The Night Shift I

It was a normal day—every day was normal—but today was different.

I had gotten a job, and the pay was almost unreal. Five thousand dollars a day. It was the kind of money that could change everything. For months, the hospital bills for Ma had been piling up, looking more impossible by the day. But now… maybe we actually had a chance.

I stepped outside, resting my hand over Ma's hospital bills, which had been piling up, looking more and hone in my pocket. The night breeze felt eerily peaceful, and the moon hung high in the sky—a cold reminder that I had been hired, and that I couldn’t afford to mess this up.

RING. RING.

CLICK.

I pressed the phone to my ear as my new boss’s voice hummed through the receiver.

“I congratulate you once more, Hector,” she said.

My lips curled into a relieved smile, and I leaned in to listen closely.

“But before you get started, there are simple rules you have to follow. Just to make sure your shift ends… smoothly.”

My smile faded. I slid my hands deep into my pockets. Behind me, the building’s overhead light flickered once, twice, as if anticipating what was coming next.

“On the second floor of the Korosu Hotel, turn right. You’ll find a single room standing on its own. Open it. It’s unlocked.”

An unexplainable chill ran down my spine, sharp and sudden. I shook it off, pressing the phone tighter against my ear.

“Once you enter, you’ll notice four doors. Each one has a light glowing beneath it. Knock before you open any of them.” She took a breath, her voice dropping slightly. “If you hear strange noises coming from inside any room, hide in the closet to your left. Close your eyes, and don’t make a sound.”

My entire body tensed. Something felt wrong about this—all of this. But I couldn’t back out now. Ma was depending on me.

“If you hear nothing,” she continued, “you may enter.”

The night air suddenly felt much colder. A bitter taste pooled in my mouth, and fear began to gnaw at my stomach.

“Secondly, the first door is the bathroom. Do not open it until it is exactly nine o’clock. If you open it early, do not step inside for the rest of your stay.”

My hand trembled. I gripped the phone until my knuckles turned white.

“The second door is the kitchen. You can grab whatever you want from the freezer. There are five stools in total. If you notice a fifth, deserted stool in the storeroom to your right… avert your gaze. Pretend you never saw it.”

She paused, letting the silence hang over the line.

“If you do look at it, run immediately to the bathroom door. Knock three times instead of once. Lock the door behind you, turn off the light, and crouch down in a small space. And whatever you do… do not look into the mirror. At any cost.”

Silence filled the line for a few agonizing seconds. I couldn’t even bring myself to breathe.

“If you hear rapid knocking on the bathroom door, stay quiet,” she warned softly. “Don’t move. If possible, don’t even breathe. If the knocking fades, stay put for exactly two minutes, then come out as if nothing happened.”

Her breath caught, then her tone shifted—becoming sharp, hurried, almost panicked.

“And lastly, for now… the child.”

The child?

“Go upstairs. Do not enter any room except the middle one. Check on the child every five minutes. If the child is not there, drop everything and find it.”

A cold knot twisted in my chest. Why did she call a child ‘it’?

“Find it before one o’clock in the morning,” she commanded. “If you find the child in the kitchen, wait. It might not be alone.” Her voice dropped to a razor-thin whisper. “If you hear the child in the bathroom, knock four times on the door. It will crawl out on its own. Leave it be—it will make its way back to the room alone.”

She went quiet. After a long moment, I heard her exhale softly, her breathing leveling out as if the worst part was over.

“Don’t worry about the other two rooms for now. The rest of your instructions are in the kitchen. Find the papers and gather them all before reading. For your own sake, do not enter the basement or the remaining two rooms without further notice. That is all. Good luck, Hector… you’ll need it.”

My phone beeped. Her voice vanished from the receiver.

I didn’t question the giant red flags—I couldn’t. Everything I was doing was for Ma, and no one else. If I had to dance with whatever was waiting in this hotel to get that money, then so be it.

I pushed open the heavy front doors and stepped into the lobby. The atmosphere immediately felt crushing, like the very building rejected my existence. The air was thick with the scent of old carpet and copper. Behind the front desk, the manager offered a wide, lingering smile. She didn’t look or act human; her eyes were unblinking, her posture far too rigid. Everything about her felt fundamentally wrong.

Shadowy figures lingered in the dimly lit corners of the lobby. I could feel dozens of eyes tracking my every step.

Suddenly, a janitor stepped directly into my path, stopping me in my tracks.

He was the only thing in the building that looked remotely normal. Wearing faded orange overalls with a worn mop resting in his hands, he gave me a faint, gentle smile. But his eyes told a much darker story—they were drained, sunken, and utterly lifeless.

“Boy,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “You going to room 201?”

I assumed that was the single room on the second floor my boss had mentioned. I gave him a simple nod.

“Ah…” The janitor let out a long, shuddering sigh, leaning heavily on his mop handle. “That woman you just talked to… she spews nothing but lies. Don’t listen to a word she told you.”

My blood ran cold. “What?”

“You’ll find the real rules taped inside the elevator,” he urged, leaning in closer. “Get them before it’s exactly 7:30. Please…” He looked down at the floor, muttering under his breath, “You’re way too young. I can’t watch another one die like the rest of them did.”

Others?

My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit. “Wait, how do you—?”

I turned my head for just a fraction of a second to check if the manager was listening. When I snapped my gaze back, the old man was gone. The lobby floor where he had been standing was completely bare—no mop, no wet tile, no sign of him at all.

Cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck. Was it possible my boss had set me up? Were those rules a trap designed to get me killed?

I frantically pulled my phone out to check the screen.

7:16 PM.

Fourteen minutes. I had less than fourteen minutes before 7:30.

I didn’t waste another second questioning the apparition of the janitor. My legs took off before my brain could process the fear. My sneakers squeaked loudly against the polished lobby floor, the sound echoing through the dead silent room like gunshots. I could feel the manager’s unblinking eyes burning into the back of my head as I bolted toward the far end of the hallway where the elevator stood.

The elevator doors were painted a dull, rust-scratched metal. Above them, a small analog clock hung crookedly on the wall. Its second hand ticked with an excruciatingly loud CLACK... CLACK... CLACK...

7:18 PM.

I slammed my thumb against the call button. Once. Twice. Five times.

Ding.

The mechanical chime shattered the silence. The heavy metal doors slowly began to slide open, grinding against their tracks. The interior was lit by a single, buzzing fluorescent tube overhead that flickered erratically.

And there, slapped directly onto the center mirror in the back of the elevator car, was a bright yellow sheet of paper covered in jagged, handwritten red ink.

I took a step forward to grab it, but as my foot crossed the threshold, the air temperature inside the elevator plunged to near freezing. My breath bloomed into a thick white cloud in front of me.

I reached out, my fingers trembling as they hovered inches away from the paper. I squinted through the flickering light to read the bold header scrawled across the top:

THE JANITOR IS ALREADY DEAD. DO NOT READ WHAT IS BELOW THIS LINE.

My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it felt painful.

Before I could pull my hand back, the loud CLACK of the wall clock outside chimed again.

7:30 PM.

Behind me, the elevator doors slammed shut with a deafening bang, plunging the car into pitch-black darkness.