Chapter 1

My hope is that telling this story prevents something similar from happening to anyone else in the future, okay? Believe me, you don’t want to fall into the trap we did.

—————-

That night felt different; even the rapid clacking of the keys was getting on my nerves. I felt like I could explode at any moment.

"No way, this piece of shit is broken," I muttered aloud, glancing at the clock.

"Time really is dragging today, Louie," remarked Derrich, the middle-aged guy next to me. "The sun’s going to come up any minute now, my friend."

There was a brief power outage in the building. The cold glow of the monitors outlined our silhouettes in the dark. I scratched my head, anxious.

Programming isn't easy. Anyone who’s tried to get started knows that better than anyone… Want a life tip? Don’t turn your hobbies into your job. You’ll learn to hate them. And fast. This new fintech was supposed to be paradise on Earth. A dream job. Yeah, right? I felt like I was being murdered in real time. Sure, we had more colorful game rooms, unlimited snacks, and playgrounds than the damn Google team. But the targets were unrealistic. The bosses? MIA. Feedback? A week late—Sometimes forcing us to start the project practically from scratch. We were dependent on team members who should have been fired years ago. You name it, it was there. Insanity. Pressure upon pressure. And the team was constantly changing. Now we were on the graveyard shift. Two teams rotating, working in that office twenty-four hours a day. What kind of life is that?

"Dude, did you see that new series I sent you?" Melone’s glasses appeared from behind his cubicle, framing his broad face.

"Huh? No. I dunno… I really need to finish this up, man," I replied. God. At this point, I don't even know which panel project I'm working on… Is it the one for the luggage-weight-estimation scanner? Holy shit, can't you people just put the damn thing on a scale like everyone else? One of these days, I’m going to go on a rampage in the marketing department for coming up with this garbage.

"Duuude. You like solving mysteries, right? This time they aren't in purgatory, it’s not gonna be like that shitty Lost ending… Louie? F***. You let this shit get to you too much, bro. You gotta stop trying to be the team's Gandhi or some shit like that… Just pretend you're doing your best and cash the check at the end of the month."

Derrich snorted nearby. "Some of us will never be able to live as carefree as you, Melone… And we’ll never be able to take our frustration out on carbs the way you do."

I looked up to say something, but I was interrupted… It was Alana, a member of the other team, she burst into the room screaming, pale as a ghost.

Derrich ran over to her. She seemed to be in some kind of shock.

Alana then spoke slowly about a… Woman in the ladies' room. She said the woman’s body was burned from head to toe—No face, no hair. She claimed to have been attacked by the figure, which had come crawling out from under one of the stalls. Alana said she had barely managed to escape its grasp.

We exchanged glances. A few seconds later, we all walked over together, brooms and mops in hand. We made our way down the hallway with its unpleasantly colorful walls and reached the ladies' room. We pushed the door open with a sharp click.

And there was nothing there.

Alana began to cry and scream. She insisted the woman had grabbed her, that she could still smell burnt flesh in the air. Derrich shook his head.

"The graveyard shift does things to people, Alana—calm down… These deadlines are getting to all of us… Maybe it’s time you thought about taking a vacation…"

And then it happened again. The power went out. But something was different. The lights came back on after a few seconds… Only to reveal that everyone else had vanished.

"What the f***?! Melone? Derrich? Alana?" I shouted.

A makeup kit lay on the floor. I was alone in the restroom—No… In the office. It didn't even make sense. They had been right there beside me just moments ago. This whole thing had to be some kind of prank. That’s what I thought at the time.

I walked around the quiet office for a bit. Everything was unnaturally still, even for the middle of the night. I passed the elevator; its display was flashing "FAULT" in red against the darkness.

That was when I heard it for the first time: the sound of a chair scraping across the floor, not far away. I looked up and saw a figure simply sitting in a corner.

He stood up. Had he been there the whole time? It was a man. He was wearing the company’s standard dress shirt. Very tall and very heavy. He… He wore a mask that mimicked a sack over his face.

For a split second, I thought it was the punchline to some elaborate prank—Until he stepped closer and I realized I didn't know him at all.

"H-hi? Who are you? W-what do you want?"

The groaning sound he made… It was absolutely terrible to describe. And I could almost see his eyes through the clear plastic…

He lunged at me. Fast. Arms outstretched. I ran. Fear took over. I bumped into a desk and fell. By the time I turned my head, he was already on top of me. His massive hands were squeezing my neck.

A masked killer? Here? Why me?!

That was when I saw my own wide-eyed stare reflected in the plastic… It wasn't a mask. He actually had a bag pulled tight over his head… I watched in horror as his mouth opened and closed. I was going to die right there, with his hands shaking me. And yet… in that moment, looking at the man… I was overcome by a strange sense of pity for him.

The lights flickered. I fell to the floor, coughing violently. He vanished—just as strangely as he had appeared. I rolled onto my side and vomited. I started screaming right there on the office floor, amidst the clutter that had tumbled off the desk.

Melone appeared in the doorway. "Louie's here, guys!" He looked pale and disheveled, too. W-what the hell was going on here?

Derrich showed up a moment later, clearly agitated. His nervous eyes kept darting over his shoulder. They were talking to each other.

"The fire escape… It’s gone, Melone."

"W-what the f***?! Stairs don't just disappear, man!"

"Go see for yourself if you want… There’s a drop-off… The stairs just fall away into darkness," Derrich said. He seemed so terrified that his words were barely making sense.

"And now the elevator’s stopped working, too…" Melone said. "S-something’s got us trapped here, guys… Those… Ghosts?"

"That thing wasn't transparent, and it wasn't trying to scare me, dammit!" Derrich shouted. "It was solid—just like you or me! It even scratched me!" He pointed to a long scratch on his forearm.

"W-what attacked you?" I interrupted.

"A mummy… No eyes… No hair… A woman with a twisted neck… Hanging limp over her shoulders," Derrich continued.

"Mine was a man with a swollen head, totally deformed… His tongue was huge, like a ball," Melone stammered.

"Where is Alana?" I asked. But they just exchanged glances. She had vanished. Completely.

The three of us ran together, shouting through the corridors for what felt like an eternity… We needed to find someone from the other team who was still on the floor… Anyone!

We found two other young members of Alana's team: Erickson and Hanna. They were visibly shaken and disheveled. They, too, had realized there was no way out of the floor.

"W-why isn't the sun coming up? Where is the sun?" Hanna wept.

She was right. There was nothing but darkness outside the windows. Deep and infinite. It had been dark for far too long. There were no streetlights, no lit windows, no sounds from the streets—Nothing. It was as if we were drifting through space.

"All the clocks… they stopped at the same time, too…" Erickson shouted, pointing to the gold watch on his wrist. "M-Mr. Derrich, do you have any idea what's happening?!" None of it made sense. How had we ended up in this situation? Why did we deserve this?

"W-were you attacked by something?" I asked them. They simply looked at each other and nodded.

"G-guys?! You, um, need to see this." It was Melone. He was pointing at something disturbing in one of the rooms—a horribly burned female body lay on the floor. No face. No hair. The body was still giving off hot smoke.

It was Derrich who stepped forward and covered the body with his suit jacket. I’m pretty sure he stammered something about “coincidences” before seeming to tensely weigh his options.

“S-stay calm and think. We don’t know whose corpse this is…”

“It’s Alana! Shit! She’s become the ghost, guys! T-the ghost got her and made her death reality, goddammit! We’re in a fuc**** horror movie!” Melone shouted.

“No. It’s not her,” Derrich remarked coolly. “Look closely… Alana was a very short girl. This woman here is tall… And look at the teeth… Alana had distinctively split teeth…”

Hanna sighed deeply. “H-he’s right… But then… Who is she?” We exchanged horrified glances.

—————————————

No one knew her. And there were only the six of us in the office that night…

“Did this h-happen the last time the lights flickered?” Erickson asked. “For an instant, everyone vanishes from the room and we get attacked one by one—Is that it? And Alana got taken?”

"Oh, come on…" Melone scoffed. "Now you're saying there are rules to how this shit works?"

"I-isn't it strange that we're all going through the same thing at the same time? The stopped clocks… the eternal night outside, with no way to leave…" Hanna said. "And it always happens when the lights flicker? If the goal of these things was just to kill us… I think we'd all be dead by now."

"W-we need to calm down and figure out a way out of here," I said. "These… Specters… There must be rules about what they can and can't do… And maybe, well…"—At that moment, I remembered the expression on the face of the man with the sack over his head—"In movies, creatures like that might be trying to warn us about something…"

The others seemed to consider this for a moment, looking skeptical. We didn't have enough information to say anything for sure at that point.

—————————————-

It made no sense to just sit there waiting, since we ended up alone whenever we were attacked anyway.

We talked it over and decided the best option was to split up and quickly investigate two specific key locations. If there was any relevant information, it would likely be there. Hanna and Derrich would investigate the manager's office; Melone, Erickson, and I would investigate the HR office.

We walked cautiously for a few more minutes. We really were alone there. Those damn colorful walls now seemed to be mocking us. We were in hell, and this company was the devil’s playground.

"What… what if they’re actually trying to save us?" Erickson said. "I mean, we haven't found anyone's body, just that thing… Maybe they stay here, and whoever they drag off gets saved from this place."

"You’re into this kind of stuff, bro," Melone, the chatterbox, remarked to me. "Do you think we’re in some shitty B-movie time-travel flick?"

Before I could answer, the lights flickered again. And I was alone. Heavy, uneven footsteps seemed to be getting louder behind me. It was him again. The big man with a sack over his head. I ran.

Things were a little different. It was as if the office were a bit more trashed. It was no longer a pristine work environment. Some desks were overturned now, some light fixtures were dangling.

He was faster now. His arms were outstretched toward me. I managed to circle around him using one of the conference tables. It was a close call. The lights flickered, and I was back. Exhausted and disheveled.

I walked a short distance and found Erickson rushing through the offices. He shook his head. Melone had vanished. I prayed that, wherever he was, he was at least still alive.

"Let's stay calm and think this through, okay? This is when knowing how to work as a team really counts," Erickson said. "About ten minutes—Did you notice? That’s the time between the lights going out and coming back on… And I get the feeling it’s getting shorter…"

We found the HR office. I used a fire extinguisher to smash the door open. Some offices were a mess even when locked, but not this one. We started rummaging through drawers and cabinets, looking for anything useful. Erickson called me over to look at something. It was an old, worn-out folder, stamped for the Legal Department.

I had barely started flipping through it when I felt the blood drain from my body. The friendly face… The large frame… It was him. It was the file of the man who had been hunting me down while wearing a bag over his head. Dave. He’d died nearly four years ago. He’d put a plastic bag over his head and hanged himself…

Erickson pointed to the photo of the man who had been chasing him, too… "S-slashed wrists," he said. If I had to bet, the other people in that folder were the other "specters" attacking us… But what did it all mean?

"It’s… A file on the company’s suicides, man," Erickson muttered grimly. "M-maybe this shitty company doesn't just keep us here while we're alive… Anyone who committed suicide gets trapped here too…"

I was starting to like Erickson… Actually, I’d always thought of him as a bit of a jerk… I guess it’s in times of crisis that you truly get to know people.

We ran into Hanna and Derrich in the hallway; they looked shaken. They had found the body of a stranger—Face swollen and deformed—In one of the rooms. His tongue was huge. It looked as if he’d drowned right there on the floor of the cubicle. It was the same thing that had been stalking Melone.

They’d also found something odd in the management office and called us over to see it. It was the whiteboard. There was a message written on it: “Final meeting for members at 6:00 PM before abandoning the building. Don’t let them stain the carpet this time.”

Derrich shook his head. “Have you guys ever heard of the Five Burned Ones?” he stammered after a few seconds. When no one answered in the affirmative, he continued. “It’s not a well-known story, but… Six years ago, five bodies—Deformed by burns—Showed up on this floor… They just appeared here. There were no signs of fire anywhere else… Management managed to keep the negative press to a minimum, especially since the charred bodies were never identified… Huh… I remember an old colleague, Mirtha, telling me they claimed the bodies had been planted here by the mafia, or occultists, or something like that…” The man cleared his throat. “That warning about not staining the carpet… It’s as if they already knew something was going to happen… I’m starting to think that… Whatever is happening here today is exactly what happened back then… All that was left of the team were the bodies that ‘returned.’”

Hanna collapsed onto the floor, sobbing. Erickson helped her up.

“T-those bastards… Are we some kind of crazy sacrifice?!”

In a fit of rage, I smashed the PC from the desk next to the whiteboard onto the floor.

“We aren’t just going to stand here waiting to die, are we?! Think, dammit—There has to be a way out of here!”

The lights began to flicker faintly, and the tense group scattered, running in various directions. It was starting all over again. If we didn't understand what was happening, we’d be easy prey. I heard Derrich shout something, but I couldn't make out what it was.

Then the lights flickered again—This time for real. The specters' office wasn't just slightly different now; I noticed that almost all the desks and glass partitions had been overturned and smashed. And the sheer number of them… It was as if thousands of chairs, desks, and monitors had suddenly appeared, cluttering the corridors. Where had they come from?! The carpet was covered in shards of glass… And there he was, walking slowly toward me: Dave—The programmer, as I’d seen in the file—with the sack over his head.

"D-Dave? Listen to me! Everyone here is a programmer, just like you! I hate this shitty company so much… even more than you do!" I shouted at him. I tried to reach him; maybe there was still a shred of humanity left in there.

But it was useless; he lunged at me. I ran. Amidst the new chaos of shattered glass and scattered chairs, he caught me. He grabbed me by the throat. For what felt like an eternity, I felt his desperation—And his thoughts—Flooding into me. Dear God. He wanted to go back. He wanted to reclaim his place at the company. He was desperate to return to the real world.

Then I fell to the floor. Back in the office. Battered and bruised. But alive. Hanna came crawling over. She looked pale as a ghost when she saw me.

"We don't have much time, Louie… That place… It's different, too… And getting worse… And they're getting stronger… We have to find a way to turn things around…"

Ericson shouted. I found him pointing at the desk in the manager's office.

To our shock, it was the PC I had thrown on the floor. It was back on the desk, fixed.

"I-it was me, Louie… Before I ran into that damn specter, I put the PC from the floor back on the desk… I wanted to test if changing something in that dimension would change something here… And it did! That PC was smashed on the floor; now it works!"

I thought for a few seconds… There had to be something significant there… Was it just about time? No… My theory was that from the specters' dimension… we could fix something in the real one. I told the others. It was our best guess.

Further ahead, we found that woman—wearing the company uniform, her neck twisted—sprawled on the floor of one of the rooms. Young or old? It was impossible to tell. She was practically a mummy. Her face was contorted into a near-smile. Derrich had vanished.

"D-did you guys notice that in the strange dimension, the elevator display isn't dark?" Hanna remarked.

Erickson shouted, "That’s it! Hanna’s right. In the other world, it actually flashes 'FAULT'—like a critical error. What if it’s broken, but has to be fixed from the other side? Maybe that’s the answer to getting home!"

We didn't have many options at that point. We got to work. How would we get a laptop and the cables needed to access the panel over to the other side? We’d each gather our materials and head to a spot we thought was far enough away from where the specters usually appeared. From there, we’d do whatever we could to break the equipment. It would then appear in that same spot in the specters' dimension… The next time we were transported… It was probably all or nothing.

"Louie… I have to tell you something," Hanna murmured nervously. "It’s you. You’re the one who stalks me in the other dimension… Your whole body is turned inside out, like you threw yourself off somewhere really high… Um… That means you won’t die here, but in the distant future, right?! Right?!"

I shook my head immediately. "I think I’d rather you hadn’t told me that… I don’t know exactly what’s going on in this shitty office… But we have to believe in something."

I moved to my position. I did everything I could to "break" the equipment on the floor. Would it have worked? Then I noticed. Shit. I grabbed the wrong cable; I need to go back to Hanna and see if she has the right port.

But when I checked the spot where Hanna was supposed to be… I found Erickson.

He was positioning an unconscious Hanna onto two stacked chairs… with a rope around her neck. He turned his face toward me, cold as ice.

"Whoa! You weren't supposed to see this, Louie… The truth is… I was in the room next to the 6 PM meeting… eavesdropping on everything. It was only when it started that I connected the dots on what they were saying… about how there was a strong chance today would be the big day… and that there always have to be six of them! Wow, calm down, listen to me… This is actually a golden opportunity… I discovered almost all of today's executives went through a day just like this years ago!" He spoke with madness in his eyes.

Erickson was a real bastard… He had more information than we did… He knew about this place and hadn't told us—Worse, he’d taken advantage of it. Hanna… He was putting someone in position to be the next victim… I won't lie, the possibility had crossed my mind… But it was too cruel. Now it seemed obvious. Why did only some of us come back alive from the attacks? Unless… When someone was taken first, everyone else got to return? Like a twisted countdown. Erickson had just confirmed it for me. For him, the priority was preparing someone else to be taken before him, so he’d be safe.

– Hey, hey, you don't have to die here, right? You could die any random day years from now—In an accident or something. Better to know than be caught off guard, right? I heard them talking about how, at first, it happened randomly… But now they plan to leave only the expendable ones and the ones with potential out during the graveyard shift… They even said the specters are actually a good omen for your career! No one knows for sure why they come here. It doesn't matter. They’re potential clues about how you’ll die one day. I mean, the loners, the ones who are too slow… Or the ones who don't know how to take a hit for the team—They’re the ones who’ll die, if you catch my drift. – He said with a smile. – But you’re not one of them, are you, Louie?

I lunged at him. I had to save Hanna; I had to buy time!

We fought for a few minutes. Both of us were covered in bruises.

– I spelled it out for you, you moron! Just fix the elevator panel and get back!

I was going to finish him off. But the lights flickered again. That was it. The office had turned into hell. Some sectors were on fire. Water was spraying high in the air inside some of the restrooms. Piles upon piles of office supplies and furniture. This place… Was this a day in the future? Was this going to happen someday?

A loud sound. Dave appeared. Bursting through a drywall partition. Faster and stronger than ever.

I ran from him as best I could. He grabbed me again, hoisting me high into the air as if I were a child. I could see his massive head shaking as he tried to scream.

And then I snapped back. It happened too fast. So it had to be… Tears welled up in my eyes. I ran desperately down the corridors to where Hanna’s chair should have been.

Nothing. She had vanished. She’d been an easy target. It wasn’t fair! She didn’t deserve this! I couldn’t find “my” specter, either. Was his body in another room?

Erickson attacked me, screaming. He caught me off guard, slamming a keyboard against the back of my neck. Disoriented, I was forced toward the glass.

My body crashed through the window amidst an explosion of shards. It was a close call; I barely managed to hang on, gripping the sides of the frame with my hands.

"I’m going to make your death a reality, you worm!" Erickson screamed like a madman as he kicked me. "I knew Derrich was next in line for a promotion! Here’s the part I didn’t tell you: it was actually *him* who was stalking me with his wrists slashed! When the lights started flickering and everyone ran, I seized the moment! I grabbed a shard of glass myself and slit his wrists myself—HAHAHA! He even squealed like a pig trying to warn you guys." Erickson was a fucking psychopath. He was trying to shove me out the window with all his might. "There were promotion slots for up to two people, you idiot! It could have been both of us!"

I saw the infinite darkness beneath me. Like the gaping maw of a colossal, incomprehensible creature. But Erickson was careless. I grabbed his loose tie and held on tight. He shouldn't have been so worried about appearances. He gagged and choked—just long enough for me to break free.

I seized the moment and dragged him down the hallway. There was a restroom there. Perfect. I was sick of this shitty night. Sick of this shitty brown-noser. SICK OF THIS SHITTY COMPANY.

He struggled in vain for just a few minutes. Erickson was drowned in the toilet bowl now. I wiped my face.

I went back to where my broken laptop sat on the floor. Now, it was just a matter of waiting.

The lights flickered. It was the other dimension again. There was still fire and water spraying everywhere… And no one else around. I wasn't going to let the opportunity slip away.

I connected the cables to the elevator panel. The red displays clearly showed error F: "FAULT." I couldn't stop glancing over my shoulder. It shouldn't be that hard to reboot the machine.

I wasn't attacked (did that have something to do with my specter vanishing?). A short while later, I succeeded. The door opened with a loud beep. The light inside the clean elevator was like the light of paradise. I dragged myself inside.

I saw Dave from there. Standing still. Watching me from afar amidst the flames. I could swear he gave a slight nod.

The doors closed, and I let out a breath.

For a moment, I thought the elevator would plummet. Or that whole floor would burst into flames and our bodies would vanish… That *we* would be the bodies found burned in the past… But none of that happened. Why did the specters want to return so badly? Didn't they know they’d materialize already dead? I suppose I’m underestimating the power of habit…

Did Erickson cause the woman with the twisted neck? Did Hanna see a future version of myself after falling from the window? In the end, it wasn't a dimension solely for people who had committed suicide… I think… I think this dimension is like a glitch in reality… Every system is full of them… Things that might or might not collide… And that, in certain cycles, overlap with our reality… Maybe we’re all already a little dead every time we clock in and accept being reduced to a cog in the machine. I don’t even think the executives themselves understand the specters' intentions… True to form, they turned the glitch into a feature.

When I showed up the next day, badly injured, with a bunch of strange bodies strewn all over the office… They said I’d killed my colleagues… That I’d had a psychotic break… So i guess I’m not executive material, heh. No one had my back… Don’t make the mistakes and choices I made. They’re going to lie. They already knew it wasn’t burnout.