Everyone Who Stayed

The hallway was carpeted in the same corporate grey as every other floor of the Halloran Building, which was somehow worse than if it had been different. Naomi had expected a secret. She had not expected a secret so aggressively, insultingly normal.

There were offices. There was a water cooler, half full, the surface of it trembling faintly as though someone had bumped it moments ago. There was a whiteboard with a schedule written in blue marker — meeting times, initials, one line that read Q3 REVIEW — ALL STAFF MANDATORY — dated for a Tuesday that, by Naomi's count, had happened two years ago.

She found Kell's badge photo taped inside an empty cubicle, next to seven others. All employees. All, according to the badge system she'd bribed her way into, still listed as active.

None of them, according to the rest of the world, had been seen again.

A door at the end of the hall was open. Light spilled out of it, warmer than the hallway's, almost golden, and beneath it Naomi heard something she would spend the rest of the night trying to convince herself she'd imagined: the low, ordinary murmur of a room full of people, working late, in no apparent distress at all.

She took a breath.

She walked toward the light.

And somewhere behind her, with a soft mechanical chime that had no business existing on a floor with no elevator call button, the doors she'd arrived through opened once more — and something stepped out to join her.