh, and water the plants up front,” he said.

“Why can’t Julie water the plants? They’re literally in front of her reception desk.”

“Julie already went home for the day.”

“So, why can’t she water them when she comes in tomorrow morning?”

He blinked owlishly at her. “...because they get watered at night.”

Oh, her resolve was chipping away one stupid sentence at a time.

“Okay, yeah, fine. Fine, no problem. Trash and plants,” she conceded with what little sanity she had left. The performance review on her weekly log better have the most glowing fucking review about how much of a team player Serena was and how she went above and beyond her job description that already had nothing to do with her degree.

Her manager nodded with a smile. “Well, I won’t get in your way then,” he tapped the hefty stack of defunct account files on his desk. “Make sure you get these shredded first, though, then you can take it out with the rest of the trash. Just double check the close date is over five years.”

She rubbed the side of her temple. “Uh-huh.”

“And don’t forget to check your email in case anything pops up from me,” he said while shrugging on his coat, almost halfway out the door.

“Uh-huh.”

“Have a good night, Serena!”

“Uh-huh.”

Perhaps the man had a few more brain cells than she gave him credit for; he certainly knew when to get the hell out of dodge right when any of his workers seemed ready to overthrow the corporate regime. With Gregory leaving her to her own devices, she was now officially alone in the building that mildly perturbed her as of twenty-four hours ago. Well, actually, nothing about it had really bothered her all day or even leading up to her nightly run down, but it was as soon as she knew she was by herself, as soon as she instinctively knew the front doors had closed behind Gregory, did her anxiety start creeping its way into her throat.

She wished Gloria was here. Not only because this was a multimillion dollar business that hired custodians for the sole purpose of janitorial duties so that other employees didn’t have to mop and scrub toilets, but because the other woman was good company the nights when they crossed paths. It was strange that she hadn’t mentioned to Serena that she would be out when they chatted earlier in the week. Maybe she hadn’t thought it important to mention, or maybe it was one of those sudden trips that everyone politely referred to as a ‘vacation’ rather than whatever somber event she was going through. Either way, she would have liked to give Gloria a proper goodbye seeing as Friday was likely to be her last day once her hours were signed off.

She guessed she could leave a little note somewhere for her in lieu of a farewell, something she could stick on the supply closet door before she left at the end of her shift to be found Monday evening. And still, despite all her displeasure at having custodial work pushed on her when she was here as an intern for hardware manufacturing, it wouldn’t be right to take out that frustration on poor Gloria. It wasn’t her fault for Gregory’s poor planning, and ignoring or doing a half assed job only meant more work she’d have to make up immediately after her alleged vacation.

So, like everything else, she sucked it up and did what was asked of her. And it wasn’t because she was a pushover! It was because she was a compassionate coworker and she was determined to get every good grace she could squeeze out of this internship to ensure her recommendation letter brimmed with praise.

The monotonous task of opening each file, scanning the finalization date, and shoving its contents through the singular floor shredder a portion at a time helped distract her from the discomfort tingling down her spine. It was much less bearable almost two hours later when she had dumped all the minced paper and manilla folders into a black trash bag, stepping out of the safety of her manager’s office and into the vacant hallway. Partially lit, thankfully, but hardly any more comforting than if it were totally dark. A familiar unease twisted her stomach like before, urging her to leave go leave before something happened. What that ‘something’ was, her brain refused to tell her, which was ever so helpful.

On the bright side, the bathroom trash was almost entirely paper towels in both waste bins, meaning she could carry all her bags out to the dumpster in one trip with no struggle. Even the trash in the conference room was nothing more than a few disposable coffee cups, though the smell of stale drinks did make her crinkle her nose until she tied off the bag. All that was left to do was brace herself for the unknown terrors of the backlot and she could cross this off her to-do list. If nothing had happened last night, then she really doubted anything would try to –

[Note: Subject remains unaware of Abnormality’s eyes following behind her down Hallway 3. Abnormality does not go in for the kill.]

– make a sinister move that could have just as easily been achieved yesterday. Tonight, she made sure she ate a lunch that consisted of vegetables and limited herself to one afternoon energy drink, so there should be no excuse for jitters as far as she was aware. The fact that she was still experiencing them the entire speed walk down the main hall to the side exit was…unrelated. That was because of caffeine withdrawal and a shock response of eating something that wasn’t twice her daily serving of sodium. Regardless of what she tried to do, her body was hellbent on punishing her with physical symptoms of mental distress.

Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t.

She paused at the door that led to the dumpsters without having to cut through Warehouse B. The bags were gripped tight enough that her fists trembled while she shifted her weight from foot to foot, stalling. Come on now, this was ridiculous! If Gloria, a tiny little fifty year old woman with creaky knees, could run garbage out in the middle of the night for dozens of companies without a care in the world, then so could Serena. It was more probable that she’d be startled by a raccoon than –

[Note: Abnormality seen tilting its head in interest at Boyd’s hesitance. Sign of emotional intellect recorded in Intelligence Capability file.]

– star in the next episode of a true crime show detailing unsolved mysteries. All she needed to do was rip the bandaid off. With little fanfare, she pushed the door open with her forearm to let the cool air greet her, the night appearing much more inviting than it had prior. As soon as she was outside, everything felt less suffocating. She could feel the coil of her muscles relax enough for her shoulders to drop, having not even realized they were nearly hunched up to her ears for who knows how long. Maybe the outside wasn’t so bad after all, especially now that her body wasn’t running on empty calories for the sixth straight day in a row.

See, a semi balanced meal and an okayish night of sleep was all she needed to get herself back on track. The continued unease she felt inside the building was nothing more than the fact she wished this place would burn to the ground, as all interns feel at some point. During her walk to the dumpster, she caught herself checking between the shipping containers again at the gate that singlehandedly had her sprinting for her life.

It was still open.

Well…it could have always been open. It wasn’t like she came out of the building at any time of the day to confirm how long it had been ajar. There was a possibility that it had been left open since she had started almost three months ago, she simply had no reason to notice until now. The lock might be broken, or the hinges damaged, or the programmed entry code malfunctioning and so needs to be kept agape to prevent the gate from being permanently locked as a safety precaution. And if nobody had bothered to close it in the two days it had caught her attention, then surely it must not be a big deal.

It was all too tempting to say the hell with it all and jump straight into her car parked at the other end of the building. A quiet walk with a slight chill hugging her was just the thing she needed to clear her head as she shook her fear of being assaulted by every criminal in a ten mile radius. There was a comfort Serena hadn’t noticed she was missing in letting the night embrace her; the only thing watching her being the twinkling stars above rather than something unknown glaring daggers into her back.

As lovely as it would be to hop up on the docking platform and stargaze for the better part of an hour, she unfortunately still had things to do if she wanted to get out of here at a somewhat decent time. She had been hoping it would have been early enough for her to cook herself an actual dinner, but the cleaning duties that were tacked on to her schedule nixed that pretty quick. There was probably a twenty-four hour diner she could pop in somewhere around here, at least to eat something that wasn’t prepared in a microwave.

Plants. Email. Done. She repeated the mantra over and over in her head, trying to manifest the rest of an easy night. Instead, she felt her mood plummet the moment she stepped over the threshold back into the building, as if a vacuum had sucked out any serenity she had just experienced.

Plants. Email. Plants. Email. Plants. Email. Plants –

While her luck often felt hypothetical when it came to dealing with anything relating to WerTech Productions, she could count her blessings that there were only three large plants by reception she needed to water. Easy. It’d probably take her longer to fill up the pitcher she took from the break room as a makeshift watering can. 

“Because god forbid you get your water at eight in the morning, huh?” Serena asked the monstera she was currently watering.

The massive leaves did not answer, not even to give thanks. What jerks. No wonder they were so bratty about the specific hour they were hydrated. 

“Do you guys even get watered every day? That seems like something only Gloria would remember to do, and she’s not here most of the week so…” Talking to plants was not weird. Talking to plants is totally normal and encouraged. “I’d say you’re stuck with me for now, but really, you’re on your own as soon as the weekend rolls around.”

Serena smiled while watering the last pot, imagining that she was dumping the rest of the tap water on Gregory’s lap. “Because once I clock out on Friday, I am totally, one hundred percent, out of he- AH!”

The pitcher flew out of her hand when she startled, slipping on the fresh puddle on the floor as she whirled around to look behind her. She grit her teeth when she landed hard on her bottom, feeling her pants soak up the unpleasant wetness of water. Damp jeans were the least of her concerns as she frantically looked above for any sign of those…fuck, what were those, eyes? That’s what her mind was convinced she had caught a glimpse of in the reflection of the transom windows above the entryway. Two orbs practically glowing against the shadowed backdrop of evening that swirled with color, looking down directly at her in an unblinking gaze, wide with intrigue. 

But that was impossible. Absurd. Insane. Eyes did not look like that, eyes could not tower so high like that, eyes certainly were not in the same vicinity as she was or that would only imply something else was in the building with her. 

No, now the idea that it was something rather than someone only made her breathing come out in more ragged gasps. She clutched her shirt, feeling her heart hammering at worrying speed under her knuckles, like it was trying to break free from her chest and save itself. With the confirmation there had been nothing behind her, she whipped her head back towards the windows where she saw the reflection. What she assumed was a reflection, that was. Who was to say it wasn’t something peering in at her, as if that was any better than knowing it was directly behind her?

There was nothing in the windows but stars and street lights.

Right…right, because that was all unbelievable to get worked up over. Giant eyes, really? Like some cheesy sci-fi concept from the fifties? Obviously, she had glanced over while some headlights were passing in the distance. Or a plane was flashing overhead. Or a floater in her vision popped up as a reminder she hadn’t drank anything that wasn’t loaded with sugar in a stupidly long time. No Peeping Tom here with noticeable cataracts, just a girl with a frayed thread of rationality who may very well lose her mind in a place that barely deserved her patience.

Yeah, it was time to go home. Most of the water spilt had been absorbed into the backside of her pants, the rest of it would probably dry up before morning. Sorry Gloria, but this wasn’t any type of cleaning she had the wits for at the moment. She didn’t even bother bringing the pitcher back to the break room, opting to leave it on Julie’s desk. And hey, while it was there, maybe she could make herself useful and water the damn plants for once.

“Fuck me,” Serena said with a thick swallow, cringing how her jeans stuck to her thighs and chaffed with every step she took. 

I’m going to burn down this place and not even try to make it look like it was an accident. I want them to know it was me. Capitalism hath no fury like a woman scorned in the STEM field .

She didn’t bother sitting in her chair, knowing it would only add to the mirage of discoloration on the cushion. Not that she particularly cared about that, rather she wasn’t in the mood to sit in soggy pants longer than necessary. Perhaps because her heart was still coming down from the adrenaline overdose while she vigorously shook her computer mouse to bring her desktop back up, the unexpected jumpscare of an entirely red background on her home screen did little more than make her breath hitch. Apprehension turned to confusion as she clicked around on her background with no change to its new glaring color. The program icons were still there, but it was like the calm blue stock logo that was formerly displayed on her desktop had all of its pixels fried to a damaged scarlet.

That wasn’t good. Though from what she could tell, nothing else seemed unusual about her computer’s functionality. There could be an issue with the phosphors that was causing the red light to overcompensate for the blue. In theory, this would have been something Serena was perfectly qualified to diagnose and fix on her own had she been given the hands-on training she was promised to make good on her textbook knowledge. But she couldn’t, so she didn’t, even if she was fairly confident on what to do. 

Ignoring the glaring color that was making her eyes squint, her theory was swift to change from hardware error to software corruption when her email window pulled onto the screen. Of course, there was one new email from Gregory, declaring itself urgent and important and time stamped only twenty minutes after he left which meant he would know if Serena flat out ignored him by pretending to go home. Annoying, but not what immediately caught her attention. A pop-up window for an email draft flashed to request if she would like to save her work in the event the program shut down. Considering she couldn’t recall writing any emails within the last four hours on the clock, she dismissed the notification to skim through and jog her memory.

–

[Email Transcript]

Sender: [Empty]

Recipient: [Empty]

Subject: [Empty]

Note: Original email contained roughly 38,000 characters. Below is a cut passage.

sEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡asEren♡a

–

She blinked, pursing her lips. “That’s…something.”

Something she knows for a fact she hadn’t typed, much less received from anyone else. Crap, she must have some type of malware on her computer then. The virus was trying to make her home screen unreadable while pulling her personal information from her profile and email contacts. She was certain it would brick her whole system once it sent out a mass phishing email to her coworkers. Although, really, that wasn’t much of her problem if it was done after the end of the work week…

Still, she went ahead and deleted the wall of text and started a new draft to be sent to IT. If she was lucky, maybe they’d decide to wipe her computer tomorrow morning to stop the malware before it got any worse, effectively leaving her with no access to any of the databases and with nothing to do but twiddle her thumbs on her last day. No, there was no chance she’d have that kind of fortune; Gregory would definitely make her do some type of asinine clerical work like taking out staples from expense reports and fasten them on the opposite corner.

Oh well. If she sweet talked Alice in IT enough, there was a chance she could worm her way into spending a morning going over debugging and system diagnostics for firmware while asking for a demonstration on how to fix her computer. Girls had to stick together in this type of industry, after all. And she knew damn well Alice had the best gossip of the office given that she had remote access to just about anyone’s system. Serena was dying to know if there was any follow up to the board director that was sending electronic payments to his mistress on the company credit card. 

After sending a quick heads up to IT that she was in need of their assistance ASAP tomorrow morning and pinky promising she hadn’t clicked any suspicious links recently, she checked to see what was so high on her manager’s priority list that he had forgotten all day to tell her.

–

[Email Transcript]

Sender: Gregory Jules

Recipient: Serena Boyd

Subject: !! Please read before leaving!!

Hey there, Serena,

Super sorry to wait until the last minute, but I totally forgot Jorge wanted me to grab last quarter’s Bangling order forms for him. Think you can do me a solid and grab those from the stock room? Just drop them on my desk and I’ll run them up to his office when I get in.

You’re a lifesaver!

Gregory Jules 

–

Yeah, he wanted to be the one to make the delivery to the executives on the legendary second level so that it didn't look like skipped out on the one job he was asked to do. Typical. At least it wasn’t anymore cleaning or shredding, just moving a box from point A to point B. She could deal with that. She’s dealt with everything thus far.

She might not be dealing with it well, but she was dealing with it nonetheless. Such as pointedly averting her gaze from lingering on any reflective surface for too long in case she saw someone stare back. 

But why would she think her night would improve in any capacity at this point? Was she so foolish to assume that because she had finished her duties that she could go about her life in peace? Had working here for ten weeks taught her nothing? The worst was always yet to come and it seemed in her final week here it was more determined than ever to sour her enjoyment of near freedom.

With an undignified hum, the lights cut out.

Not just the lights in the office, but apparently the entire building, plunging almost every square foot into total darkness. The red glow of the exit signs barely offered any solace and the security lights along the exterior had died as well, making only scarce moonlight peek through the windows.

[Note: WerTech Production security cameras are equipped with night vision capability. Cameras remain operational despite sudden blackout, indicating Abnormality’s involvement.]

Fantastic. Wonderful. Because Serena didn’t have enough issues last night about the unknown spooks hiding in the shadows. It must be a total power outage as the air was quick to grow stuffy without the vents circulating it. Unless WerTech forgot to pay their electricity bill, which…honestly wouldn’t be that surprising depending on who was in charge of paying that monthly. 

This wasn’t the first time the breaker had been tripped. It had already happened once while she was in the middle of her shift and Alice had told her plenty of other instances. Sometimes it would only be a department, sometimes it would be the whole place, and one time they had managed to cut power in HR while flipping the circuit back on for Warehouse A. Every time, the cause for the outage was due to (or at least blamed on) the technicians out in operations and assembly testing too many high voltage components at once. It was an easy fix of going to the storage wing and flicking the switches back on the breaker box, though it was much more of a hassle during work hours when everyone had to wait for their computers to reboot and pray they hadn’t lost too much unsaved progress.

There was no reason it should have tripped now. It wasn’t like she had every desktop turned on and all the power strips unplugged. Unless it had something to do with whatever little virus was in its beginning stage of crashing her PC, but that wasn’t how those things worked. Software bugs couldn’t secretly travel along the physical cables of a power source and knock out anything plugged into a socket.

…she should go check the breaker, just to be safe. She was too close to the finish line to have a blackout pinned on her. Not to mention, she still needed to email Gregory back for her hours. Maybe the hard restart of her system would help kill the program the malware was in the midst of running, too.

The problem was actually getting to the damn storage wing when she couldn’t see more than a foot in front of her. Shapes were swallowed by shadows in such a way that even as her eyes adjusted, it was hard to tell where something jutted out and how far away dim outlines really were. On the bright side, her manager’s office was right down the hall from the employee break room, and under the sink cabinet was a bunch of first aid and shelter-in-place supplies, including a flashlight. 

She could only wonder if she looked as moronic as she felt stumbling around in the darkness. Her legs shuffled in hesitant steps while her hands stayed splayed in front of her to catch herself on anything in the way. She’d already knocked her shin twice on a waste bin and the edge of the copy machine in the hall, the second almost causing her to fall. As soon as she was able to press against the left wall, it became much easier to guide herself down a straight line towards the cafeteria. Excluding the grunted string of swears when she clipped her hip on the water fountain sticking out of the alcove near the restrooms. 

Oh, she hated this. She hated this very fucking much. The stifling air made her skin prickle with sweat, yet an ominous chill racked her to the core. Despite not being able to see in the slightest, all she could feel was that she was being watched. Every move she made was under someone else’s observation, making her irrationally self conscious of her already clumsy staggering down the hall. Like she was embarrassed that her final moments in someone’s eyes would give the impression that she didn’t know how to walk on her own two feet. Of course, if she was going down, then she wanted to go down with some dignity. 

There was no one here. It had already been established that no one was here but her and probably a couple crickets that always found a way inside from the warehouses. Besides, if she couldn’t see, neither could anyone else. Unless they followed the sounds of her tripping and groaning. God, it was killing her not to be able to power walk quicker to the breakroom, knowing she’d only guarantee herself to smack face first into an open door or something. The journey of twenty-some feet might as well have felt –

[Note: Subject remains unaware of Abnormality following behind her as before. Abnormality does not go in for the kill.]

– like a mile long trek with how much energy she exerted just to fumble through the doorway and paw at the lower cabinets until she could feel the bulky flashlight tucked away underneath. It clicked on with a stutter of its bulb, but a shake was all the old batteries needed to keep a steady glow. 

No longer surrounded on every side by darkness, Serena found it a smidgen easier to breathe now that there wasn’t the full weight of anxiety on her chest. It was still there, obviously, but now she had the advantage of seeing what obstacles were actually in front of her when the time came to have to sprint for her life from a serial killer ghost. The walk to the storage wing went much smoother thanks to the flashlight’s guidance. Now, instead of bruising her thighs that were still clammy under her wet jeans, she only had to nurse a bruised ego over the notion that she was still afraid of the dark at age twenty-six. Actually, she refused to take shame in that. The dark was goddamn terrifying and people who insisted it wasn’t were either liars or the nightmare entities themselves. 

At first, when she opened the door to Storage One, she was confused by the light that flickered inside. If it was a total power outage then it made no sense for there to still be a way that the overhead lights could work, even if the breaker box was mere feet away. That was when she realized the flashes of luminosity were coming from the breaker box itself, spewing out streams of sparks like a fountain on display. The spray of electricity crackled with each pulse of attempted power, burning the air with a bitter smell.

“Oh, shit,” Serena winced, taking an extra step back to avoid any stray spark. That was a little more difficult than flipping a few switches. Workman’s comp was enticing, but she quite liked her fingers to not be blackened stubs and for her heart to remain unexploded. 

Despite the illumination of the fried electrical circuits and her flashlight, it was too difficult for her to make out the exact damage that was done. The floor and wall was burnt from the flow of loose currents, yet there didn’t appear to be any type of surrounding destruction as far as she could tell. Damn, guess she was being forced to call it a night after all, which wouldn’t have been so terrible if now she didn’t have to call Gregory to explain the situation and possibly also a fire department. Then again, she did say she wanted to burn this place down to the ground. 

The universe was really testing her these days.

Not wanting to get caught in a potential electrical fire, Serena was quick to make her way back down the hallway towards the front entrance to leave. Or it would have been quick, had it not been for the fact she had to skirt out of the way of paper machines and rolling whiteboards and…wait. Had those always been pulled so far out from where they were normally lined against the walls? After all, that was the whole point of keeping them accessible but out of the way of everyone’s walking path. For all her shuffling in the dark, she didn’t think she had any problems with toppling over things that weren’t already affixed to the wall, aside from a few things in Gregory’s office when she chucked the box of order forms through. She considered if her sense of spatial awareness was better than she thought but, no, that side table of pamphlets was literally smack dab in the middle of the hall. 

Granted, it didn’t look like anything on the table itself had been disturbed and it wouldn’t be too hard to shove it back into place up front. But that was the problem; it was meant to be up front, around the corner between reception and the entry doors. Not blocking the direct footway. She didn’t put that there, it certainly wasn’t there when she passed through earlier to water the plants or she would have had to pointedly walk around it. 

So…how did it get there?

Actually, that was something she could let Gregory deal with when she called him. His files were pulled, the breaker box exploded, and also the furniture was moving on its own now – those were managerial duties, in her opinion.

Still, it was a bit cumbersome to have to maneuver around such bulky things while watching her step in limited lighting. What was the universe trying to do now: impede her route? Slow her down? Why did it feel like everything was so freaking persistent in keeping her stuck here longer than necessary? Even then, it wasn’t like these were very hard obstacles to dodge, not unless she had been running without noticing their strange rearrangement and being forced to pause.

“Sonava-!” 

She had been so transfixed on the stupid side table that she completely missed where her foot was stepping, sending her sprawling on her knees when her leg slipped from under her. A shot of pain ran up her elbows from where they took the brunt of her upper body, mellowing into a dull throb seconds later. Sure, she had already fallen flat on her ass today, she may as well let her front take a bit of abuse, too.

Gripping the flashlight that had almost rolled out of reach when she landed, she shined it behind her legs to see what she could have possibly slid on. It wasn’t water, she was plenty familiar with that sensation already. It was…

Cereal bars?

A glance next to the impressive pile of whole grain snacks revealed the vending machine, powered off but missing an entire row of treats. Another look at the mound confirmed they were, indeed, the snacks that were meant to be stocked. A couple toaster pastries, quick breakfast nibbles, including the same snack she had gotten herself two of yesterday to serve as dinner. Actually, she had only gotten the ones with blueberry filling, whereas it looked like the machine was happy to spit out other four flavor options as well to add to its disposed horde.

The weird surge probably had something to do with the vending machine dispensing things at random. Tempting as it was to shove a bunch of free food in her arms and call it a successful grocery haul, there was no way Serena could get away with taking what had to be a hundred dollars worth of cheap snacks without anyone noticing. And really, right now, she wasn’t much in the mood to stick around and have a bite to eat. She wanted to go home, change her clothes, and maybe prevent WerTech Productions from being a smoldering shell by opening hours.

“What the hell is wrong with this place?,” she mumbled. She couldn’t walk fast enough out the front doors, not bothering to lock it behind her. The sigh she blew into her hands was more pained than she wanted to admit. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

She swore her car headlights against the showroom windows looked just like eyes as she drove away.

–

END OF SECOND NIGHT

–

Picture Left: [ID - CCTV still frame of Hallway 3 cluttered with moved furniture.]

Abnormality’s hunting behavior has taken unprecedented deviation from previous encounters.

Abnormality has chosen to stalk prey without engagement despite ample opportunities. 

Because the power outage was confirmed to be the result of Abnormality’s abilities, continued usage of property’s CCTV camera footage was unexpected. This implies

Abnormality is aware it is being observed with its prey and allowed it OR

Abnormality is also using CCTV to track Boyd

Abnormality has also used technological interference to direct attention at Boyd.

See: 

Email consisting only of Boyd’s name and hearts

Collection of food previous seen eaten by Boyd

Despite unusual occurrences, Boyd appears to remain unaware of Abnormality and reports findings as an electrical blow up. This is accepted to be fact by WerTech Production superiors.

–

AB299 Behavioral Theories

New theories regarding Abnormality’s shift in hunting practices have been noted to include the following:

Note: Ranked by likelihood

Savor Theory - Abnormality is intentionally causing psychological distress to prey as a way of toying with its food; it is beginning to take pleasure in the hunt rather than relying solely for survival means.

Courtship Theory - Abnormality is displaying interest in affection towards prey in an attempt at reciprocation; rejection of courtship will likely result in prey’s demise.

Enrichment Theory - Abnormality is not actively on a hunt; instead it is showing signs of new emotional threshold by harmless playing; prey likely to be killed once game is over.

Theories to be revised as more information is gathered from subsequent observations.

–

Third Day

–

“A break in? Are you kidding me right now?”

“Hey, okay, lower your voice, alright?.”

“No. No, you cannot just come up here and tell me you think we had a goddamn break in–”

“I mean, we don’t know for sure…”

“- when I am here alone, every night, no protection –”

“I get it, I totally get you–”

“- fighting for my freaking life–”

“Look, let’s just,” Gregory took an exaggerated breath, hoping Serena might mimic his attempt to calm down. The twitch of her eye said otherwise. “take a breather.”

“Sure, yeah, because apparently it might be my last,” she said.

Her manager had the decency to wait until the end of the day during their performance talk to drop the bomb on her that last night’s strange happenings may have been the result of an attempted robbery. This was done, naturally, when everyone else had already left to enjoy their weekend and weren’t around to hear Serena’s outrage. 

When she had come in that morning, the power had been restored and everyone was abuzz with new rumors about some mysterious fire that nearly torched all of their outlets. Some jokingly lamented that they wished the system had stayed fried so they could enjoy a three-day holiday. Others were pissed that their computers had to be manually restarted and lost whatever data they had pulled up in sleep mode. None of them had asked Serena if she knew anything about what happened despite always being the last one in the building, unknowing that she was the one who had to walk Gregory through the steps of calling a fire marshal and scheduling an on-call electrician to come out before opening shift. 

All she had been told by him soon after she arrived was that everything was hunky dory now besides the fact that the breaker box was severely damaged and barely fixed and one overloaded circuit might cause the whole thing to blow. But other than that, there was nothing too major to worry about.

Except now, because of the clear tampering around the busted and scorched metal, the slashed wiring, the unexplained decoration of appliances that had since been moved back to their original positions. Random electrical malfunctions were a rare but not unheard of occurrence. The signs around this one, however, seemed to be intentional. 

She wondered if Alice had known about these new suspicions. The technician hadn’t mentioned anything about it while she sat next to her and wiped her computer’s internal harddrive as a precaution against the virus. All she got out of her was a side eye when Serena tried to convince her she hadn’t downloaded anything from a shady website and a tidbit that one of the call center girl’s didn’t know browsing history was logged until she had to explain a few interesting searches to IT when deleting her cookies. She should just be thankful no one was trying to point the finger at her for somehow being involved as a vindictive employee hellbent on torching her way out of here. That wasn’t an additional comment she wanted added to her weekly log.

“I’m only telling you about this so that you won’t worry,” Gregory explained.

She cupped the hollow of her cheeks in the palms of her hands. “Greg. How…is that meant to make me not worry?”

He shrugged. “Because we don’t know if it really was a burglary or not! The cameras got all screwy during the outage.”

[Note: WerTech Production archived footage was wiped after Boyd’s departure on second day. ABC’s taped live recordings were untouched in facility’s database. Abnormality is purposely hiding its tracks.]

“And if there was?” She pressed.

“Then they probably won’t be back,” he assured her. “We’ve done some stock recounts and nothing looks to be missing so far. If it was anybody, it looks like they thought it was a bust.”

“You’re killing me,” she said, cutting him off before he could try to soothe her again. “No, really, you’re killing me. You’re signing me up for a death trap.” She threw her hands up in the air, if only to keep herself from wrapping them around his neck. “Probably? Probably? Or, how about this, they come back now that they’ve cased the place and know I’m here by myself defenseless. What do you think is going to happen then, Greg? I can tell you what I think is going to happen.”

Gregory shook his head. “No, no, I hear you, I got it, trust me. I’m on your side! I know that’s gotta be pretty scary for a young girl like yourself. I can’t imagine what it must be like in your shoes.”

“...but?”

“...but, we’ve taken some extra precautions for tonight, just for you.”

She rolled her eyes and flopped back in her chair, sinking into the leather with a groan. “I’m flattered.”

“I’m serious, Serena, I really do take your safety as a priority,” he said in such an earnest tone that she softened her glare just a fraction. “We’ve got security on site the entire time you’ll be here, even to walk you to your car. Cameras are good to go again. I already had Ops lock up all the access doors so that you don’t need to check them, just lock up the front like you normally do on your way out.”

That was all…pretty reasonable. For once, the stress uncoiled from her body at Gregory’s words, a personal best in the entire three months they’ve worked together. Her visible relief must have eased his own worries, thankful she didn’t want to escalate the issue any further in a way that might involve board directors and/or legal fees. Relief may be too strong of a word; more like the same type of acceptance when dealing with the five stages of grief.

“Real easy job tonight. Just need you to print out the stock count sheets I emailed you earlier and check that they’re in the right bins out in Warehouse B. You can take Ted with you if you don’t want to be alone, or y–”

Brown eyes that had been closed in resignation flew open to look at her manager. “Ted?”

He paused. “Yeah, Ted…the security guard? You’ve had to have met him, right?”

Of course, almost every woman in the office knew Ted. They knew him because he was a weird little creep that ogled a bit too much at the monitor feeds and had the social awareness of a rock. Guys thought he was such a jokester, ladies thought he had no business telling them how great that skirt looked from the back when the cameras captured them leaning over a filing cabinet.

Would you believe me if I told you he got caught with his hand down his pants once? Alice had asked during one of their mini gossip breaks. Serena scrunched her face in disgust, asking if that was true and praying that it wasn’t, but the other woman only shrugged with a smirk.

I dunno, but you believed it, so what does that say about him? She said.

“Why Ted?” she asked instead. “Why not Allen? Or Jodie?”

Gregory frowned, the furrowing of his brow matching hers. “He was the only one available for after hours on short notice. Why, what’s wrong with Ted?”

A lot of things, even if most of it was hearsay. The fact that so many women had so many consistent stories about him was more than enough evidence for any of them. Except for HR and anyone higher up on the ladder, who apparently wanted fifty pages of proof that Ted had physically acted inappropriately to combat the dozens of complaints against him. It was an argument Serena was sure her manager had already heard plenty of times before, and tonight would not be the night he miraculously changed his tune.

Ted was all she had in the way of personal security, otherwise she was on her own. Despite it being really, really inviting to stay by herself instead of having to share any type of close quarters with him. Did she think he would try to pull anything…violent on her? No, but, she definitely couldn’t be too careful. And even if he was proven to be totally harmless, spending the evening getting leered at and given unwarranted ‘compliments’ was not her ideal way to spend a Friday night, much less in a professional work environment that was dead set on turning half her curls gray.

If nothing else, she can always sacrifice him to give herself a running start should anything start to go bump in the night.

“Nothing, he’s…fine,” she grumbled. The way she crossed her arms was reminiscent of a pouting child. 

“Hey, listen, it’s only for one more night,” Gregory said. “I know you’ve gotta be excited to fly the coop and get out there in the real world. After tonight, you’ve got a whole slew of opportunities to look forward to.” He was right, almost encouraging, like a real manager. “Don’t give up while you’re in the homestretch. You can stick it out for a couple hours, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Yeah! So don’t let these kinds of things bum you out; you should be pumped! You’re done after tonight, girl, you get to party over the weekend like a real college graduate!”

God, Gregory was so painfully in his late forties. She could still appreciate his attempt at a relatable pep talk, even if it made her inwardly cringe rather than motivated her.

“One more night,” she sighed in agreement. “I can do this.”

“You can do this!”

“...okay, well, I’m going to go do it then,” Private rallying over, she bid him a goodnight while he rambled on about how proud he was of her, how much he was going to miss having a free spirit like her in the office, to keep in touch, that he’ll get her final hours submitted to her professor over the weekend, not to hesitate to reach out if she needed a job reference or even a formal interview to become salaried at WerTech –

For all his airheadedness as a manager, Gregory really wasn’t too bad of a guy. She most definitely was not going to take him up on his offer to stay in contact, though. 

It felt weird in some way, knowing this was the last time she’d be plopping down in her dingy swivel chair at a desk in a department she had no business being in, turning on a computer that had already had most of her work expunged aside from her login. She couldn’t say that she’d miss this place, certainly not after these last few nights of pandemonium, but…it wasn’t all bad. Mostly bad, but not always, and usually not outright terrible. She really was on her way to become a bonafide computer engineer if she had lowered the bar this far down when ranking what a decent job was like.

Just as she was reaching for her mouse to pull up the email she needed to print, her hand bumped against something that hadn’t been there previously. A blueberry whole grain cereal bar, courtesy of the vending machine outside the office. It wasn’t hers; she hadn’t bought anything today, which meant someone must have left it on her desk between the time it took to finalize an EOD request and have her enlightening chat with Gregory.

Ted. It had to be Ted. There was literally no one else it could be because he was the only person accounted for staying late besides her. He’s probably seen her eating the same snack as a shoddy meal substitute more times then she’d care to admit. What was this meant to be – a peace offering, an attempt at flirting? If it were anyone but the security guard, she might have been a touch peeved that such a simple act stole her heart. To know that someone paid attention to the little details about her and rather than judging her pisspoor diet, offered her a bonus treat to make sure she ate.

But, it came from Ted, and Ted could choke for all she cared.

The churning in her stomach insisted that it didn’t matter who it was from so long as she stuffed it down her throat posthaste. She was hungry, having skipped lunch in favor of an iced coffee to secure that hour towards her final count. This had to be some endeavor to butter her up, maybe to act like he had treated her to dinner so that he could insist she owed him a favor in return.

Fuck it. Serena was starving and this dry cereal bar she was only a little bit sick of was the best thing she had seen all day. If Ted tried to pull anything funny with her over it, she could shove the two dollars and fifty cents in his face for an equal exchange. Stale whole grain and artificial blueberry preservatives had never –

[Note: Following Courtship Theory - Subject’s approval for Abnormality’s offering believed to be taken as agreement towards advances, becoming the catalyst for later events.]

– tasted so good.

She was halfway done with the snack by the time the printer had finished spitting out her count sheets. Warm paper held to her chest, a pen tucked behind her ear, she crammed the last two bites into her mouth and crumpled up the wrapper to throw it away on her way to the warehouse. Just as she was about to turn the corner for the double doors, she saw the familiar black security jacket slink out of the breakroom to follow after her. She wondered if he could feel the displeasure rolling off her the mere moment he existed within her bubble. He was probably used to that.

“Hey, Sierra!” he called to her, quickening his pace to catch up with her determined speed walk.

“It’s Serena.”

“Right, right, sorry,” he laughed. “We haven’t really spent a lot of time together, is all.”

And she would have liked to have kept it that way. 

Her lack of a response did not deter him from having a one sided conversation. “So, Greg told me today was your last day?”

“Hopefully.”

“That’s crazy, it feels like you just got here.”

“Feels like it’s been ten weeks to me.”

“Did they throw you a party?”

“No.”

“Did they get you a card or something?”

“No.”

“Well hell, did they do anything for you?”

No. Really, she was fine with that. She was sure a majority of the people here would miss her the same amount as she would miss them, which was next to nothing. She was only an intern after all, not even stationed in the correct department or working alongside anyone that could be considered a mentor. There was no reason to mourn her scheduled departure. Frankly, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stomach the fake smiles and overly saddened coworkers crowding around her in the breakroom had they decided to host a farewell luncheon in her honor anyways.

Although, she wouldn’t have turned down a free cake.

“You know, I could always take you out somewhere,” Ted shrugged, trying to play it like a nonchalant offer. “It’s not right to have no one celebrate you on your last day.”

She rolled her eyes and entered the door code. “I can celebrate by myself at home, thanks.”

The guard gave her a cocky grin, an attempt to pull some sort of boyish charm he was too old to use. “C’mon, let me treat you to a couple drinks after this.”

With a strained smile that didn’t reach her eyes, Serena shoved the wadded up wrapper from her cereal bar at Ted’s chest, who caught it in surprise. Or maybe he was just shocked by a woman’s touch. 

“You already treated me to dinner, that’s about as much as I can take,” she said.

He blinked as she pulled open the door to Warehouse B and slipped inside. “Huh? What do you – I didn’t…”

His voice trailed away from her ears when the door shut between them, muffling whatever backup plan he was surely going to try on her next. Faintly, she could hear his muffled see you on the cameras, then as she walked off down to the shelving racks she needed to check off. She couldn’t help the roll of disgust in her stomach that didn’t settle well with her pathetic dinner, though she didn’t think it would have mattered if she was full or not. The idea alone of Ted watching her every move through the CCTV at the direct order of her manager made her skin crawl. But at least he was several rooms away with many doors between them, allowing him to keep his skeezy thoughts to himself on the other end of the video feed.

The inventory she was asked to count wasn’t too difficult to handle. The guys and gals out here kept the bins organized to perfection under their shockingly competent warehouse manager. Everything was in its assigned place, clearly labeled, marked with daily quantities at the end of each shift to keep track of so many moving parts. Again, Gregory, a filing system is not that hard to maintain. Checking off if pallets were stacked in the correct location and how many GPUs were in each shipping box was the easiest task she’d done all week. Hell, being this close to actual manufacturing parts was the closest she’d gotten to doing what her degree was intended for the entirety of her internship.

As quickly as she was breezing through these stock sheets, she was glad she gave up her lunch hour to go towards her weekly log. She wasn’t sure this would take her any more than forty-five minutes to finish. Of course, because she’s such a thorough and dedicated employee that should be hired anywhere she applies, she could always go back and double check her counts. For absolute accuracy, certainly not to stretch out an easy hour and a half. She wouldn’t want to miss a single solid-state drive and throw off their supplies.

She was counting a box of coolant jugs for the third time when her hand froze mid pen stroke. All at once, it was as if her body drenched in dread, an icy shock dumped over her head like a bucket of water. Her back stiffened, forcing her to square her shoulders and stand at full height.

Someone was watching her.

No shit someone was watching her, that was the whole point of Ted being on duty with her. However, the ick he normally gave her was nothing compared to the way her heart started to rabbit out of the blue. Her pulse was roaring in her ears, drowning out her thoughts in favor of panic for no discernable reason. Every labored breath was forced through her nose to prevent herself from hyperventilating. Her feet refused to move to turn her around and see what might be the instinctual cause for her bout of anxiety this time. Never before had she considered herself someone with a panic disorder, but the constant flare ups this week were starting to become alarming. 

Chances are, Ted was glued to watching her backside from the security cameras positioned around the warehouse aisles. If there really was someone or any reason that she would be in immediate danger, he would have alerted her by now. He was a creep and a weirdo, but he was still a qualified security guard. She was sure he’d love nothing more than to burst in and play the role of a macho hero who more than earned an evening with the fair maiden he rescued.

“You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine,” she whispered, balling her hand into a fist to help direct her tension somewhere she could control. “No one here but you. You and the terminal casings.”

An overhead light popped behind her. The sound of crackling acrylic jolted her from her rigid posture to whirl around for the source. Further down the deep row of the rack aisle, one of the ceiling lights flickered before dying from a voltage overload. She stared up at the fixture in puzzlement, vaguely wondering what could have caused it to blow out so unexpectedly. Right, Gregory had told her that the breaker box had been fixed as best it could for the time being, but it was treading a fine line between operational and shorting out. A random current was probably redirected through the wiring and overloaded the fluorescent tubes.

Then the lights next to it sputtered and blew out, casting a deep shadow at the end of the aisle. Another fixture fritzed, then another, and suddenly the darkness was rapidly approaching her down the row ready to swallow her in pitch black.

She couldn’t focus on anything but turning on her heel to dash away from the encroaching shadow. The lights burned bright until they burst into sparks in quick succession, trailing behind her sprinting form at an alarming pace. Almost as if it was determined to close the distance that had previously been between them, to pull her in just as it had fully encompassed her last night despite its suffocating grip. Could Ted see her fleeing for her life from the pursuing shadows, or had the cameras in the warehouse already gone offline in tandem with the localized blackout? Should she bother trying to scream for help? What good would that do besides embarrass her once she could see past her irrational fear? Or worse, what if help –

[Note: Though Subject is fleeing in distress, she makes no acknowledgement of Abnormality’s hand reaching for her.]

– came too late? 

Serena slammed her shoulder into the access door, dropping her papers to scatter on the floor and frantically wiggle the handle in a desperate attempt to get through. She had forgotten that Ops already locked up the outside doors for the night in what was meant to be a gesture to make her feel safer in the building. But she didn’t want to be in the building, she wanted to be out out get out go get OUT–

“Open, open, please,” she panted. Fumbling fingers swiped her keycard against the reader over and over until the magnetic strip made enough contact. The beeping lock was lost in the static that rumbled between her ears, only focusing on twisting down the knob and flinging open the door before the last light of the aisle could plunge her into darkness.

The door swung shut behind her with a heavy bang, sealing the shadows within. Her hands shakily gripped the railing along the ramp. Cool metal against her palms felt wonderfully grounding, giving her fingers something to squeeze until her nails dug into her skin. It was cold and it stung, but it wasn’t enough to fully shake the despair that clung to her heart. Each exhale was a ragged pant, gradually smoothing into a deeper breath as she calmed down. The outside was also dark, arguably darker than Warehouse B who had only lost one row of lighting, but it was just…safer. The security floodlights, the neon signs, the stars, the openness – it soothed her frantic thoughts in a way she couldn’t describe. 

Just what the hell was any of that? One minute she was fooling around with pallets, the next she was acting like a doomed gazelle in a nature documentary. Why, because of a fuse blowout? None of this kind of stuff ever bothered her before, yet now it was as if she needed a nightlight and security blanket just to make it through an overtime shift. Anxiety was a fickle thing, rearing its ugly head at the most inopportune times for little to no reason, much less for any reason that made sense. It was like Gregory and Ted had told her, she should be ecstatic to finish the last night of her internship, one step closer to having full certification in a field she enjoyed. So, why was she sinking deeper into disquietude as the final week stretched on? Did her brain no longer understand the difference between terror and excitement?

She blinked away the wetness in her eyes, rubbing the heels of her palms against them to staunch any pitiful tears before they could begin. With a sniffle, she took a final, stuttering inhale and slowly blew it out. That was better, she was better now. Her arms still shook and her nerves tingled under her skin, but she didn’t feel on the verge of going into cardiac arrest anymore. Now, she just wanted to throw up what meager food she had in her system. Not only that, but she wanted to go home. She wanted to drink something strong. She wanted to lay down in bed for thirty-seven hours. She wanted…

…she wanted to close that goddamn motherfucking gate.

Unbelievable, un-freaking-believable. Well, not that unbelievable, but still. How in the hell was her manager going to sit there and try to placate her worries that there might have been a break in, that someone might have been tampering with things around the building, when nobody could be bothered to close the propertyline gate for the past three days minimum. Yeah, no wonder someone felt like they had free access to WerTech Production Headquarters; the employees there routinely left the locked doors wide open for anyone to wander in! If there were any late night thieves, they had half their heist planned for them when it came to securing an entry point and getaway. 

Fear muddled into misplaced anger, heating her veins enough to thaw the chill that previously ran down her spine. Stupid gate, stupid stupid stupid gate, the bane of her existence for the last three nights. If she had never seen that it was open while throwing out the trash, she never would have inadvertently sent herself spiraling down the rabbit hole of what-ifs relating to her mysteriously violent demise. Such a strange thing to fixate on, yet one undoubtedly about to be on the receiving end of her frustration as she marched through the backlot towards it. She didn’t know why it was open, if it served some vital purpose that may or may not cause issues for her former coworkers come Monday morning. She didn’t care. This place wasn’t her problem anymore at the stroke of eight o’clock. 

The closer she got to the fence, the more of its shape she could make out against the inky backdrop of evening. Twists of steel wires and towering poles became defined with each step, the opening in its chain links giving the illusion that it was gaping wider and wider as her perspective shifted from the distance. And as she raised her arm to grab hold of the accursed gate, ready to slam it shut with all the might she could muster to help ease a fraction of her vexation, she came to the startling conclusion that it was more open than she had anticipated. Not just opened – completely peeled backwards like a tin lid off of a can. The metal was mangled back and upwards as if it had been carelessly pulled from the ground. Support bars meant to take the impact of a wayward vehicle with only a few dents were bent at a multitude of angles.

This kind of damage shouldn’t be possible, not unless it was a big rig plowing through at top speed. Even then, the fence wasn’t smashed or bulging like it had been hit by something going out, rather it was deliberately torn open by something wanting to come in. But there were no signs of tire tracks or skid marks, no abrasion to any of the shipping containers that would have been hit in its path, no mention around the office about any kind of big machinery accident on site. That led to the conclusion that either this destruction of property was old news long before Serena’s employment…

Or it happened too recently for anyone to take notice, simplifying assuming the gate was cracked open when looking from the bay doors. 

“What…the fuck,” Seriously. For every instance she explained away, three more appeared in its place like a hydra. 

She couldn’t begin to fathom what kind of incident was able to do this much damage, yet so little at the same time, kept only to a small corner of the fencing. How long ago had it happened, how deliberately was it done?

Ted might know, loathe as she was to give him props for anything. Being one of the four rotational security guards, he of all people would either have been present or informed of any type of vandalism on company grounds. In fact, he could probably pull up the archived footage of when it happened to give her a definitive answer. Was it truly worth the mental strength she’d need to expend to willingly ask Ted for a favor? It would be so much simpler to let the issue go and finish up the last half hour of her overtime hiding in the bathroom. She could forget it, be done with it, let WerTech handle themselves as they pleased.

But dammit did she need to know if her gut instinct had been right since Wednesday.

The walk of shame back towards the side entry made her wonder if she should have gone ahead and left through the tear in the fence. Embrace her new life in the small, woodland strip between textile businesses, content to never look at a computer screen or human being for the rest of her days. Instead, she got to enjoy the feeling of a stone dropping into her stomach every inch she came closer to the building until she was worried she might be weighed down through the asphalt. The building itself wasn’t the monster she was afraid of, it was what it hid in its darkened halls and empty rooms that made her squirm. And some of the people. And the abysmal pay, or lack thereof for interns working overtime. 

Forgoing the door back into Warehouse B, Serena opted to use the side entrance that dropped her between the security office and conference room. Raising her hand to knock on the door made her feel braver than any American soldier deployed into battle.

“Ted?” she asked. “You there?”

“Sure am,” a voice called back and a moment later the door was opened. He smiled, gesturing for her to come into a small, enclosed space with him in private. She stubbornly stayed hovering in the doorframe. “Ready to wrap it up?”

“Yeah, almost, um…do you know anything about the busted gate out back? That’s all, like,” she jumbled her hands in explanation.

Ted raised an eyebrow. “Busted gate?”

Oh, that wasn’t reassuring at all. “Yeah, past the dumpster and the trailers. It looked like something just…plowed through it? I didn’t know if maybe there had been an accident or…?”

“First I’m hearing about it,” he shrugged. “Could have had something to do with the fire truck here this morning if I had to guess. Maybe they backed up too far. Pretty shitty if they didn’t say anything to anyone before they left, though.”

A fire truck was big, but not big enough to rip up metal fencing unless it was being hurled through it. “Could you…check? Like, the cameras?”

“Now?”

“...yeah.”

“I mean, we don’t even know what day or time it happened, that’s hours of footage.”

“Right, but, you should check, shouldn’t you? Isn’t the whole point of being a security guard to actually guard the building?”

His mild confusion morphed into a smirk that was a little too patronizing for her taste. “Ah, I getcha, you’re freaked out about that break-in possibility, aren’t you?”

Caught red handed. The way she averted her eyes to the floor and ducked her burning face made Ted snort.

“No, hey, don’t worry about it, I get where you’re coming from,” he leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach. “I think Greg’s full of crap. No one breaks in, moves a couple desks to the left, and leaves.”

“What about the breaker box? He said it looked like it had been mauled,” she pressed.

“Yeah, it was smoldering for hours, of course it’s gonna get fucked up.”

“And the gate…?”

“Like I said – fire truck. Or one of the vendor semis when they picked up a load. Some dumbass in a big truck, either way.”

She chewed her lower lip while she absorbed his harmless explanations. Ted said everything so calmly, so effortlessly, with zero hesitation because he truly believed there was nothing to worry about no matter who said what. She wished she was able to take in and hold on to those nonchalant vibes, but her paranoia refused to believe anything had that simple of an answer. Nothing was a coincidence, nothing was just the wind, nothing had a logical reason; nothing made sense!

“Serena? Hey,” she hadn’t realized she was trembling until Ted wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his side. When had he gotten up? When had her nose begun to burn with the threat of tears? “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“No,” she choked out. “No, I’m not fucking okay.”

Before the security guard could ask her what was the matter, all of her anxiety was spilling from her mouth in a watery ramble that she couldn’t stop. “I feel like I’m losing my mind here, like, literally going insane. I keep, I keep thinking I see things to the point I run out the damn door so that I don’t have to be in the dark, like there’s actually a-a boogeyman after me.” She took a gulp of air and let it out in a humorless laugh. “And I’m twenty-six, I’m twenty-six goddamn years old and I’m worried about monsters in the closets but it’s not in the closets it’s everywhere in this fucking building when I’m alone.”

Her breathing was becoming shallower with every cluster of words she forced out in a single breath. “And I don’t know where this came from! It just, it started so suddenly and I don’t know why but it makes me feel like my heart is about to explode and that I’m being watched and I’m scared, Ted, I’m so fucking scared for no reason, but I don’t know what to do, I can’t, I can’t tell anyone because I know nothing is wrong but something is wrong and I just, I-I…”

“Hey, hey,” he interrupted her, squeezing his arm tighter around her shaking frame to break her out of her rant. She should shrug him off, worry about how she would need to scrub her skin raw in the shower tonight to get rid of his touch. At this point in time, she couldn’t care less where her comfort came from, so long as it was someone who believed her.

“I’m sorry,” she sniveled, burying her face in her hands to hide her humiliated tears. “I don’t, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” 

“Nothing’s wrong with you. I mean, a lot’s wrong with you, but, like, not in a way that’s your fault, you get what I mean?”

Strangely enough, she did, so she gave a weak little nod.

“Sounds like you’re having your first burn out,” he rubbed his hand down her arm. “College girl, shitty internship, apparently thinks those gross fruit bars taste good…I’m surprised you hadn’t snapped sooner.”

She pulled away from his hug and scrubbed her face, ignoring how his hand lingered on her back. Give a man an inch and he’ll take a mile, as they say. “I think this place is cursed.”

Ted sniggered. “Oh, yeah, definitely, like, twenty people brutally died here in the eighties.”

“What.”

“I’m kidding! No, this place sucks for a lot of reasons, but I promise we don’t hire shadow walkers or whatever.”

“You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure. Weirdest thing I’ve ever seen on the cameras was when Tiarra’s bra broke during a board meeting and everything just went fwomp.” He made sure to pantomime with his hands how her breasts sagged exaggeratedly to her midriff.

Yep, there was classic Ted. His decency towards women was nice while it lasted. At least the distaste Serena felt blocked out her overwhelming nervousness. Just being able to vent her frustration and cry it out had eased a considerable weight from her chest with some significance. Ted would have much more luck wooing the girls in the office if he could pull his head out of his ass more often and listen instead of drooling. 

She was saved by the bell when in the distance a landline rang from one of the offices. They both shared a look, unsure of who could possibly be calling at this hour. Serena peeked down the hall to get a better listen, only coming to the assumption that it must be one of the desk phones ringing in the finance office. What a strange time to want to call and ask for a rebate program.

“Just let them leave a voicemail,” Ted said. “and I’ll tell you what – how about you and I take a walk around the building, check out the gate and the lights and whatever you want, and then we grab dinner together?”

The first half sounded okay, but the second half of his offer made her wince. “I don’t know about that…”

“It’s just to show you that there’s nothing to be afraid of,” he reassured her, assuming her apprehension was because she was still too shaken up to want to venture into dark corners and not because the idea of going on a date with him repulsed her. “And if there is anything out there, I promise that I’ll hit it really, really hard with my nightstick for you.”

“I…” The phone continued to ring, its shrill tone echoing down the hall. It should have cut off by now, unless the caller redialed again. Persistent, weren’t they? That must mean it was either vitally important or the most asinine thing anyone had to ask. She sighed. “I should go get that. It might be Gregory.”

“I doubt it.”

She shrugged, inching her way out the door for her grand escape from this awkward conversation. “Better safe than sorry. You can be my human meat shield after.”

Thankfully, Ted didn’t try to trail after her. Probably sulking or plotting how to get Serena to agree for a little late night rendezvous. Hell no. She was going to answer the phone, send her last email ever to mark her time, and get the hell out of here. Even if Ted had been the handsome charmer he thought himself to be, she didn’t have the energy to be in someone else’s presence for any remainder of the night. At this rate, it would be a miracle she didn’t just flop on her couch and stay comatosed until Tuesday.

As she guessed, the phone was ringing from her office enclosure. More than that, it was her deskphone that was flashing red. Definitely Gregory, then, if not some insistent spam caller that was only getting through because she was the sole representative online in the system. Still, she didn’t want to assume in case it was someone who wasn’t her manager but had equal importance. She was courteous and professional, after all, as her supervisor comments better damn well say.

–

[Phone Call Transcript]

Note: This is not a real call. Abnormality is using its technological interference to lure Subject away.

[0:00:05] Boyd: Thank you for calling WerTech Productions, this is Serena, how may I help you?

[0:00:27] Unknown Caller: …

[0:00:43] Boyd: Hello?

[0:00:46] Unknown Caller: …

[0:00:51] Boyd: Hello? Are you there?

Note: Building experiences a second total blackout at this time, however the phone line remains connected. CCTV cameras remain functional as well.

[0:00:57] - Call Terminated by Unknown Caller

–

“Crap, again!?”

The dial tone hung in the air as she tossed the receiver onto her desk, not bothering to hang it up. Having one operating phone line on the grid must have been the breaker’s final straw if the lights in Warehouse B were anything to go by. Of course it would be another system failure right when she was about to leave despite running smoothly enough when everyone was bustling about during the day. Her only good fortune was that she stashed the flashlight she used yesterday in one of her drawers. She had to knock it against the edge of the cubicle divider to help the dying batteries hold on for a little longer before it was ready to lead the way out of this hellhole for a second time.

Swinging the beam into the hallway, she couldn’t detect any of the furniture having jumped out of place like before, which was already an improvement.

“Ted?” she called out. “Ted? Hey, let’s just forget it and go home. I’m sick of this place.”

He didn’t answer her. Maybe the office door was closed and he couldn’t hear her, or maybe he’d gone to check the breaker himself. Regardless, she still needed him to walk out of the building with her so she could call Gregory about the grand sucky finale of her night without being accused of abandoning him and creating a hostile work environment. With a huff, she walked towards the security room, wrinkling her nose at how quickly the air turned stale.

“C’mon, I’m done. I’ll tell Greg this place is about to burn down again when we leave.”

Nothing. Not even the squeak of a rolling chair or shuffling behind the door. He must not be in the office. Great, because going on a wild goose chase for a guy she could barely stand in a dark, stuffy building was the one thing she had always wanted to do. It wasn’t like she hadn’t just had a miniature crisis about this damn place giving her the heebie jeebies. 

“Ted, I’m leaving,” she tried again. To hell with it, she’ll just write him a message on a sticky note and let him figure out the rest. 

The thickness in the air swirled into a bitter aroma, enough that it coated the back of her throat with something unpleasantly tangy. Gross, had something started leaking, maybe spoiling? She hadn’t smelt anything unusual during last night’s power outage; something internal must have gotten fried during round two. Be it melting wall insulation or a busted gas main, she wasn’t inclined to breathe in slightly noxious, possible toxic fumes longer than need be. If the security guard wanted to go gallivanting through the halls until the whole place exploded from sparks and vapor, he could be her gu-

“Oh…oh my god. Oh my god.”

It wasn’t until her flashlight reflected off the floor in front of the security office did she understand where the source of the stench was coming from. In the dark, the thick liquid had blended in with the abstract pattern of the hall tiles. Now that she was closer, however, a puddle was clearly spreading from the doorway, the bright red color glaringly obvious once the light was on it. Splatters and droplets sprayed around the main pool all the way from the threshold to the corridor wall. What was worse was that it wasn’t just wetness, but gooey chunks darkening certain spots to almost appear black.

Thank god she didn’t have a bigger meal in her stomach or Serena would be adding a second mixture of bodily fluids to the floor.

A hand flew to her mouth, muffling a scream, holding back a gag, unable to tear her eyes away from what was undoubtedly a fatal amount of blood seeping into the grout.

“Ted!? Ted, this isn’t funny!” It has to be a joke. It had to be a sick, cruel prank that he was playing on her after she had just gushed about the ominous feeling WerTech gave her lately. Gregory was probably in on it, too, maybe the whole office as well. A carefully orchestrated trick they had spaced out over seventy-two hours to make Serena feel like she was going crazy.

Certainly not because something bad had actually happened. 

“Please, please, Ted, just…just fucking answer me!” she cried, her voice catching in her throat at the tailend of her sentence. “We’ll go home, we’ll go on that stupid date, please, just come out!”

The flashlight shook violently in her hand no matter how hard she squeezed the yellow plastic. Its beam may as well have been better suited on a rave dance floor with how frantically it moved from the floors to the walls to the doors. Past the initial pool of gore, it illuminated a trail of blood that streaked down the rest of the hallway in a shape roughly the same width of Ted. He’d been dragged off, mortally wounded if not already a goner. Every part of Serena screamed at her to run, smash her way out of the front windows if she had to, but she couldn’t. Not without Ted. She couldn’t…fuck, she couldn’t leave him to die, not if there was a chance to save him. He was a sleaze, but he was still a person.

And even if he was a lost cause, he should still have his baton and service weapon on his utility belt. She didn’t know where their assailant was, so she needed all the help she could find to be prepared. It wouldn’t do her any good to make it to an exit just for someone with a hatchet to be blocking the way. Could a hatchet even do this kind of lethal damage? Definitely not in one blow; Ted would have had to have been hacked consecutively to – no, no, no, she was not going to think about that she was not going to envision that.

Each exhale came out as a whimper, a clear struggle that she was barely keeping herself from breaking down into sobs. What was she going to find, what was going to find her? She had to push forward, despite the squeal in her throat when she had to step over the sticky red puddle and hope to god none of it stuck to her shoes. She kept her back angled towards the wall as she shuffled along the trail, hoping to protect herself from any unseen attack while keeping as much distance as she could from the blood trail mere inches from her steps. It smeared to the left at the hallway’s junction, heading towards the storage wing before disappearing through the open door of Storage One. 

Just from the doorway, she could see the sparks flickering from the breaker box, though not nearly as fervently as it did before. Enough to light up a corner of the room with a flash every few seconds, but nothing else.

“Ted…?” she whispered. “Ted, are you…are you there? Are you…h-hurt?”

Obviously he was hurt. Obviously he was dead if that much blood was outside of his body. But what if it wasn’t his blood? What if he was alright, the true savior of the day that had already dispatched the convicts who tried to get the jump on him as part of their three-day master plan?

Any kind of stupid hope her mind tried to supply to block out the mounting trauma was dashed when she shone her flashlight through the door. She could see his legs on the floor, pants torn and soaked with his own blood, and when she fully stepped into the storage room to look at the rest of him, she wailed.

He was desecrated beyond recognition, resembling pulp more than a man. The entire right side of his body had been ravaged to the point Serena couldn’t tell if it was missing or simply turned to mush and smeared along the floor. Bones were broken and jutting through the skin, skewering organs that spilled out from the absent side. They, too, were tangled between themselves and hunks of muscles that were torn from the bone. His head…his head was the worst, by far. The skull was caved in at his forehead until it was practically flattened, causing graymatter to splatter like a rotten grape. Bloodied eyes popped out of their sockets to forever stare at nothing while his jaw was misaligned around a swollen tongue.

Every orifice oozed with red, the flow having already slowed to a trickle from his nose and ears given that there wasn’t much left to drain from his remains. Any scream Serena wanted to let out was trapped as a silent sob in her chest, unable to process the sight in front of her. Ted hadn’t just been killed, he had been slaughtered. Whoever did this had done so with an ungodly amount of rage and strength, unless it had been carried out by a depraved group of individuals lost in the bloodlust. She didn’t know what was worse: to be outnumbered, or to go against the brutality of a single attacker.

“Oh god…oh god…”

God was not going to save her.

She allowed herself two mournful sobs before she forced herself to back away from the sight on wobbling legs. It wasn’t safe here, she couldn’t stick around to grieve unless she wanted to rest ending up the same way. She needed to get out of here, drive as far and as fast as she could, and call every police department in the tristate area for help. And she needed to do it now before she was caught next.

She turned around and she screamed.

There was no way she could have possibly missed that…that thing in the corner staring down at her with those awful eyes. Wide and yellow, glowing against the backdrop of black, with ringlets of red that were evocative to a bullseye at a carnival game booth. But no, that wasn’t it; it was the fact that the eyes towered so, so high above her all the way to the fifteen foot ceiling. Its frame was swallowed up by the darkness of the room courtesy of the blackout, only faint outlines of what she assumed were its arms and neck visible from the pinprick beam of her flashlight ghosting over its massive form. It was like the shadows blended into its skin as the perfect camouflage to the point its own body could hardly be made out when flush against itself.

And somehow, that still wasn’t what sent Serena over the edge. Not this giant fucking monstrosity looming over her, not her coworker’s mangled corpse behind her, not that fact that such a creature should be impossible to exist in the first place, not the realization that it was somehow able to squeeze into the room with no visible damage to the doorways that were meant to accommodate a ten foot height at most, not the fact that her intuition about something being so terrible wrong the last couple days was right.

But because Ted’s arm, from his broken fingers to the intact joint of his shoulder, was hanging out of its mouth.

The contrast of gore on skin and charcoal color of the jacket’s sleeve was the only way she could make out the line of its top lip. White fangs poked out from the corners of its mouth due to being slightly parted by the limb snatched in its teeth, likely held fast by smaller but equally sharp dentition. If it weren’t for the fact something was between its lips, she wouldn’t have even realized there were any features on its face besides its dizzying eyes, the shapes also obscured by its inky coloring. If it even had any in the same arrangement that a human would.

It tilted its head to the side, unperturbed by her sharp cry at its appearance. The movement caused blood to dribble from the stump of Ted’s arm and patter on the ground like rain, splashing at her ankles. Instinctively, she stumbled back to create a sense of distance between the viscera and the monster who had created it. Unfortunately, there was still the matter of Ted’s near inside-out body directly behind her. Too focused on the terrifying sight in front of her, she didn’t watch where she stepped and squished the remnants of a liver (or maybe the kidneys? Could be the stomach.) under her heel. Her foot slipped out from under her in a way that was reminiscent of the way she fell after dropping the pitcher of water in the lobby. 

Like before, its eyes watched her unblinkingly. Like before, she cried out at the feeling of liquid seeping into her clothing. The difference this time was that the creature didn’t disappear without a trace and she was far more distressed at the sticky warmth that stuck to her body from her lower back to her thighs. She tried to scramble out of the meaty pile, but her hands kept slipping in the blood and the sensation of guts squelching between her fingers made her recoil. All she could do was mewl such weak little sobs until her shaking limbs found enough purchase to pull her against the wall. She could move no further back, gain no extra footage between herself and the monster.

It knew that just as well as Serena. 

“No, no,” she croaked, watching as the creature slunk out of the deepest shadows that concealed it so well towards her. The flashlight wasn’t close to being powerful enough to unveil its entire body structure, but despite nearly slipping out of her shaky hold from the blood, she could see a few details that were missed in the darkness.

For one, it wasn’t just as tall as the ceiling. It was even larger with what looked like legs bent into a crouch to help it fit within the confined space. The hands that inched closer to where Serena was huddled had wicked points at the end of long fingertips, scratching along the concrete. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around how such an enormous being was able to hide itself in a compact storage room when there was no conceivable way it could have fit through either of the doors. Unless, somehow, it had made its own opening with such skill that there wasn’t a trace of demolition.

A rumbling noise made Serena shrink back into the false safety of her corner. It was deep and throaty, something between a growl and a purr. Not inherently hostile, but not remotely comforting in the slightest. From what she could tell, it hadn’t yet entirely extended itself forward and already the creature had invaded her personal space as a testament to its full height.

“Please,” she whined, her tearful brown eyes pleading with its two-toned stare. “Please…”

Please don’t kill me. Please let me go. Please make it quick and painless. Please please please–

It opened its mouth just enough to drop the severed arm at her feet. It would have landed in her lap had her knees not been drawn to her chest in a vain attempt to shield herself should the creature strike. 

She gagged hard enough that her whole body flinched, bile burning in her throat but swallowed back down. She pressed harder into the wall and willed herself the sudden ability to phase through solid objects with no luck. Was it better or worse to know that while Ted had been horrifically mauled, it didn’t seem like much of him was eaten as it was pulverized. Was it a more dignified death to be reduced to monster food or a sludge of innards? At least in the case of the second option, their families would have something to bury, even if it could all be scooped in a shoebox. 

Again, it made a noise at her. Softer, like a croon of encouragement, perhaps for her to accept the shared meal of her coworker as her last.

To think, not even an hour ago, that was the same arm that Ted wrapped around her in comfort. It was the same arm that held her close to his body while it was still warm and, for just a moment, made her feel protected from the horrors lurking around the corner. There was nothing it could defend her from now.

Serena bit her lip to stifle a moan of anguish. “S-stop, stop, please, get…g-get that away from me.” When the monster didn’t comply with her request, she kicked her leg out from her arm to shove the appendage back. “Get away!”

It tilted its head and rumbled in response to her. She shuddered, unsure what it was trying to ask of her, if it was capable of conversation to begin with. All animals had some sort of intelligence, but that didn’t always equate to morality, much less the complexity of human ethics. Not to mention, this creature was like no animal she had ever seen. She hadn’t known something like this could have ever existed, except maybe a million feet below sea level where the fish were all the more ghastly and colossal. This thing was just…unnatural. Nothing about it fit into a single category enough to be plausible. Like it didn’t belong in this world.

If you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss stares back and wow was that feeling more literal than Serena previously imagined. The eyes that wanted to swallow her up were like floodlights in contrast to the void that was the rest of the monster. It was like it was the personification of a blackhole, pulling the darkness around itself as a cloak and uncaring what was demolished in its hunger. Slowly, it bowed its arms to lower itself in front of her, eyes never leaving her once. She couldn’t look away, her mind was memorized by the glow of colors. It was almost too late when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and saw Its hand cocked and reaching, so close to brushing against her side

Adrenaline pumped through her as if it had been shot directly into her heart. Without a second thought, she twisted away from the clawed fingers before they were able to dig into her flesh, scrambling to pull herself up. Her back hit a hard metal and she didn’t hesitate to grab it off the wall. Small and cylindrical; a fire extinguisher. It was dubious to think a little bit of suppression foam would be the single weakness for a beast of unknown forces, but she didn’t need a total knock out; merely a distraction.

Pin pulled, hose aimed, trigger squeezed – all before the creature had a chance to cage her in. Dense, white mist sprayed into the air, thickening into a light froth that shot directly at its face. It reared back, more out of shock than pain, she imagined, and snarled. If it weren’t for the fact her nerves were already shifted into overdrive to get her moving, she may have frozen with the way the reverb rocked her bones. The monster squeezed its eyes shut to avoid the blast of foam that splattered its face white in a continuous hiss. Now being powdered with the color contrast of its inky hue, she was able to pick out more of its face that she could see previously. Creased eyelids and a pinched brow, tufts of fur that covered from its forehead to its cheekbones like a head of hair, the bridge of a nose, lips curled back to reveal horrifically sharp daggers.

Almost human.

But the wrong kind of human.

Human in the way some fish had two rows of flat teeth that looked like a grin, or how a monkey could stand and walk upright while dragging limbs that were too long, or when an animal’s muzzle deformed to give the appearance of a drooped nose and protruding chin. Things that belonged at the rock bottom of the uncanny valley, that had no business existing as features on anything but a human being. Whatever this thing was, it was too far removed to be a recognizable person, no matter what kind of mask it wore.

While it was vigorously shaking its head to dislodge the foam blinding its eyes, Serena hurled the empty extinguisher to the side in hopes its resounding impact could be mistaken as her. She didn’t bother to wait and see if her bid for a few extra seconds was successful, using her head start to fly out the double doors to her right that led into Warehouse A. Her hand all but punched the emergency fire alarm –

[Note: All emergency calls and alerts have been deactivated by wireless jammers. Requests are transferred to ABC’s mock services and responded with trained personnel.]

– as she sprinted down one of the middle aisles towards the main entrance back into the offices. A piercing siren rang in every room of the building, strobes of red flashing in time to the beat. The echo in the warehouse only made the noise all the more ear bleeding, but she worry too much with how it made her head throb. A migraine was nothing in comparison to being eviscerated by a very nightmarish, very pissed off being from hell that now had a personal vendetta against her. Around her, the surroundings were briefly illuminated in red as the fire alarm screamed for evacuation, only to plunge into total darkness a second later, repeating the cycle. Being able to see, if only for a few moments at a time, was already a godsend. 

But when the world blinked away with each pause of the alarm’s wail, her heart skipped a beat, knowing that was all the creature needed to be virtually invisible to her. Despite the stretch she ran at a speed that would make track stars envious, it didn’t take long for the monster to be hot on her heels. Maybe it was because the alarm was so harsh, or because she could only hear breathing in her ears, or something in the middle of the spectrum, but she hadn’t caught the slightest sound that could have been it thrashing its way out of the storage room to give chase. There was no way it should have been able to wriggle through the warehouse doors, even if it crawled on its stomach, without tearing half the wall out as well.

Had it just…materialized? Poofed out of thin air into the next room over?

There wasn’t much time to dwell on the schematics of the monster chasing her. She could make up all the hypotheses she wanted after she had gotten to safety. If she made it to safety.  

For something so large, it was incredibly light on its feet, barely a tremor on the ground as it pursued behind. Hell, the only reason Serena had realized it was catching up with her was because its shadow was revealed in a flash of red along the racks of shipping crates. She yelped at the proximity and dodged into the open shelving under one of the aisle racks, shoving over a cart of loose hardware fasteners in her haste. Being over in the next row didn’t deter the monster in the slightest. Its arm swiped through the third tier of the rack, sending heavy boxes wrapped in plastic film to rain down on her. She yelped, her arms bracing over her head as she continued to pump her legs faster to avoid being struck. 

Metal groaned under a weight it was not designed to hold. In a flurry of movement, more pallets stored on the upper shelves came crashing to the ground behind her. She could feel the shrapnel of scattering components and splintered wood smack the back of her legs, a near miss from dropping on top of her and shattering her spine on impact. Whether it was stupid or not, she risked throwing a glance behind her to see what the creature was plotting with its makeshift avalanche. To her horror, it had climbed up the shelves to perch almost thirty feet above, making the steel buckle and shake to support its large stature. 

It leapt from the rack on her left to the one on her right, causing even more inventory to go sailing to the ground with a crash. The shelves barely held together from the landing and Serena feared it may go falling in a domino effect on top of her with the way it swayed and screeched. Regardless, the monster didn’t break its stride to pounce forward down the row and purposely send industrial coils of wire careening over the edge. Because it had gained a few feet of lead, something it could have done when she was well within its reach on the floor, she was able to skid to a halt as supplies rained down right in front of her. The forced stop was exactly as it intended, blocking her front and back path along the aisle with smashed stock. 

She thought herself so clever when she squeezed between the gap of shelving units to be back down her original route. The door was straight ahead, just a few more paces, and there were no more racks on either side of her to potentially block her in with debris. Unfortunately, slipping through lower openings was a trick the monster already picked up on mere moments ago. If her lungs didn’t burn like every inhale was ablaze, she might have had the air to scream when it sprung down to land between her and the door. Most of the white powder had dissipated from its face, leaving only its eyes as the key feature to look at. 

Whether washed out in a red light or hidden in the void of black, the only thing Serena could consistently see was its goddamn eyes. 

Her body moved on its own accord before her brain could think of firing off an order. She thought maybe, since she was so small and it was so close, she could juke the creature by running around it to circle back towards the door. There was no time to formulate a plan B when her only options were fight or flight. And ‘fight’ might as well be renamed to ‘instant suicide’. What she hadn’t accounted for in her brilliant scheme for survival was a long, thick appendage to strike against her whole body when she veered from its crouched legs. The collision sent her flying backwards, all of the air being knocked from her lungs and leaving her breathless. In that moment, her shock overtook her brain in a daze, making her forget she was currently being flung off by some type of crime against nature in favor of noting a few new observations.

A tail…it had a freaking tail, one that tapered off like a reptile.

The texture under her hands was smooth but with a slight give, like velvet. Was this what covered the rest of the creature’s exterior?

It had arms like a human – hands and elbows and shoulders that connected to a torso. But its limbs from the waist down were wrong. Its legs looked to bend at an extra angel, each length of bone too long to match human proportions. It was more akin to the hindleg of a dog, which made it easier to move while crouched. 

Human, reptile, dog. What the hell kind of amalgamation was its physique, and how was such a fusion pos–

Her back crashed into the side of a shelving unit with a thud, snapping away her ponderings that only existed for the four seconds she was airborne. She felt her teeth crack together when her head hit a metal crossbeam while the taste of blood filled her mouth from an unknown source. Some sort of choked grunt escaped her lips on impact, but when she crumpled to the floor she could hardly muster a wheeze. No matter how desperately she tried to suck in air, her lungs refused to work, worsening the burn of suffocation in her throat. Stars blotted around the edge of her vision and what she could see kept splitting into blurry doubles. Blinking only made it worse.

It was a good thing she was curled on her stomach as she turned her head and retched. Hardly anything but yellow bile and spit was thrown up, the spasming of her diaphragm making her ribs stab with agony. She made the most miserable sound of pain that could be forced out of her. Everything hurt so fucking much. Her head was swimming, her legs throbbed from exertion, her back ached with the onset of a wicked bruise darkening the skin from her shoulders to her tailbone. Breathing was like inhaling glass. Crying was like setting a firecracker off behind her eyes. In the back of her mind, some basic health class she had taken as an elective course unhelpfully reminded her that pain was good. It meant nothing was numb from blood loss or nerve damage or just completely ripped from her body. It meant she was alive.

She wasn’t so sure she wanted to be alive right now.

How much pain did Ted endure before he succumbed to his wounds? Had it been quick, or was this merely a fraction of the torture he was put through. This alone was pushing Serena past her limits of what she thought she could handle. There was no way she’d be able to stomach anything more brutal than a flick of the monster’s tail. 

She coughed wetly once her lungs had regained the function to breathe, even if it was only shallow gasps. Through her fringe of curls that had fallen over her face, she dared to look at the creature. It looked right back at her. With shame, she could only imagine how downright pitiful she looked from its point of view. Her hair was mussed, her cheeks were wet with tears and runny mascara, blood was smeared from a busted lip onto her chin when she wiped away the dribbles of vomit from her mouth. She was half curled in a fetal position while every inch of her trembled in various amounts of pain. By all accounts, she had clearly conceded to being captured by a predator.

And if the monster was pleased by that, Serena had no way of knowing, because all she had to go off of were unblinking eyes that stared at her with unbridled fascination. Was it impressed by her will to live, or was it simply salivating after working up an appetite? 

“Wh-what…” she rasped. “Wh-what do you want…f-from me…?”

That got the creature’s attention. Really, its attention had always been locked solely on her, but her attempt to provoke a conversation had garnered a quick reaction. It crooned, a stark contrast to the growl it had made when she sprayed extinguisher foam in its face. She couldn’t tell if it was trying to mimic comfort or condescension, either way the low rumble made her break out into goosebumps. It inched closer in that same slow, deliberate way it had tried in the storage room, its body low to the floor as if there was any chance of them being on the same non-threatening eye level. 

“What are you doing?” she asked with a tremble in her voice. “What do you want?”

It didn’t answer. It might not even understand. The only response it offered was another, quieter croon when its face was less than a foot from her. To her absolute horror, the creature parted its lips enough for slivers of white to show, only for those, too, to open further and a long, black tongue to slither out.

She paled, eyes wide in terror. “N-no…no, no, please, god, no!”

Her cries for mercy fell on deaf ears as the creature leaned down.

“No, no, don’t, please, I don’t want, ple - AH! NO!”

Warmth spread along her back and dripped down her collarbone. Thicker than water, thicker than blood; she felt like glue was being poured along the length of her spine and allowed to leak in the crooks of her arm and neck. The weight of the creature’s tongue squished against her thighs and stroked up to her hair, drenching her more with each pass. A shiver of disgust ran through her bones at the sensation of saliva slicking her curls to the nape of her neck. She cried out to make her extreme displeasure known, trying to turn her head enough that spit wouldn’t dribble down her face, but it was of little consequence to the monster.

In fact, the continuous reverb that echoed in its chest indicated it was quite pleased with this development. It must enjoy the taste of sweat and misery because she couldn’t imagine she had anything else to offer its palette. If it weren’t for the fact she was being licked by a ravenous monster that had already shredded one person and had her next on the menu, the soft pressure and heat trailing over her would have felt wonderful for her aching muscles. Instead, it only made her tense and squirm, putting more strain on her body that begged for a moment to recover. When she managed to wriggle half a foot away, the creature paused its lapping to grab hold of her soaked blouse with its teeth and drag her back to her original spot.

The feeling of teeth pressing into her lower back, only for a second, was enough to kick start her adrenal gland into high gear once more. She could already envision them clamping down through her flesh for the first bite now that it had had its fill of savoring her. A phantom pain blossomed along her shoulder blade from the imagery of meat being scraped from the bone. No, no, no, she didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to go out like that. In the short distance she had dragged herself on her arms, she threw out a hand and grabbed hold of a jagged two by four that split from a pallet when it shattered thirty feet below. Splinters from the raw wood dug into her fingers, but the sting was ignored as she pulled it close to her chest. 

Endorphins dulled the pain radiating through her enough that she felt a renewed surge of strength tingle in her muscles. Not wanting to give the creature a chance to resume its tasting, Serena twisted around and swung the wooden shard like a bat. Its mouth was still hovered over her in the transition of nipping and licking, taking the full whack to its lips and teeth. Even if the hit didn’t do too much damage, the slivers of rough wood would surely stab into its gums as little splinters it would have to claw out. The board cracked against one of its fangs, causing it to bark at the unexpected pain shooting down its jaw.

Its head snapped to the side following the motion. The tongue that had been happily gliding over Serena now prodded at the tooth she hit, swiping around the gum to feel for swelling or bleeding. She would have loved to relish in her minor victory of causing any miniscule amount of discomfort to a monster she thought was indomitable, but that celebration would have to hold off. As soon as its attention was diverted by the shock of being struck, she rolled out from under its looming form and clambered onto her feet in a mad dash for the office doors. It growled sharply at her retreating figure once it saw where she had fled, though that didn’t stop her from disappearing into the main building and smashing the automatic lock button on the keypad. 

Would a flimsy internal mechanism keep out a forty-some foot tall being from clawing through a single door? No. Especially not if it really didn’t need to use human entrances to go from one room to another. Still, it provided a tiny bit of security that her mind needed to cling to to stay sane a little while longer. She turned to make a break for it down the hall, only to slam her knees on the edge of a copy machine from the customer service department.

The furniture had been moved again, pulled from walls and offices to create a maze of obstacles that couldn’t be solved with a straight line. 

When the hell had it managed this!? It was clearly a set up meant to delay her escape long enough that the monster could catch up to her. Which meant last night, when it had done the same thing, it had been pursuing her all the way out the front door without her even knowing. Well, no, she knew something was lurking around, but the new knowledge that it could have sprung on her at any given time and chose not to made her chest seize. Unlike then, however, the current total blackout was interrupted by a flashing fire alarm that lit up the hallway in timed bursts to guide her through. She bobbed and weaved between desks and machinery, vaulted over toppled chairs and sidestepped waste bins and boxes that tried to snag her foot. 

Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the screech of metal followed by a cacophony of crashes muffled only by the siren still ringing throughout the building. Wherever the monster had manifested itself, it was soon to be closing in on its target as it barreled through the traps it laid for her. She knew there wouldn’t be enough time for her to make it to the main entry. It was bigger than her, faster, and as soon as it whipped around the corner and had her in its unsettling sight it would be game over. Her only hope was to hide and pray it couldn’t scent track. If she could just hold out long enough, maybe the fire department would be here soon to respond to the pulled alarm. And then, while the firefighters tried to keep the creature at bay with the water spray of their hose before being mauled, she might have a long enough diversion to slip out a back door.

Where the fuck was the fire department?

Up ahead, the open door to the finance office inspired a new idea in her rattled brain. Her phone line was still active, the caller didn’t hang up until after the power was cut. If she could find somewhere to stay out of view with the phone, she could call for a myriad of help. Police weren’t good for much, but they knew how to pack an artillery when the chance arose to use it. 

Serena shut the door behind her and rushed to her desk, grabbing the phone, receiver and all, and tucked herself under a neighboring cubicle. This might be Janice’s desk. Or was it Jessica? It didn’t matter, it was going to serve as her impromptu shelter during a deadly game of hide and seek. She balled up her fist and bit her finger until she could even out her breathing into something less hysterical. As urgent as she wanted her call to come across, it still needed to be quiet and coherent for the dispatcher. When she was able to swallow down the lump in her throat, she used the same teeth indented finger to dial 911.

Outside, a watercooler shattered. The monster was clearing a path down the hall.

–

[Phone Call Transcript]

[0:00:03] ABC Operative: 911, what’s your emergency?

[0:00:06] Boyd: Please, I, I-I need help! I’m trapped, I can’t get out, there’s, th-there’s, it’s in the building with me!

[0:00:13] ABC Operative: Yes ma’am, but I’m going to need you to remain calm so we can send help. What’s your location?

[0:00:21] Boyd: I’m at WerTech Productions, [RETACTED], n-near the entrance, please, just get someone here!

[0:00:28] ABC Operative: We have officers in route. You’re saying there’s an intruder on the property?

[0:00:35] Boyd: Yes, yes, it’s been here! It’s been after me for days and it’s, oh fuck, oh my god…

[0:00:42] ABC Operative: Ma’am –

[0:00:43] Boyd: It killed the security guard. T-Ted Milton. It ripped him apart!

[0:00:49] ABC Operative: Medical will be dispatched. The intruder has a weapon, then?

[0:00:54] Boyd: No! N-no, no, it is the weapon, it’s…it’s not human! I-I don’t, I don’t know what it is but, please, please, you need to send more people! I can’t, I –

[0:01:08] ABC Operative: Ma’am, I need you to calm down. You are aware that you’ve called 911, correct?

[0:01:17] Boyd: Wh- yes! Yes, I need help, I’m going to die!

[0:01:23] ABC Operative: Are you on any substances or prescribed medications that may cause hallucinations as a side effect?

[0:01:30] Boyd: No!

[0:01:32] ABC: Are you possibly suffering from extreme mental distress?

[0:01:38] Boyd: Of fucking course I am! Something is hunting me down and you’re not listening to me! I’m serious, there’s something out there, i-it killed Ted! Fucking send someone before it finds me!

[0:01:51] ABC Operative: Are you currently in a secure location?

[0:01:56] Boyd: I-I’m hiding in one of the offices, but I can hear it nearby. I, I don’t think it knows where I am…

[0:02:03] ABC Operative: That’s good, try to remain in place until officers arrive on the scene.

[0:02:10] ABC Operative: [Off Screen] Now?

[0:02:14] - The National Emergency Alert System Signal is remotely played through the phone line and out of Subject’s earpiece speaker at 120 dBA

[0:02:16] Boyd: What? What is that?

[0:02:20] Boyd: Wh-, s-stop, stop, turn that off! It’s too loud, it’s going to hear you!

[0:02:26] Boyd: Please, please, stop!

[0:02:31] Boyd: Stop, hang up! Fucking–

–

“- hang up!”

No matter how frantically she slammed the handset down on the switch hook, she couldn’t get the sound to stop blaring from the speaker. In her desperation, she was more so trying to break the phone against its own base to cut off the awful noise. It was just as loud as the fire siren, all the more easier to hear over the shrieking white noise that had been deafening her for too long. Her eardrums throbbed, worsening the pressure behind her eyes from the headache she hadn’t been able to shake yet. She grabbed at the cord that trailed back to the telephone jack by her desk and yanked as hard as she could with a petulant whine.

The cable went taunt, but didn’t pop from the socket it was clipped into. She couldn’t get the leverage she needed for a strong enough pull. In a last ditch effort, she threw the phone system across the room to at least get it the fuck away from her as to not be so close of a pinpoint to her exact location. It didn’t go too far as it was still tethered by the phone jacket and clattered in a heap near the metal cabinets against the wall, continuing to scream. Serena wanted –

[Note: Because Subject was unable to end the call on her end, ABC Operators are still able to hear and record the final interaction via the wiretap as well.]

–to scream, too. So, she did. She threaded her fingers through her hair that was still damp with saliva and dug her nails into her roots and sobbed.

“Shut up, shut up!” she cried at the phone. “Please, stop!”

She cut off her miserable wailing with a stifled whimper, clasping her hands over her mouth like she was holding back even a single exhale from escaping. Right outside the door, she heard the creature make a low, pleased chitter. It found her. Maybe it always would have found her eventually, but in this case she knew her fate had been sealed by a dispatcher with clumsy fingers. Regardless of how many officers and EMTs and firefighters were sent, they’d never make it in time to save her before the monster had its way with her. If anyone was sent at all for anything but a wellness check on a delusional woman. She squeezed her eyes shut, though tears still found a way down her cheeks.

No one was coming for her.

Between the alert blaring from the phone speaker and the fire alarm playing in surround sound, it was impossible for her to strain her hearing for the creature. It was loud when it wanted to be, as demonstrated by its vocals and disregard for office equipment that was in its way, yet it could be whisper quiet in the same breath when it was on the prowl. How many times had it trailed behind her when she was none the wiser? Always out of sight, but always within reach. She held her breath until her lungs burned, just in case a sniffle gave her away. Who knows what other unfair advantages the thing may have over her.

For a moment, there was nothing, only two alarms whooping in tandem in an empty office. In that period, Serena felt she was hyperware of everything but the monster. She could feel how her ruined blouse stuck to her back with spit that had significantly cooled, she could smell Ted’s blood that still flaked off the hands around her mouth, she could hear every swallow crackle in her ears while trying to silence any stray sob. Time stretched from seconds to minutes, just as when she had been thrown into the side of a rack.

Then time resumed when black fingers curled over the edge of the desk she took refuge under, its claws digging into the laminate material like butter. In a flick of the wrist, the desk was pulled up and tossed aside to hit the ceiling behind the creature, landing on the cubicles below in a flurry of paper and broken dividers. Serena shrieked, pitching back until her elbows caught her from fully hitting the floor. She hadn’t heard it come in or disturb any of the other desks to accommodate its size while it made its way to her hiding spot. How was it getting into places without a peep only to run through it like a tornado a moment later!?

“Get away from me!” She crawled backwards, her hand pawing for anything useful that might give her her third head start. “Please, please, leave me alone!” 

Another sob tore from her throat when she was naturally forced into a staring contest with its eyes. Usually, they were wide like a child in wonderment, fully engrossed by Serena and wanting to commit every second to memory. Now, however, the lids were slightly narrowed down at her. Not entirely a glare, but enough to convey the feeling of irritation that was directed at her and her alone. This was the second time she’d thrown something of mild annoyance at its face and scurried off; the game was already getting stale if the creature wasn’t the one winning. But it was the winner because it always found her minutes after fleeing, it just didn’t like the fact she was the one resetting the chase instead of staying captured.

It stalked towards her with a low rumble. When it looked like she might try to get up, the monster darted forward to slam its hands on either side of her. The sudden lunge was enough to startle her flat on her back with a squeal, wincing when the tender spot on her head bumped against the floor. She tried to scramble and roll over on her side to get up, or at least get out of the way, but the creature was too fast for that from where it hovered overhead. It bared its fangs with a short growl and when that only heightened her struggles, it leaned down to snap its teeth an inch from her stomach. The fear of having a bite taken out of her abdomen paralyzed her. She laid immobilized, arms shielding her tear stricken face and legs trembling worse than a newborn fawn.

Seeing that she had finally ceased her fruitless fight, the next croon it made lacked the temper it had before, accompanied with a soft nip to her chest that inadvertently shredded the green ruffle along the placket. Better it be her shirt that was torn by teeth rather than the quivering skin underneath, she supposed. Still, that didn’t stop the strangled keen stuck in her throat. It added insult to injury by flicking the tip of its tongue from her neck up her cheek in misguided praise for her submission, coating the flushed skin with a sheen of salvia. She grit her teeth, shaking her head to signify her dismay.

“Let me go,” she tried to beg. “Please, I, I-I don’t know what you want. Just let me go.”

It chirped a reply, the vibration making her bones turn to jelly from such close contact. The creature buried its nose into the crook of her neck and purred, the tremors nearly making her body go numb. She cried out, wanting so badly to shimmy from underneath where it kept her pinned, but the mouth that was pressed into her abdomen as it nuzzled stilled any attempt of a struggle. One wrong twitch and it might take that as an invitation to carve out her intestines for not heeding its earlier warning.

Though she couldn’t move, Serena had little control over the mewls of terror it elicited from her. “S-stop, please, get off, get off,” her weepy pleas were dangerously close to becoming hysterical. “Don’t hurt me, please, god…”

The monster gave pause in its touching with a curious grumble, the purrs fading from its chest as it pulled back to look down on her. With some relief, its eyes no longer regarded her with annoyance for her behavior, though that didn’t mean it was any more of a comfort to stare into them head on. She shrunk in on herself, unable to gauge its change in mood. Had she offended it with her babbling? Was it done playing with its food now that she had been properly put in her place? Was it being intentionally cruel in the way it tormented her, or was it simply natural behavior in the way a cat toys with an injured mouse for fun?

A hand lifted from its perch beside her and extended a single finger. With bated breath, she did her absolute damnedest to stay where she was lest she tick the monster off for a third, and likely final, time. She winced at the feeling of its claw brushing her tangled fringe out of her face, the tip nicking her temple and drawing a stinging bead of blood. That didn’t dissuade its tracing from her jawline down to her neck, slowing its descent for a moment to admire the way her throat bobbed with a nervous gulp, so close to being slit wide open if it wasn’t more mindful with its claws. The pad of its finger rubbed against her collarbone and continued down to the curve of her chest before stopping.

Even at their difference in size, Serena knew it had to be able to feel how her heart was hammering under the sternum it was prodding. With a grumbling hum, it pushed down a fraction, earning a squealing gasp from the poor girl like a squeaky toy. Thankfully, the creature didn’t try to poke any harder or she thought its finger might penetrate straight through to her spine.

Satisfied with…whatever it was hoping to accomplish, it let its finger slide off of her and sat further back on its haunches to observe its prey. It stared at her. She stared at it. It tilted its head with a croon and she nervously darted her eyes around the office for something. Its tail languidly thumped against a cubicle partition. Her chest started to heave with short, quick breaths of unbridled panic. It did nothing. She snapped.

Damn it all to hell.

The overwhelming urge to survive until her last gasp was ripped from her lungs refused to let her lay there until the creature made the first move to slaughter it at its leisure. Miserable as it was, the reality of her situation was that Serena could either die now, or she could die later at an unknown time. Regardless, she wouldn’t be making it out of the front door alive. As much as she would have liked her demise to be relatively painless, the uncertainty of when her gory death was to occur was almost half the agony. Waiting for the brutal inevitable was far worse than getting it over with so she could be relieved of this nightmare sooner. 

She knew it wouldn’t like her turning over and clambering on a rolling chair to heave herself up after it had just gotten her to yield. She really couldn’t give two fucks about what it thought, much less when already thought she was a catch that needed to be reprimanded before the end. If it was going to kill her, she may as well go out with the knowledge that at least she died swinging. Even if it was quite the unfair fight. It wouldn’t be the coward’s way out.

Of course, she would have liked it if the creature granted her a little more dignity to stand tall before it pounced. Her hands had barely found purchase on the armrests of the chair to help her sit up when it decided she was already moving too far away. A scream rivaling the decibels of the fire alarm made her throat burn, almost animalistic in the way it ripped from her diaphragm. Her body was encased in a damp warmth, pinpricks digging into her back and stomach that welled up with blood if she twisted too hard against them. A familiar tongue pressed to her arm and side, instantly coating half of her in a sticky wetness. One hand was able to flail and claw and grab hold of whatever she could for leverage, scratching across velvety skin. The other could only knock against hard pillars and spit-slick flesh, blinding pushing away the prodding muscle and smacking the roof of the humid cavern she was partly ensnared in.

This is it, Serena thought. Tears of pain and frustration clumped her lashes but refused to fall out of spite. Though her mind naturally screamed at her to struggle with all the strength she had to dislodge herself, the movements only caused her to be cut deeper by teeth. What did that matter, anyways? She had already been snatched up in the creature’s fucking mouth, held in place by fangs that only needed a nibble to tear into fat. One bite and she would be gone. A single chomp would sever forty percent of her body from itself. Assuming it wouldn’t just toss its head back and swallow her whole like a pelican. Assuming it wouldn’t take enjoyment chewing on every non vital part of her anatomy to prolong the experience and savor the adrenaline seasoned meat.

The creature didn’t clamp down. Despite her clumsy wiggling and grunts of pain caused by her own doing, it didn’t apply any additional pressure beyond what was needed to keep her securely in its mouth with minimal discomfort. She was almost waiting for it to violently throw her about like a dog with a rabbit’s neck locked its jaws, but what it did instead was far worse. 

It shifted itself to be upright on its hands and hind feet and walked away from the debris field it made, Serena partially dangling from its mouth with no say in being carried off.

“What, wh-what are you doing!?” she called to it, only able to see the creature’s hands as it batted a few desks out of its way towards the door. “Put me down! Let go, put me down! Stop!”

One second, they were approaching the office wall directly facing the hallway, its door comically small for the monster to try and squeeze through. The world around Serena flashed from red, to black, to red, as the fire alarm tirelessly called for emergency. In the next moment, just when everything had disappeared into the blackout, her surroundings showed to now be the main hallway washed in red light. The creature continued down the hall without breaking stride, returning in the direction of Warehouse A with Serena held fast. She couldn’t begin to comprehend the transition that led her outside of the office in the blink of an eye without a wall being knocked down. Whatever the monster had done, it made her feel lightheaded, like she had just stepped off a whirlwind ride at the fair after having been on it seventeen times in a row.

Everything was so dizzying and spacey all of a sudden. Her limbs drooped from where they had tried to shove against the creature’s mouth, her head lolling with a whimper of confusion. Was that how it was able to seamlessly travel between rooms – through some usage of the dark? No wonder it unsettled her so much recently; she was potentially surrounded by an open door any time the lights were shut off. The travel between shadows was not made for human bodies to fare well in. 

“Please…stop…”

[Note: While following Abnormality down Hallway 3 and Hallway 5, CCTV cameras lost contact and cut off shortly after. Power was not restored until 4:37 A.M.]

–

END OF THIRD NIGHT

–

Picture Left [ID - CCTV still frame of Boyd in Abnormality’s mouth.]

Though not captured on footage or phone call, Boyd is presumed to have been killed by Abnormality for the end of its hunt.

ABC cleanup services were deployed to WerTech Production Headquarters the following morning to dispose of evidence:

The body of Ted Milton was collected and destroyed

Ted Milton’s and Serena Boyd’s cars were removed and shredded

Hidden cameras and bugs were removed 

CCTV footage was wiped back until 7:30 P.M. the following night

An electrical fire was staged to have effected - Storage One, Finance Office Two, Warehouse A, & Hallway 5

Note: Boyd’s remains were not recovered during this sweep. It is believed she may have been killed off property.

Surveillance of the building permitted to continue through WerTech’s internal security systems until Abnormality is located and returned to ABC’s facility.

–

AB299 Behavioral Theories - Updated

Previous theories for Abnormality’s change in behavior have been revised in light of the events pertaining to the third day of observation.

Savor Theory - Due to the prolonged nature of its hunt, it is likely Abnormality was taking pleasure rather than acting solely on hunger. This theory is to be refined and added to Intelligence Capability file.

Courtship Theory - While some behaviors may be similar to socialization displayed in the animal kingdom, it must be kept in mind Abnormality is not part of that. This theory has been scrapped. 

Enrichment Theory - Because Abnormality has confirmed to have killed at least one person, it can be concluded this was an active hunt. This theory has been scrapped in favor of ‘Savor Theory’. 

–

Sixth Day 

[Two (2) days since Abnormality last spotted]

–

MORNING OVERVIEW

No activity has been noted at WerTech Production Headquarters over the weekend aside from authorized clean up by ABC personnel. Business proceeded as usual for scheduled operating hours.

Artificial rumors were circulated through employees to cover up remaining evidence of Abnormality and Boyd’s interactions:

Areas staged with electrical fire damage were tarped off for repair; displaced employees were placed in temporary offices

An email was sent from Ted Milton’s address to announce his immediate resignation; no questions were asked

An email was sent from Serena Boyd’s address to confirm her hours were approved for graduation; she was not expected to return 

Abnormality has not been found on property or around the local area at this time. While it is unusual for it to return to the same location after a successful hunt, the possibility cannot be ruled out due to behavioral changes.

–

Picture Left [ID - CCTV still frame of Boyd exiting custodial closet in Hallway 1. She is surrounded by three (3) employees who offer assistance.]

SERENA BOYD’S RETURN

Unexpectedly, Boyd reappeared at WerTech Production Headquarters at 5:49 P.M. in which she enters from a closet. There is no archived footage showing her entering or exiting the closet prior to this reveal. It is unknown if she had been in there since Abnormality’s disappearance.

Seven (7) WerTech employees were in the building when Boyd stumbled into the hallway and collapsed. An intercepted call to 911 was made by an employee that was answered by ABC’s mock service.

Three (3) ABC personnel with Level 4 clearance were dispatched to the scene as two (2) officers and a paramedic.

Witnesses stated that Boyd appeared out of nowhere and was extremely unfocused. They were unable to get her to speak or walk without support. 

Note: All employees were required to wait in the break room under the supervision of an ABC agent until Boyd was assessed.

–

Medical Assessment: Serena Boyd

Clouded eyes; unable to follow penlight movement 

Vision improvements thirty minutes after recovery

No reaction to auditory stimuli; delayed nerve reaction to physical stimuli

Motor improvements forty-two minutes after recovery

Slurred speech; unable to support head when sitting up and continually slouching to the side

Balance improvements thirty-six minutes after recovery

Speech improvements twenty minutes after recovery

Full body tremors

Low body temperature - 95.8 F

Temperature increased to 99.3 F fifteen minutes after recovery

Ashened complex

Gaps in short term memory

Bruising along abdomen and mid back; scabbed lacerations on posterior and anterior 

Dizziness; nausea

No signs of sleep deprivation or malnutrition despite having been missing for sixty-six hours

–

Picture Left [ID - CCTV still frame of Boyd and two (2) ABC personnel seated at a table in a manager's office. She is slouched in a chair with a shock blanket draped over her.]

The Interview Incident

ABC personnel privately interviewed Boyd on her experience when she was coherent enough to participate over an hour later. It is not believed she suspects them of being undercover operatives.

During the interview, Abnormality has returned to the property.

–

Her eyes remained glued to the glass of water she had been offered earlier at the medic’s insistence for hydration, transfixed on the droplets of condensation that slid down the sides into a growing puddle at the base. That would leave a ring stain on the desk’s finish; she should get a coaster. She should also probably drink the water that was almost room temperature by now, but she didn’t want it. She wasn’t thirsty, just a slight headache, and she worried the shake of her fingers might cause the glass to slip and spill should she try to hold it. 

“-to an extremely traumatic event,” the officer continued. His words faded in and out of her ears in little fragmented sentences. They’d been talking to her for a length of time but made little progress in cracking her case. She couldn’t even remember their names. “I know it might be hard, but we need you to try to remember anything about what happened.”

“What happ’nd?” she repeated, her tongue feeling heavy in her mouth. It sounded more like Serena was the one asking them for clarification about what took place rather than the other way around. 

He nodded at her patiently. “You’ve been missing for two days, Ms. Boyd. Can you tell us what happened the night you disappeared?”

“Two…days?” Her brow scrunched in confusion. Days didn’t sound right. If it had been days, she would be hungry and grimey, wouldn’t she? The only thing she felt now was exhaustion in the way that everything ached and nothing worked as a remedy. 

“Did it not feel like days to you?” He asked.

She shook her head and immediately regretted the action with a wince.

“How long do you think you were gone for?”

“Gone? Where…where’d I go?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” the medic said with a sympathetic smile. Weird that she was also present for a police interview, but maybe it was in case Serena collapsed face first on the desk.

The officer pushed a tape player across the desk so that it could be in the middle of them. “Let’s start from the beginning, try and jog your memory a bit.” He pressed the red play button, her own voice playing from the staticky speakers in clear distress with a 911 dispatcher. “Do you remember making this call?”

Immediately, she curled in on herself and whimpered. Her shaking worsened, breathing quickening to shallow pants as she listened to herself beg for someone to help her from a gigantic monster prowling in the halls. 

“It killed the security guard. T-Ted Milton. It ripped him apart!” her past self sobbed.

Ted. Oh god, Ted. Gone and bloody and broken and pulverized and shredded and dead dead dead dead –

In an act of mercy, the medic reached over to stop the tape. “Deep breaths, Serena, or your blood pressure might crash again.” 

She gulped, screwing up her face in a bid not to cry as the memory of Ted’s eviscerated corpse washed over her before fading into obscurity, safely repressed once more. “N…no one came…”

“We did,” he said softly. “but you were already gone when we arrived on the scene.”

“Can you tell us about what you were running from? What you think killed your friend?” the medic encouraged.

The monster. The void that had shaped itself into an unnatural form with fangs and claws and horrible, horrible eyes. Bent legs and a tail, a face too human for comfort, throaty grumbles and a slick tongue. Any time she closed her eyes, glanced at a shadow, she swore she could see it lurking somewhere in the depths of darkness. Inescapable. 

“I don’t…I dunno,” she squeezed out.

“You do know,” the officer said. It wasn’t accusatory, but it was firm, like a teacher wanting a student to solve a problem on their own. “It’s somewhere in there, but you have to work with us so we can get it out.”

She buried her face in her hands and groaned. “‘m trying…”

“I know, and we need you to try a little harder. What were you running from, Ms. Boyd?”

Her hands dropped to her lap in exasperation, already feeling dizzy again with this constant runaround of being asked the same questions with the same answers. The things she did know didn’t make sense, and the things she didn’t know refused to come out of hiding in the recesses of her trauma. Was it that she didn’t want to relive those memories, or were they, in fact, moments in time she was beyond comprehending?

“Wh’does it matter, you won’t believe me,” she snapped. “No one believed me. You’ll jus’ think I’m crazy, or, or, tell me I’m having an episode and that I…”

She cut off her own thoughts with a sickening realization. Of course these two wouldn’t believe her story about a monster in the dark, just as no one took her seriously about her growing anxiety prior or when she tried to call for help. Outside of her own head, she could recognize how absurd the claim was and how it would hardly stand as evidence about the real culprit of Ted’s slaying. They were trying to evaluate how much of the monster was truly all within her head as a manifestation of stress, looking for the trigger that may have caused a psychotic breakdown that resulted in her brutalizing her coworker before fleeing the scene in a daze.

“You…you think I did it, don’t you? Y-you think I killed Ted, a-and, and I’m making this all up.”

“Serena, no,” the medic reached her hand across the desk again to place it over Serena’s trembling one. She gave her fingers a warm squeeze. “I think we’re the only ones who do believe you. And you know what else I think? I really think you saw something that night that shouldn’t exist, and I think it had something to do with your disappearance.”

The kind reassurance that she wasn’t being interrogated as a delusional murder suspect made her want to cry. Not that she did have any hand in Ted’s death, to her knowledge. She bit her lip, pulling the shock blanket tighter around her shoulders to conceal the way she shook in the chair. Was it too late to ask for a lawyer? She hadn’t been read any Miranda rights yet, had she? There was a vague recollection of the officer telling her that she wasn’t in trouble, this was simply to gather what information they could to help her, not convict her. 

The medic rubbed her thumb on the back of Serena’s hand, looking at her with those kind, green eyes. “Where did you go, Serena?”

She couldn’t help the sob that slipped out, stifling the rest of it with a sniffle. “I..I don’t…I don’t know…”

Before either of the responders could start again with their circular questions, she pushed on to wring what she could from her muddled mind. “I dunno what it was. It…I try…it’s so fuzzy in my head when I think about it. And, and I don’t know if maybe…that has something to do with it. Like…like it’s…” she grit her teeth at the pounding behind her eyes. “It gives me a headache.”

“What was it like? Can you tell us anything about how it looked?” The officer asked.

She swallowed. “No, everything in my mind is just…dark. And when I think I remember something it…there’s…I can’t describe it. I see it but I just, I can’t, it’s not…it’s like I’m trying to make something that isn’t real.”

The medic nodded at her with some type of understanding. “You were somewhere your psyche couldn’t handle.”

“Hm…?”

“It’s like…for us, we can see things in two- and three-dimensions. That’s normal, we can process those things. But when we try to picture something in a fourth- or fifth-dimension, it’s impossible,” she explained. “But those planes of existence are still out there, allegedly.”

She blinked slowly at the other woman. “You think I…slipped between dimensions?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” she said.

Her eyes looked between the officer and the medic, almost like she had fallen back into her half comatose state. “That’s…”

“I know,” the officer sighed. “But so is being chased around by a shadow monster, Ms. Boyd.”

“I’m not lying about that!”

“I know,” he repeated. “So we can’t rule out anything that happened to you afterwards yet. Not until you can tell us exactly what occurred.”

“I…I told you, I can’t remember,” she winced again at the sharp stab in her skull, pressing the heel of her hand against her temple to alleviate the pain. “I was here and then I wasn’t and there were…it was dark but there were these, like, just…”

“These what?”

“...colors. Things were in colors but…colors I’ve never seen before, ever. And I try to look at ‘em but I can’t see them, but it was so…blinding, I think, I don’t know. It hurt my eyes.”

The medic rested her chin on her propped up fist. “That must be why your memories are blacked out. You’re trying to remember them in color shades that don’t exist, so you can’t picture anything.”

That made a fair bit of sense if Serena was to believe she had really been kidnapped to an alternate dimension by a shadow hopping creature for one reason or another. Just thinking that made her want to check herself into the looney bin for an extended vacation, apparently with the two responders as well who were only feeding into her hysteria. 

“Let’s talk a little more about your attacker,” the officer redirected. “Do you remember your encounters with it before you went missing?”

It was hard to think about, but she nodded.

“Do you remember what it looked like? How it acted?”

She nodded again. 

“Tell us what you can about it.”

The shock blanket crinkled as she dug her fingers into the outside material, a sense of dread washing over her immediately from just having to relive being in its presence. “Big. It had fangs and claws and it…it was like this demon-man-dog thing, I don’t know. And, and it was all black with yellow and red eyes, but, but you could only see the eyes.” She gave a shuddering sigh. “It…hurt me a little, but…but nothing like it did to Ted. I don’t, I don’t think it was trying to…”

“How often was it with you in the two days you were gone?”

“Not…I don’t think all the time. I felt like I was running nowhere a lot, but, but not for two days.”

The medic hummed. “Did it feel longer or shorter?”

“Both. Like, like when you’re having a nightmare.”

“And how did you get out of your nightmare?” she asked.

Their impossible, neverending questions were starting to make Serena feel faint again. Her migraine was worsening with each instance she needed to recall from a reality that didn’t exist. She felt like she was going to throw up if the stress caused her stomach to tie itself into one more knot in her jumbled guts. No amount of deep breathing could slow the beat of her heart that banged furiously within her ribcage, further aggravating the purple bruises that mottled her skin. There was a right answer for everything the responders asked, so tantalizingly close in her mind, yet stubbornly guarded by an annoying little disorder called PTSD that refused to let her open Pandora’s box. 

What was the worst that could happen; she goes completely mad like the protagonist of a Lovecraft novel who tried to understand a concept outside of human knowledge? Hey, if she became a raving lunatic, at least they’d be able to string together better answers from her ramblings than her repeatedly mumbled ‘I don’t know’s.

“I just…did,” she said with a strain in her voice. “I couldn’t see where I was going and…and I ran into something. And I felt around, and I found the knob and…I was here.”

She slumped deeper in the chair, avoiding either of the responder’s gaze so as to hide the tears burning in her eyes. “I don’t wanna be here. I, I don’t want to go back there anymore. I wanna go home…”

To her credit, the medic looked extremely consoling to Serena’s plight, but the tight smile she offered was that classic you’re-not-going-to-like-this-but-we-need-to-do-it-anyways look all medical professions gave their patients who felt the remedy was worse than their sickness. “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.”

“Why not?” she whined, like a goddamn child. 

“Your condition needs to be monitored. Even under normal circumstances, you’re still in shock. It wouldn’t be safe to leave you alone,” she explained. “But we can make sure you have the treatment if you’d be willing to be admitted to a private hospital.”

She paled. “A psych ward?”

“No, Ms. Boyd, it’s not a state sponsored institution,” the officer said. “It’s a very respectable facility that has numerous therapies to help. Therapies that can pull those memories out and help with the pain.”

“You do think I’m crazy.”

“We think you need help processing your trauma, not because we think you’re imagining it.” 

“It’s to keep an eye on your physical well-being, too,” the medic added. “You were in a pretty rough state a couple hours ago.”

The officer nodded once. “ABC can take good care of you. We can take you to their facility for an overnight stay, just to ease your mind, and have you discharged in the morning.”

“Well…provided you pass the examinations, of course. We can’t have you discharged if you’re still in clear medical distress, but after those though, yes.”

Something niggled in the back of Serena’s mind, almost missed by the severity of the headache that was making her brain throb. It was a tiny little prickle; the same feeling that made her spine tingle and her hands clench, the same feeling she had felt when walking through dark spots in the building less than a week before. Intuition. The sense of dread that something was very, very wrong even if anything had yet to happen. It had been right so far, despite hindsight reminding her that she hadn't taken the warnings as seriously as she should have.

don’t go don’t go don’t go don’t trust don’t go don’t go don’t trust don’t trust don’t go

But why not? They were the only ones who believed a word she said. A few internet forums might also believe her wild claims about giant monsters and worlds beyond their own, but these were two people that were legit. An officer of the law, sworn to serve and protect, and a medical technician dedicated to save lives – who better to guarantee her protection? In fact, these were the last two people she would have ever thought would agree that not only that she had been stalked and kidnapped by an otherworldly being, but that her coworker had been slaughtered by it as well with no suspicion pointing to her at all. Cops and EMTs were always the one having to talk down the crazed druggies going on about how they had to kill their spouse to prevent an alien apocalypse, after all.

Even if it was odd that the offices at WerTech were still open despite being what should be an active crime scene. Even if the officer didn’t wear a name badge. Even if the medic was present and asking questions unrelated to her health. Even if neither of them were taking notes the entire interview with no camera or voice recorder in sight besides the tape player containing her paused 911 call. Even if they cared more about where she disappeared to rather than what took place prior that resulted in a man’s death, as if they had already figured that part out without her input. Even if she had never heard of a place called ABC that specialized in hospice. 

If her brain hadn’t been so clouded with such a thick fog, she may have picked up on these inconsistencies throughout the interview process. But the fact of the matter was that she was lucky if she could hold on to a thought for longer than a second before it disappeared into static. Her past was a blur and her present was already getting fuzzy at the edges in real time. All she could rely on was that instinctive pull that was trying to steer her away from a threat she couldn’t understand. The last time, that threat had been a rampaging creature. It was most certainly in her best interest to listen again, despite the desire to be around the experts of her situation.

“I don’t think…my insurance would cover that,” she said as a pitiful excuse. “Can I–”

The lights flickered. Serena froze. They then went out for one, two, three seconds before blinking back to undisturbed brightness. The officer and medic glanced at each other in a way that told her they were thinking the exact thing she was, though they were far more calm about it. However, the lights had never turned back on after an unexpected blackout before, and she was waiting for one of them to dash her worries by saying something about a shoddy generator or broken breaker box to explain the weak electricity. They didn’t. 

“Call for C Team,” the medic ordered. Her partner nodded and, rather than using the radio clipped to his shoulder as Serena had seen most officers do, he pulled out some kind of sleek, flat device from his pocket.

“Requesting immediate dispatch; C Team to WerTech. AB299 possibly on premise,” he spoke into it.

A voice crackled from the other end. “C Team inbound. Status on subject?”

“Conscious and in custody.”

What the hell did that mean? Was she the subject? And what was C Team, and who the hell were any of these people!?

“What’s, wh-what’s going on?” she asked, only to be promptly ignored by both responders, whom she had a sneaking suspicion weren’t real responders at all. No, actually, they were technically responders, just not for any emergency service the general public could call. 

The ‘medic’ hefted her black bag onto the desk and rummaged through the contents within. “Check with Jack that we have the building on lockdown and all seven witnesses accounted for. If any of them get out, it’ll be Atlanta all over again.”

“Don’t remind me,” he grimaced. He pressed another button on his strange walkie-talkie, presumably to switch the channel. “Jack, what’s your status?”

Staticky dead air responded. The ‘officer’ waited a beat before trying again. “Jack, are you there? What’s the status update?”

This time, the silence was broken in a series of snaps and sizzles of various volumes, occasionally cut in by what could only be described as electronic shrieking. Or was it real shrieking? It was too distorted to tell, but someone was clearly trying to signal back with little success. 

“-ere-”

“Jack, you’re breaking up.”

“-abn – in buil – trapped – eed bac – need! –”

The speaker was blown out by white noise, then cut off entirely.

“Shit,” the ‘officer’ muttered, switching back to his other line. “AB299 confirmed on premise. Sounds like it just took out Jack.”

“C Team is seven minutes out,” the other voice said.

The ‘medic’ pulled out what looked to be something similar to a zip tie, made of a thick white material and with two loops at the bottom of the clasp instead of one. “Go check and make sure we have the location secured. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out. They should have all been in the break room at the other end of he buildingl.”

“What about her?” he asked with a gesture to Serena, who seemed to have been forgotten during this exchange. She couldn’t even dignify that with a response, let alone think of anything that wasn’t ‘what the absolute fuck are you guys talking about?’.

“I’ll take care of her,” the ‘medic’ replied. Those ties in her hand were suddenly much more threatening with the looming promise to ‘take care of’ a girl who had seen more than she bargained for. “If AB299 gets a hold of her, it might try to take her back and we’ll have to start from scratch.”

“Who the hell are you people!?” Serena finally cried, slamming her hands on the desk as she forced herself to stand despite the black spots that made her head spin. Her outburst had almost no reaction on either of them, only regarding her with cool indifference. 

The ‘medic’ jerked her head at her partner. “Take care of the witnesses while you’re at it.”

“Understood,” was all he said before leaving the office. 

That just left Serena and the other impersonator alone in the enclosed room, one of the women being at a slightly higher advantage when it came to mental clarity and reflexes at the moment. Unfortunately for Serena, she was also the one with the weird zip ties that were either meant for her wrists or her throat. Both did not sound like very great options. The ‘medic’s eyes lost the warm hospitality that had lulled her in during the interview, replaced now with an icy professionalism that gave way she didn’t care one way or another if a supposed patient was lost on her watch. Especially if it involved seven of them being coworkers who were only trying to help. 

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions, Serena,” she started, taking a step forward as Serena took a wobbly one back. 

“Shut the fuck up,” she hissed. To that, the other woman blinked. “You’re…you have something to do with that thing, don’t you? You, you created, or something, or –”

“The only thing I am associated with is the Abnormality Breach & Containment organization. I have nothing to do with AB299’s attachment towards you,” she explained. Ah, so that’s what ABC meant. That cleared absolutely nothing up.

Serena pinched brows. “What’s AB299?”

“An abnormality. Something that’s not meant to exist, but does. That’s its classification serial number.”

Great. Still made fuckall sense.

“I know you’re confused. Honestly, we’re a little confused, too. AB299 has never acted this way before when it would break out to hunt,” She took another step closer. “We’re not sure yet if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“What are you…talking about?”

The ‘medic’ huffed. “Come on, Serena. Whatever AB299 is, it’s a predator. And you, well, we thought you were prey at first. We never expected you to make it the three days that you did. We never expected you to show up when we thought for sure you were dead.”

She felt her heart hit the floor at such a casual reveal of information. The horror had to be clear on her face as she grappled with so many new layers added to what she was forced to experience for a voyeuristic secret service. Not only had they presumed her dead, not only had they never intervened to save her, but they had known the entire goddamn time she was being hunted and allowed it.

“You…y-you let it go after me.”

“It chose to go after you. We just didn’t stop it,” she clarified. Another step. Serena was backed into a corner. “We needed the research; you have to understand that observing its behavior is how we can learn to keep it better contained.”

“You were going to let me die.”

The other woman didn’t say anything, only leveling her with a heavy gaze. The sacrifice of one to save many, except it wasn’t just one that was passively offered as bait in the name of scientific discovery. How many others had died while ABC looked on and scribbled on their notepads? Was it enough to counter the lives they claimed to have saved as a result? By the sounds of it, AB299 was a routine jailbreaker, so they must not be making too many strides in their confinement regulations.

From her pocket, something beeped sharply. The ‘medic’ paused her advancement to fish for a similar device to what the ‘officer’ had, holding down one of the buttons on the side to answer the channel’s request.

“Building secure, AB299 is definitely around here somewhere, though.”

“What about Jack and the witnesses?”

There was a pause. “Break room’s a fucking bloodbath. Anything that’s left is minced meat. Doesn’t look like anyone made it past the exit sign…Jack included.”

“God damn it,” she growled. “AB299 probably blocked his call…”

“That’s just the job, Alesha. I’ll put in a request for a clean up crew and head back. C Team is four minutes out.”

“I know what the job is. Just, be careful, Adam. It’s in a frenzy and it left the lights on, it doesn’t care about being seen.”

“Understood.”

The radio silenced its sizzling overlay and the ‘medic’, Alesha, pocketed it with a sigh. Her lips were pressed into a tight line when she looked back at Serena, straightening her posture. “You’re not the only person who gets lost during research sometimes. Certain things need to be done, and someone is always going to be the bad guy.”

The conversation was still ringing in Serena’s ears, blocking out whatever moral bullshit Alesha was trying to justify. Bloodbath. Minced meat. That’s all that seven people were given the decency to be referred to after so graciously trying to make sure she was okay when she collapsed in front of them from a closet by calling what they thought was an emergency service number. Seven people who had families and friends and lives, who came to work today like any other, who tried to keep Serena conscious and comfortable until help came, who agreed to stay two hours past their shift at the request of faux police with little complaint under the guise it was in case she had a medical episode. 

And these ABC people let them be fodder for a monster that was predicted to kill her before it deviated from that goal. No, not just that, ‘officer’ Adam had gone there with the exact purpose to get rid of them himself under Alesha’s orders. They might not have even seen anything at that point, had no idea what was going on, and would have died regardless for being a potential liability. Because they knew Serena was alive when she wasn’t supposed to be and had been found in a very odd way in a very odd state. Doomed by proxy out of the goodness of their hearts. All of them could have been spared had they been sent home after their own questioning wrapped up thirty minutes into her examination.

AB299 wasn’t the only predator in this building with her.

“Let’s not make this any harder than it has to be,” Alesha said, holding up the ties. “We’re going to get you out of here and take you somewhere secured. You don’t have to be in any danger.”

“What, are you going to experiment on me, too?” Serena asked incredulously. “You just…you let all of those people die and now you want to dangle me in front of your monster until it, until it fucking does something? Is that it?”

“You cause some very…let’s say, interesting, reactions in AB299’s behavior. There’s something unique about you, Serena, something that might actually work to keep it contained.” Alesha’s tone was losing its evenness, becoming sharper with each argument Serena threw back at her to prolong the inevitable. She was quite good at keeping monsters at bay, it seemed. “Think about what this could mean. Do you know how many people you could save? We can figure this out toge–”

She was also quite good at tricking monsters with a sneak attack to the face. 

The shock blanket was whipped from her shoulders like a magician’s cape and flung at Alesha, blinding her with silver material that tangled around her head and arms as she tried to push it away. While the blanket itself might not be a heavy hitter, Serena’s elbow sure was when she cracked it against the general area that the other woman’s face should have been underneath the fabric. She wasn’t sure what she hit, but it was hard, and it struck her funny bone with enough force to make her fingers go numb. More importantly, it sent Alesha stumbling backwards with a bloodied face and further wrapped up by the very shock blanket she had given to her earlier.

In a flash, she was out the door that Adam really should have locked. Alesha was definitely yelling something, or perhaps just cursing in pain, but her voice faded quickly by the time Serena had sprinted down the hall. It took a moment for her to get her bearings and realize where she was in the building. Somewhere on the west side, near the manufacturing end and distribution offices. It also didn’t help that her vision would swirl every few inhales, unable to keep up with the exertion she was trying to use. Her stomach clenched in pain from the ugly bruise on her abdomen that was aggravated by her heaving diaphragm, her head wasn’t faring much better with her migraine. She just wanted to curl up in a ball and suffer in peace until she felt human again.

That wasn’t an option right now. Somehow, some way, she had been handed an open can of worms and promptly spilled the whole damn thing on herself. What kind of person finds themself mixed up in a world of mystery agents and reality shifting creatures and lives to tell the tale? Maybe lives, she hadn’t made it out of here yet. It wasn’t like she asked to be stalked by a monster who liked to escape ‘secret jail’, much less turn into some sort of special interest for it, which in turn made her a special interest to a lot of other people she had no desire to associate with. 

If she was going to be thrown into the plot of a summer blockbuster, why couldn’t it have been a cheesy romcom instead of an epic sci fi horror? If that was the case, then she’s said it before and she’ll say it again: she wasn’t a token death, she was a motherfucking final girl.

There was the slight issue of running down a hallway of training rooms that Adam was also walking up. He seemed startled to see her and the feeling was mutual. As far as he was concerned, she was meant to be in the office with Alesha monitoring her, bound at the wrists, sitting pretty with the understanding that she was under ABC surveillance for the foreseeable future. Instead, she was none of those things. They both paused in their tracks to silently appraise each other in confusion, which gave enough time for Alesha to catch up a bit from behind.

“Adam, stop her!” she yelled.

That was all the command he needed to snap out of his confusion. He moved towards her, drawing his gun from his holster, probably the only real thing on his police uniform besides the fact it was an amoral douche wearing it. The gun was aimed at her with steady hands and even at the distance, she had no doubt he was a sharp shooter. But she was supposed to be so important to their scheme, wasn’t she? They wouldn’t gun her down, she’d be no use in their stupid mind games to domestic monstrosities then. If he shot her, it would certainly be in one of her limbs to slow her down without the problematic aspect of death. A bullet lodged in her humerus was not something she wanted to deal with on top of everything else that was beating the hell out of her.

She turned heel and ran back up the way she came, ducking into an intersection where some of the hallways converged to make a loop for the front entrance. The side doors required her keycard and, even if she still had it on her, it would have been deactivated this morning per the scheduled end of her internship. Her best bet would be the entry doors, regardless if they were locked up like Adam had declared. There were plenty of plant pots to hurl at the full length windows around them for a messy escape.

Adam had to be hot on her trail, but her dulled senses only allowed her to hyperfocus on her own body. How her heart sounded, how her legs burned, how her sight was tunnel visioned. One thing she did have going for her though was that she was more knowledgeable in the layout of this building than either of the two agents. They may have done their homework, maybe even gotten a full blueprints for WerTech to plan for some cool secret spy getaways, but none of them knew how to find a secret spot to hide for prolonged periods of time like an intern who was wasting thousands of dollars on a degree that wasn’t even being utilized at a job that barely paid. 

There was an alcove where…something used to be some years ago, probably obsolete in this decade now. But within that alcove, there was a closet that couldn’t be seen from around the walls, hidden by the bulk of a drink machine that had been shoved into the open space. She had to grip onto the wall’s trim to help swing her into the nook, concealed from sight in the nick of time. Two pairs of shoes were jogging towards the intersection, Alesha telling Adam to check down this hallway while she went ahead to try and cut her off elsewhere, splitting the sound off to just his patrol boots stomping past her hiding spot.

She took a moment to collect herself. She knew if she slumped down, she wouldn’t have the strength to get back up in her exhausted, disoriented state. With a few deep inhales to fill her lungs, she pushed off the wall and dipped back into the hallway. New plan: retrace her steps back to where she started while the other two were trying to intersect her at the front of the building. And then…she…would come up with part two of that ploy when she got there.

Actually, no she wouldn’t. Because at the end of the hall where all of them had just come from was the creature. AB299, in all its glory.

What a stupid name, she caught herself thinking as if she wasn’t a hen in the foxhouse at the moment, is that supposed to mean there’s, like, two hundred and ninety-eight other monsters being stored at ABC? It didn’t roll off the tongue very nicely. 

To see it under the glow of slightly yellow fluorescent lights was unsettling in a way she didn’t think was possible. In the void of darkness, it blended in as another seamless shadow, only identifiable by its eyes following the movements of its prey. In the full light, though, its shape was clearly defined in crisp lines, ruining the illusion of omnipotence. That didn’t overlook the fact that AB299 was still massive, still crouched on all fours to fit in the building, and still as terrifying as ever with its narrowed eyes and thumping tail.

She was grateful the deep coloring of black helped to hide the blood she was sure its mouth and claws were drenched in. Her heart wouldn’t be able to stand the sight otherwise.

“Son of a bitch…”

It grumbled something unhappy, probably asking why she had left the lovely little plane of unreality it had hidden her to have a mental overload in. Such the unseemly habit of running away from the creature she had. Serena could only stand there, knowing any move she made would send the monster barreling towards her before she could slip its grasp again. The gears were turning in her head for something, anything, but all she was rewarded with was smoke and a wicked throb between her temples. 

On one end, she had an ‘abnormality’ with a strange fixation on her and a penchant for blood, of which hers may or may not be spilt next if she kept testing its patience. On the other end, she had two agents circling nearby, at least one of them with a gun. She wished she could say it was clear who was the lesser of two evils, but at least AB299 was acting on primal instincts as an excuse. Those two were just sociopaths with a warped hero complex.

…and really, if they got to play god over which lives were saved and which ones were bait, then why couldn’t she?

This was stupid. Really, really stupid. Suicidal, even, and definitely unethical enough to get her a first class seat to hell. Arguably, she was already in hell, so she couldn’t imagine anything worse than what she was prepared for. She raised her hands, trying to still the trembles enough that it didn’t look like she was erratically waving.

“H-hey…” she whispered, her throat suddenly dry and wishing she had drank that water on the desk when she had the chance. 

AB299 responded with another growl, a little less irked, and tilted its head.

She gulped. Too late to back down now. “C…come here,” she gestured her open hands towards herself. “Come follow me.”

She took two steps back. The monster lunged. 

Automatically, she stumbled a few more feet back with a frightened squeal. It took every ounce of her self control to plant her feet firmly on the ground to avoid the flight or fight instinct screaming at her to run. Her arms were raised again, as if she would physically be able to stop the creature that filled the space previously between them in two pounces.

“Stop, stop! Not chase!” she shrieked and by some miracle, AB299 heeded her cry before it closed in on the last five feet before her. “Not chase. Follow. Okay? Can you follow? Can you…do you know what I’m saying?”

It rumbled, eyes hooded in apprehension of what she was asking it to do, but at least no longer glaring. Taking that to be some kind of affirmation, Serena started to walk backwards again with her arms still up to signal the need for distance. Much to her surprise, despite the fact that was the intended goal, AB299 obediently crawled at what had to be an agonizingly slow pace in order to stay her requested distance as she walked. She had no idea how long she’d be able to keep this up for, hopefully long enough that she’d have a new exit strategy in mind should the creature grow bored of this game of Simon Says.

Alesha was right; it behaved strangely around her. If she had to guess, it was only listening to her now because it thrived under the positive reinforcement of her company. If it stayed and heeled as she asked, she wouldn’t go running off, and then there would be a mutual exchange where she also wouldn’t go running off the next time it spirited her away. Which was a term in their agreement she did not concur, by the way. 

“Little more,” she said, just to ensure she still had its interest. It crooned softly. “That’s a good, uh…well, just…good.”

She could hear the squeak of rubber soles on linoleum drawing closer to her from the hallway’s left opening. Her bet was Adam, given that he would have been closer to rush back once he heard Serena making her commotion. She wondered if AB299 heard him approaching as well, if that was a prowess it possessed, or if it was simply too consumed with admiring her to pay it much mind. Her throat tightened at the thought of what she was orchestrating, knowing it was the only way out she’d make it out somewhat in one piece. Cruel violence didn’t solve cruel violence, but she tried to trick her conscious that this was merely karma in play. It’s not like she was directly ordering the creature to maim, she just…happened to lure it into a scenario that it would make that decision itself. 

“You’re…you’re going to keep me safe, right?” she asked. It felt akin to a little girl asking her teddy bear for reassurance that it would chase away her bad dreams, except this teddy bear was one of the boogeymen from her closet. There was no telling what the creature ultimately wanted with her, whether it meant her harm in the long run or not. For the time being, she had to trust that its possessiveness equated to wanting her alive and mostly unscathed. 

The consequences of baiting a monster with an unhealthy attachment could be dealt with at a later time that was more convenient, such as never. 

Adam rounded the corner with his gun raised in preparation to threaten her into surrendering, if not to go ahead and take the shot to save everyone the trouble of her getting loose again. Really, if she had a quarter for every time she was being chased around WerTech by someone who was pissed she wouldn’t stop running away from an obligation she had no say in accepting, she’d have a worrying amount of quarters since that number should be zero for most people. She turned to see him realize his mistake too late. He froze, finger on the trigger but knowing it would be useless against the creature. AB299 snarled at the brandished weapon putting its prized prey in danger, practically making the hallway vibrate from its intensity. 

Serena dropped to the floor as the creature sprung over her to slam itself on the new threat. The agent cried out, but he wasn’t able to form any words that would be his last, all of the air squeezed out of him when claws dug into his chest. There wasn’t time to waste in being awed and sickened by the ferocity AB299 was capable of. The aftermath of its maulings were horrific enough, she didn’t need a full viewing to learn how it was made. With the creature distracted and one ABC agent permanently handled, she scrambled back up before her legs turned to jelly and disappeared down the opening on the right. She could hear the crunch of bone, the wet splatter of meat striking a solid surface, the groans and gurgles of a dying man. She didn’t look back. 

Following down this hall, she would be able to cut across the rotunda and loop back to the main hallway that offered a straight shot to the entrance. She begged her legs to push harder, ignoring how even at half-speed they were threatening to go numb if she forced them another step further. Who knew how long the creature would busy itself with devouring a man as an affectionate sign of protection. Once it had its fill in flinging the remains around, or perhaps noticed her missing first, the hunt would be back on. Would it be angered by the betrayal of her leaving after she tricked it into thinking they’d reached a mutual agreement? Would it think this was all part of the game and eager to continue? She’d rather not find out. She'd rather go home and sit in her shower for four and a half days. 

On her way down the familiar hall, she made note of the few areas that were sealed away under blue tarps and yellow caution tape. Black scorch marks around the edges of the room indicated fire damage, but she already knew that wasn’t the case. The storage room, the finance office – these were areas she had the most interactions with AB299 last week, areas that had been torn up by said creature in its chase. Pyrotechnic powers didn’t sound accurate, which meant these fires had been intentionally started to hide any unexplained damage. To hide the fact that Serena was missing, taken alive but presumed dead. They covered up her death and made sure no one would ask questions to mourn her.

She hoped every last scumbag at ABC choked. 

Being able to run down the main hallway without being impeded by scattered furniture felt like a luxury. She hadn’t realized what she took for granted in moving along a straight path during a life or death situation. Even though she was counting on this being the last time she would ever have to flee in this damn building. The only thing she needed to be mindful of was the bunches of tarp that poked a little ways out on the floor from where they draped over windows to block a room’s interior. Up ahead, she could see more fire burnings on the floor from where a flame had licked quite far from the doorway, though it didn’t like the room it trailed back to was sectioned off for remodeling. 

That was because, as she got closer, it wasn’t scorch marks. It was blood, already darkening to a deep rusty color and smeared much like Ted’s had been when his corpse was dragged off. Except this streak only went a couple feet out before stopping with a single handprint showing that the person had been pulled back into the very room they were escaping. The break room, more precisely. The room her former coworkers had been corralled into and guarded by another fake officer named Jack to keep them from leaving, where they were trapped on all sides when AB299 came to attack.

She shouldn’t have looked, she knows she shouldn’t look, but her eyes followed the trail of red before she could stop herself in shock. Adam had been right when he said it was a bloodbath; the inside looked as if a blender full of meat had gone off without a lid. The floor, the walls, the ceiling – every square inch was covered in a thick splattering of viscera that still dripped into puddles below. The tables and chairs were overturned as the monster wrecked havoc and people tried to get out of its path with no success. There weren’t even any bodies in the sea of gore, not like how a good portion of Ted had been left. All she could see were bits of flesh, a few clumps of hair, a single finger or heel of a shoe that still had a partial foot inside. 

There was virtually nothing left of these people, nothing but blood that mixed together and coated the room in bitter smelling scarlet. She had no idea which of her seven coworkers had been present to begin with, leaving her with no way of knowing who she should feel sorrow for. It was likely that no one else would know either as there was barely anything in the gore to identify one chunk of yellow fat from another. How long did the massacre last, how long did they have to watch each other be torn apart by a creature that only existed in nightmares, all because they happened to still be in the building when Serena magically appeared? She wasn’t sure what was making her more nauseous right now, the crime scene or the guilt.

Whether it was because she was disturbingly growing desensitized to copious amounts of carnage done in her wake or because her mind had already blocked the memory as a trauma response, her only reaction was to stumble back with a pained whimper. No tears were shed, not yet. She couldn’t afford to fall to her knees and wail in horror when she was so close to walking out the front doors. Or through a broken window, it didn’t matter to her. Then she could run and scream and sob to her heart’s content as she found a place to hunker down away from secret agents and giant monsters. She sniffled, clenching her first to her mouth in case she needed to bite down and muffle a cry, but the wave of anguish passed over her to be safely compartmentalized and never touched upon again if she had any say in it.

She’d only made it a few steps forward when a body ran into her back, nearly toppling both of them to the ground. Her surprise mixed with the lingering shock she was still experiencing, allowing her attacker to get the upper hand and wrap their arms around her to pin her to them. After a second, her brain caught up to her motor functions and ordered her to flail her limbs to break free of the hold, but it was too late. Something pinched the skin at the junction of her collar and shoulder, turning into a slight burning sensation as it plunged down into the muscle. She gasped, a warm feeling suddenly spreading through her veins that made her body involuntarily relax. Her arms dropped down from where she had tried to claw at the person’s face despite her protest, her legs finally making good on their threat to be as useful as rubber noodles. 

Interestingly, her head finally cleared of throbbing colors that flashed in her vision and she sighed in relief. What an unexpectedly blissful feeling that was coursing through her, almost as if she took a double dose of muscle relaxers and then dove into a hot tub. But as wonderful as her body felt, her brain was screaming at her this was wrong, so wrong, loud enough that she could still hear its warnings through the fuzzy euphoria of no longer wanting to split her head open. She groaned out some kind of noise, her throat and tongue refusing to work together, not that she was too sure what she had actually been trying to say. 

She lazily followed the forearm braced across her chest with her eyes and saw at the end that a fist was holding a syringe, the needle still stabbed into her skin and all of its contents already pumped into her. She’d been drugged; poisoned or sedated she didn’t know, but it wasn’t good either way. There was hardly any coordination left in her to slap her hands around or jerk her shoulders to dislodge whoever was keeping her in place.

“We could have done this the easy way, Serena,” a voice hissed in her ear. Alesha. That bitch. 

“Fff…f’ck ‘ou…” she slurred.

“I told them we should have taken you in when we first got here, you wouldn’t have put up such a fight then,” Alesha continued, more so talking to herself as the girl in her arms couldn’t formulate the most coherent replies at the moment. “And speak of the devil…”

She turned to face down the hall, Serena forced to move with her, to look at the creature poised at the other end. It growled lowly, its back arched in preparation to charge, only held back by the fact its prey was entangled with each other. Instead, it stalked forward, claws digging into the floor as it did while its tail whipped back and forth in displeasure, striking the walls each time with a resounding crack of plaster. All the while, it snarled and glowered at Alesha in warning to release what it had claimed as its own, but she held firm. The closer it got, the more clearly Serena could see the body hanging from its bared fangs, if it could still even be called that. Once it deemed itself close enough, it flicked its eyes to Serena and dropped the remains, a sickening squish when they landed before her. She could make out half of an intact spinal cord, flesh and fat looking like it had been used as chewing gum, but what part of human anatomy that was meant to formerly be was anyone’s best guess.

Behind her, she could make out Alesha muttering something about Adam being a poor bastard. She desperately wanted to thrash and kick up as violent of a fuss as she could, anything to wriggle out of her arms and maybe throw another elbow in her face. If she could play up her antics, she might have been able to goad AB299 into attacking the other agent as soon as she slipped from her grasp, but there was no way she had the functionality to do that. She also just wanted to cry and have the fit of crisis she was damn well entitled to by now. It wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to be absconded by a man eating monster. She didn’t want to be taken away for studies and experimentations for the man eating monster. 

But she’d lost. She hadn’t escaped in time, and now she wouldn’t be escaping at all. Whatever happened to her next was out of her control seeing that she couldn’t even lift her arm all the way up to smack against Alesha’s. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fucking fair! She’d worked so hard all her life to get to where she was today, busted her ass in school and at this stupid job, defied all the odds of survival against an unknown creature, and for what? For nothing. The life she built for herself was taken from her before she could even fully enjoy the fruits of her labor, all by someone else’s decision. 

“I’ll be sure C Team grabs your gift for you,” Alesha said with disdain, crinkling her broken nose in disgust of what became of her colleague. 

Serena felt herself be dragged backwards as Alesha took slow, deliberate steps towards the very entrance she’d been so close to reaching, the agent careful to readjust her grip and avoid showing her back to AB299. She mentioned that it was time for all of them to go, giving faux praise to the monster as it followed without attacking, promising that sweet little Serena would be coming with it so there was no need to get too hostile. Her words sounded muffled despite being held to the agent’s body, like she was talking underwater, which made sense since she herself felt like she was floating. She whimpered again, never taking her eyes off the creature that trailed after her like a puppy. Her pathetic noise made it croon.

The entry doors opened with the chattering and footfalls of a dozen people, but Serena was too focused on the feeling of cold air on her cheeks. 

–

END OF SIXTH NIGHT

–

Conclusion

Both Abnormality and Boyd were successfully captured and returned to ABC for containment.

The scene of the breakroom rampage was altered and ascribed to Ted Milton, a disgruntled employee, who returned to commit a mass casualty in retaliation and took his own life afterwards. 

Victims’ families were given a large insurance payout and fully covered funerals to avoid private autopsies

News of the event was not circulated into media outside of county newspapers

–

BEHAVIOR OBSERVATION RESULTS

The following information has been updated in AB299’s file:

Management Capability: Mid-Low

Intelligence Capability: High

Dimensional planes confirmed to be how Abnormality travels between spaces and possibly where it originated from.

Abnormality can only conjure these doorways in spaces of total darkness. If possible, it will trigger a blackout to achieve this.

Abnormality is not weakened by natural or artificial light.

As of now, Boyd is the only recorded human to have access to this space

Note: Electronic devices, such as cameras or recorders, do not work when taken between planes; researchers must find a way to observe inner reality

Per Boyd’s testimonial regarding the planes, it can be concluded that –

Time in nonlinear

Colors beyond human receptors are present

Humans possess the ability to open doors back into reality from Abnormality’s dimension [Ability to be reverse engineered in future testing]

The Courtship Theory has been reopened and is currently being revised in light of Boyd’s survival.

–

Picture Left [ID - Picture of Serena Boyd taken after her arrival and assessment at ABC facility. She has been allowed to groom and change her clothes. She is not smiling.]

Utilization of Serena Boyd

Abnormality continues to show fascination for Boyd without causing harm. As such, Boyd is required to be kept in good health and in frequent contact with Abnormality.

If Abnormality believes she is being observed too much by researchers, it will hide her in dimensional planes. Boyd is typically found within the facility two to four days later.

Boyd is to be interviewed immediately after being recovered and watched until her vitals are stable for best results of understanding Abnormality’s dimension.

Boyd is to go no longer than four days without interaction with Abnormality. Failure to do so may result in a facility breach. DO NOT ALLOW HER TO DECLINE, USE SEDATION IF NECESSARY. 

Do not forcibly remove Boyd from Abnormality’s containment; Abnormality will attack.

Do not use physical violence with Boyd in Abnormality’s presence; Abnormality will attack.

Do not engage inappropriate contact with Boyd in Abnormality’s presence; Abnormality will attack.

Do not inform Boyd of Abnormality’s response behaviors to her distress, this may be used against ABC personnel. 

Do not allow Boyd outside of Sector 17 to minimize risk of escape.

Abnormality has shown to continue breaching containment to hunt, however it is now returning on its own accord if Boyd is left in its containment cell. 

- Additional funding may be required to discover how the usage of Boyd could prevent hunting breaches entirely

–

FINAL NOTES

Full experiment results and research can be found on archived tapes relating to AB299 and Boyd. Research between the two will continue until Abnormality’s potential has been unlocked for ABC control, or Boyd is killed.

Access and travel through dimensional planes is of top priority.

THE GENERAL PUBLIC IS NOT TO BE INFORMED OF THESE ONGOING INVESTIGATIONS AND FINDINGS. ANY THREAT TO ABC’S SECURITY IN OPERATIVE RESEARCH WILL BE DEALT WITH AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. THIS INCLUDES AIDING AND ABETTING THE DECAMP OF RESEARCH DETAINEES.

DO NOT ALLOW SERENA BOYD INTO POPULACE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

–

End of tape. 

Please continue with CS# 1789-64 at supervisor’s instruction. 

[tea-potato-gt]

The Restoration Program as memes for @kendsleyauthor and @marydublinauthor

I’ve had this book for a while, but I waited to read it till I was in a good headspace because I knew it was gonna be ROUGH, and I’m glad I did 🫣😬🫡Although, anything that has to do with the Trinket universe is was gonna be messed up… 🫠🫠🫠

*spoilers ahead*

—————————-

Everytime someone says “What was lost has been restored,” I think: “The Greater Good” 😶

———————

Ryan: “Just because you would’ve happily let mom die if you were in my position…”

———————

Me if I put the book down at page 208 (the wedding) and lived the rest of my life in ignorant bliss😌👰‍♀️🤵‍♂️

————————

Ryan if he was in the department store and that child tried to grab Nicole. (No one would have been safe.)

——————

Ryan: “I’ll never be like him, I promise you.”

——————

Me @ Ryan when he starts isolating Nicole from other people:

—————

Ryan: “Just because you can’t take care of Rebecca the same way anymore doesn’t give you the right to judge me for how I handle my own business.”

———————

People online theorizing what NüPrints are…

———————

Nicole: “You never would have done this to me if I was human!”

———————

——————

Carlos and Dr. Burman running away together

———————

Me @ Ryan when he disrespected Nicole’s bodily autonomy, ignores her feelings on where she wants to go or see, deliberately lied about getting kicked out of the partners group, gaslit her, cheated on her, Killed her, and especially when he doesn’t listen to her when she says no:

——————

Me at the implication they already started making the Trinkets…

———————

Nicole:

Darlene:

Ryan at the end: (He gaslit, gatekept, and girlbossed too close to the sun) (And it seems like he never learned…)

Carlos:

Dr. Burman when someone derails his sessions:

———————

Me after finishing the Restoration Program:

After thoughts…

I will say, I knew this was going to have a bad ending from all the posts on Insta and Tumblr. So from the start I had a feeling Ryan was going to end up killing Nicole. (So… Yay me? I got it right?)

My original theory was that she was going to be the first Print to get pregnant (I think I remember reading that Prints can have kids and Trinkets can’t. Maybe I made that up.) And THEN he was going to kill her.

I will say, when they were discussing bringing her back to life (after Ryan killed her), I was so scared they were gonna turn her into a Trinket. I really thought that’s where this was going… but Nicole’s ending was a lot worse. A never ending cycle of life and death, not knowing what happened in her previous lives or if Ryan will really learn and do better.

I think the worst part about all this is that in the eyes of the law, Nicole is not considered human anymore (more like property), and because of this, Ryan never faces any consequences for killing her (possibly MULTIPLE times). So as long as Ryan (or anyone for that matter) has enough money, they can keep making mistakes and hurting/killing the Prints with no repercussions... The sentiments that they are not humans and have no right will eventually lead to the mistreatment of Trinkets and the ostracization of the Prints in the future. People will justify the mistreatment of Trinkets because most of them were convicted of crimes (falsely accused or not), so people think Trinkets are getting what they deserve.

I think I’m a little traumatized by red string🤪

Now I need to go lie down. 🫠

———————

Awesome story as always! 💙

[evilmskitty]

Rip to Sam(’s sanity), he girlbossed, gaslit, and gatekept too close to the sun (Magnus Institute)

[gaslightgatekeepgirlbosscombat]

Group C, Round 2, Poll 2:

Propaganda under the cut

Vex

When one of the main characters, Zane, is trapped in the Never Realm, he has his memories erased because Vex unplugged him during an important reboot (he's a robot btw) Seeing the opportunity, Vex gaslight and girlbossed Zane into thinking he was the ruler of the realm, (Zane is definitely not) and that Vex was trying to restore his spot on the throne. Long story short he tricks Zane into committing genocide for 40-50 years by freezing people to death (quite literally slay) because Vex told him to, and warped his perception of the world. He gatekeeps Zane from his friends when they come back to save him and further gaslights him like "bestie idk what these guys are talking about, ur the Ice Emperor, not ''Zane', kill them darling" it's a joke in the fandom that his villain arc was being gaslit too hard. This show gets really dark at times but we like to joke about how bad the Ice Chapter is. In conclusion Vex girlbosses himself into becoming the right hand ruler of the world and killed all his family with his new bestie.

Dahlia Hawthorne

she lived. faked her own kidnapping and killed multiple people in unrelated situations. was executed. got her spirit channelled. tried to kill even more people as revenge

Girlypop has done a shit ton of manipulation, committed at least four murders (even one from the grave!) A man’s eaten glass for her, another’s knowingly drank poison. She also puts on the “Weak little girl” act to get away with it all

she is literally THE gaslight gatekeep girlbosser ever. don't wanna spoil anything but like. she is the definition of the words,

"At 14, Dahlia arranged a staged kidnapping (in order to attain a Very High ransom from her wealthy father) with a guy she'd seduced, her stepsister Valerie, and her twin sister Iris (who chickened out) that purposefully landed the guy in jail for her supposed murder. Five years later, the guy broke out of jail and Dahlia framed him for the murder of Valerie (which she committed) and when this truth was exposed in court, the guy killed himself rather than break the promise they'd made to believe in each other no matter what. A few months later, she poisoned one of the attorneys involved in that case (putting him into a years-long coma instead of killing him) and got away with it by planting the evidence on a guy she just met by convincing him she'd fallen in love with him at first sight. She then guilted Iris into pretending to be her while dating the guy for the next several months, which culminated in her attempting to murder him, only to then try to frame him for the murder of one of her exes instead (which she also committed). She didn't get away with this one because superior girlboss (her cousin Mia) exposed her plot and Dahlia was executed for it a few years later, but she continued to GGG from beyond the grave. While she was still alive, Dahlia and her also-incarcerated but not on death row mother planned to murder the head of their clan (Maya, the younger sister of Mia) so that Dahlia's younger half sister (Pearl) could take Maya's place as head of their clan; Dahlia was also doing this because in the interim, Mia had been murdered by someone else, and Dahlia decided the best way to get revenge on her after her death was to kill the person she loved most. The mother and daughter schemed to write to Pearl (who was only about 9 at the time) and convinced her to channel Dahlia after her execution without telling her why (their family has the ability to channel the spirits of the dead, and they cannot remember what their bodies do during the time they're possessed) so that Dahlia could use her little sister's body to kill the head of the family, who Pearl loved very much. They also guilted Iris into working with them on this. The attempt failed because she girlbossed too close to the sun (a combination of her still-living ex, Maya, the channeled Mia, and the now-awake guy she'd poisoned) but she still GGG-ed all her life and even into her death (she also managed to get Mia & Maya's mom killed in the process and the coma guy (who Mia was in love with) convicted for it, but Maya lived so ultimately a failure). Throughout all this, she gives off an air of innocence and kindness and naivete, wearing white, high femme clothes, convincing the men inside and outside of the legal courts that she couldn't possibly do anything because she's just a sweet little girl. I fucking hate her <3 the vibes are both rancid and terrifying"