No Way To Escape | Novel

CHAPTER 25: AT OFFICE

For the next two days I sensed nothing weird happening to me until this happened --

That night I was working late in the office. I had to work on a cluster of files to submit to a senior official on my way back home.

It was around 1 a.m. by now. I was working on the files and checking the computer simultaneously. The room was completely silent -- with no one else but only me present there, all alone. The silence in the room was only hindered by the old, noisy fan which was moving overhead, with its characteristic creaking noise.

This moron! Only eats up all the money for himself, sitting luxuriously in his well-constructed cabin and doesn't even care about the maintenance - I cursed the CEO of our company.

It was when I heard a sound - a faint, whistling sound. I ignored it for the first two times but when it became more and more tempting, I decided to take a look over it.

The sound was coming from the locker room. It is a very small room, with only a single window and no other source for ventilation. Only a handful of employees pay a visit to it in a day - most of them in lunch-time. It was all dark in there. I switched on the light. At once the darkness was gone but still in the illuminance I could not see a single soul. This astonished me and I decided to inspect the room myself.

I frisked some old files with worn out papers, checked a number of lockers and drawers, suspecting the presence of some rat, but ultimately found nothing. Resting my arms on my waist and giving a shake of my head, I turned back to leave the room. While I was just about to step out of the room, I heard fast rustling sounds coming altogether from the room. The sound made me startle and gave a momentary shiver of fright. I ran back, retracing my steps, only to see that the rustling sounds had been produced because of the fall of a bunch of papers off the desk adjacent to locker no. 56. Relieved, I collected those papers, bundled them together and thrusted them into the drawer attached to the desk.

But then the question came - How did these fell?

I looked towards the window, which was open. Being on the 23rd floor, the wind was rushing in to the room with a great speed. I had not paid that much attention to that till then.

'Ah'

I got to the window and closed it. Then suddenly I saw someone standing behind me through the window pane. It looked grim and was raising its hands slowly to reach my shoulder. Shocked, I gasped and turned around fast. No one. I looked again at the pane. Nothing.

What was that?

'It's you now. It's your turn!'. The words reverberated in my mind.

'No!!', I squealed, grabbing my hair in confusion.

Filled with exasperation, I walked to the coffee machine and prepared myself a cup of coffee - the best medicine to all my problems. While I was sitting on my chair and having some peaceful sips of coffee, I heard a loud crashing sound which startled me again, almost making the cup fall off my hands.

'Jeeeez!!'

I realized that the noise came from Mr. Rupert's cabin. I ran in fright into the cabin, filled with shock and fear. On opening the door, I saw the desktop of Mr. Rupert lying there on the ground, the monitor being broken into two.

What? How? What is this all happening?!! - I shrieked in my mind.

There was no one else in the room. I was frightened like I hadn't been in a while, and being all alone in there added to the tension. The lights were off, which I had to switch on. I looked around the vast cabin, trying to notice even a pinch of some unusual object that would terrify me all of a sudden. But again - No one. Windows closed. No additional door into the cabin.

Father Richard's words again echoed in my ears.

I assembled the broken monitor and placed the parts on the table. I didn't believe in the paranormal but the events were somehow making me apprehensive. Add to that the words of a Catholic priest.

Filled with some unknown fear and proceeding towards my desk, I walked out of the cabin, turning off the lights and closing the door behind me. As I reached my desk, what I saw gave me a chill in the spine.

All the coffee had been poured on the completed files, ruining all of those.

'Shiiiiitttt!!!', I shouted and rushed to the desk, getting the cup and displacing it to the side. I held the coffee-drenched papers in my hands and squealed again in frustration and anger. I had been working on those since evening and all those got wasted only because of what? - A cup of coffee.

I slammed the papers onto the desk with abhorrence and sat down on the chair, holding my head in disgust and despair. After a few minutes, the thought came to my mind -

Wait... I hadn't kept the cup here. Then how come -

I became frightened for a while but then thought that I must have kept that there on the desk in my subconscious. I was quite nervous and baffled enough not to get a proper account of my situation.

I was starting to become restless now thinking of what my boss would do if he came to know about my mistake. But brushing aside the horrific predictions for the upcoming future, I decided to return back home.

Before returning I sent a text to that senior official that there was some delay in plan and I was now going to submit the reports by the following night. The work was not that urgent so I wished he should not get that angry upon me. I also had to make up some believable story to account for the damage done to Mr. Rupert's cabin. Obviously, no one was going to believe what I had come up against. Moreover, I didn't want to become a laughing stock.

This was the first incidence of something unusual happening to me.

A/N-

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