It’s been months, and I still think about what happened on the nineteenth floor. I’ve worked nights long enough to shake off weird noises and shadows, but this wasn’t that.
I know what I saw. The problem is the cameras say otherwise, and that’s the part that’s been eating at me. I haven’t told anyone at the job.
How could I? They’d just laugh, or worse, start looking at me like I’d cracked.
That night started off like any other. I was sitting at the desk, dead-tired, staring at the monitors, when something caught my eye.
One of the cameras showed an office lit up on nineteen. That floor had been cleared out weeks earlier, the tenant long gone.
I’d checked it plenty of times since—always empty, always dark. But there it was, plain as day, a soft yellow glow bleeding out into the hall.
I grabbed my flashlight and took the elevator up. The ride felt slower than usual, the hum of the cables echoing inside the box.
When the doors opened, I stepped into silence. Normally you’d at least hear the vents or the buzz of the overhead lights, but here there was nothing.
At the end of the hallway, I saw the glow I’d spotted on the feed, seeping out from behind a frosted glass door.
As I walked closer, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t supposed to be up there. The air felt dead, heavier somehow. I pushed the door open, the hinges groaning, and stepped inside.
The room smelled stale—carpet, old coffee. Papers were scattered across a desk near the window, and draped over them was a man in a suit.
His tie hung loose, his face pressed against the wood, one arm dangling. For a moment I just stood there, stunned, and wondering how the hell he even got there.
I thought he was dead at first due to how he looked and was positioned. Anyway, I started to lift my radio, ready to call it in, but before I could say a word, he shot upright.
It wasn’t like someone waking up. He snapped into motion, head turning toward me with eyes wide and unfocused, like there was nothing behind them.
Then he bolted.
He shot past me so fast I felt the air rush off his body. I spun around, the radio slipping in my grip, but he was already halfway down the hall.
The sound of his footsteps pounded against the carpet until the stairwell door slammed shut.
My heart was racing, but I gave chase anyway. I hit the stairs hard, lungs burning as I tore downward, thinking I’d catch him at the lobby.
But when I burst through the doors, the place was empty. No man in a suit. No footsteps. Nothing.
I went straight to the monitors, desperate to see proof of what had just happened. On the feed, the office door was still wide open, the light spilling into the hall.
But the desk was empty.
I rewound the footage. Same thing—papers scattered, chair pushed back—but no man.
When I scrubbed forward to the moment I’d walked in, I saw myself step inside, lift the radio, and jolt backward in shock. Only there was nobody there with me.
I replayed it over and over, hoping I’d catch something I’d missed. Every time it was the same: me alone in that room, panicking at empty air.
Another guard sitting nearby asked what was wrong, said I looked pale, but I didn’t answer. How could I explain?
I still felt the brush of air against my arm when he ran past. It was real. I know it was.
I told myself I’d forget it eventually, that it would fade like every other long night on shift. But it hasn’t. I’ve never had another experience like it, not once since that night.
Still, it won’t leave me. It’s glued to my mind every time I sit at that desk and stare at those monitors.
And I’ve never told anyone else at the job what I really saw.
