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I've been cleaning at Hartwell Biomedical Research for eight months. When I figured out the 4th floor stayed locked after 6, that should have been my first clue something was off about the place. The building sat way out on Portland's edge, past where the city pretends it still matters. Just this big concrete block surrounded by Douglas furs that looked like they were trying to back away from it.
I don't blame them. Even in daylight the place had this vibe. You know, like it was designed by someone who'd never seen a building that wanted people to feel welcome. I started my shifts at 10 each night, Same routine every time. Punch in at the service entrance, grab my cart from the supply closet, wait for the last researchers to clear out.
They'd shuffle past me in their lab coats. Not making eye contact didn't bother me. I wasn't there to make friends. My job was simple enough. Mop the fluorescent lit hallways that stretched forever in both directions.
Empty the biohazard waste bins, those red containers that I tried not to think too hard about. Wipe down surfaces in the break rooms where someone always left coffee rings on the tables. Custodial stuff, except for all the signs warning about contamination protocols and disposal procedures. I made a point not to think about what went on in those labs during the day.
Easier that way. I'd see equipment through the windows, sometimes microscopes, computers, things in glass containers I couldn't identify. But that wasn't my business. My business was keeping the place clean so the smart people could do whatever smart people do. The solitude worked for me, anyway.
After Sarah left and took half my life with her, I'd gotten used to quiet. Preferred it, actually. No conversations about feelings or where our relationship was headed or why I never talked about my day. Just me, my cart, and the soft squeak of wheels on linoleum. But that night felt different.
The second I walked through the door. The ventilation system was making this sound I'd never heard before. Not broken, exactly, just different. Like it was working harder than usual, pushing air through the building with this weird rhythm, almost like breathing if buildings could breathe. The air itself tasted wrong, too metallic, like I'd been sucking on pennies.
I figured maybe they've been running some new experiment. The place always had strange smells floating around, chemical stuff I couldn't name, but this was sharper somehow, made the back of my throat feel dry. I wheeled my cart to the usual starting point on the 1st floor, and that's when I saw the note.
Molly Stevens had left it taped to the handle of my mop bucket. Molly was my supervisor, nice enough woman, but she kept things professional. In eight months, I think we'd had maybe 3 conversations that weren't about work schedules or supply orders. She had this way of talking that made it clear she was in charge without being mean about it.
The note was written on company letterhead in her careful handwriting. Said that 4th floor access was granted for tonight only. Room 4C needed cleaning. Do not touch any equipment or specimens. Work must be completed by 2:00 AM.
That last part was underlined twice. Stared at that piece of paper for probably a full minute. In eight months of working there, I'd cleaned every square inch of floors one through 3. But the 4th floor? That was off limits always.
The elevator wouldn't even take me up there without a key card I didn't have. I'd asked Molly about it once, maybe 3 months into the job. Just casual, you know? Hey, what's on the 4th floor? She'd given me this look like I'd asked about her personal bank account, said it was restricted access, and left it at that.
Now suddenly I'm supposed to go up there tonight? Only The whole thing felt weird, but not impossible. Maybe someone significant was coming to inspect the place. Maybe they needed everything spotless for some big presentation, or maybe something had happened up there that needed cleaning up. That thought made my stomach do this little flip.
I'd emptied enough biohazard bins to know this place dealt with things that could be dangerous. What if there'd been some kind of spill, some kind of accident? But the note just said cleaning room 4C, don't touch anything, be done by two. I folded the paper and stuck it in my back pocket. The metallic taste in the air seems stronger now, or maybe I was just noticing it more.
The ventilation system kept up its strange rhythm, and somewhere in the distance I could hear the hum of equipment that never shut down. I've been working nights long enough to know that buildings have their own personality after dark. During the day, Hartwell probably felt busy and significant, full of people doing research that mattered.
But at night, it turned into something else, emptier, more honest about what it really was. I grabbed my cleaning supplies and headed for the elevator. The note said 2:00 AM. That gave me about 3 hours to finish my regular rounds and take care of whatever was waiting for me on the 4th floor.
As the elevator doors closed, I couldn't shake the feeling that Molly's note was less like instructions and more like a test. But a test for what? I had no idea. The elevator climbed past floors I knew by heart, past the labs where I'd mopped around expensive equipment for months, past the break rooms where researchers left their coffee cups for me to wash.
When it stopped at 4, the doors opened onto a hallway I'd never seen before. It looked exactly like the floors below it. Same fluorescent lights, same linoleum, same smell of industrial disinfectant. But something about it felt different, more serious, maybe, like the building was holding its breath. Room 4C was halfway down the hall on the left.
The door was propped open with a rubber wedge, and light spilled out into the corridor. I could see part of a lab bench inside, covered with equipment I didn't recognize. I stood there for a moment, holding my mop bucket and wondering what exactly I was walking into. In eight months of working at Hartwell, I'd never been given access to anywhere I wasn't supposed to be.
And now, on this night, when everything felt just slightly wrong, I was being invited into the one place that had always been forbidden. The note in my pocket felt heavier than it should have. 2:00 AM. Don't touch anything. Cleaning only.
I took a deep breath of that metallic air and stepped toward the open door. I hit the elevator button at 11:30. My cart made this rattling noise when the doors opened, like it always did, but the sound felt different up here. Louder, maybe. The hallway that stretched out in front of me wasn't like the rest of the building at all.
Instead of those white walls I've been staring at for eight months, these were charcoal Gray, dark Gray, almost black in some spots, and the ceiling sat way lower than downstairs. Made the whole corridor feel like walking through a tunnel. I rolled my cart forward. The wheels squeaked against the linoleum. The motion sensor lights kicked on as I moved one section at a time.
That part was normal enough. Every floor had those, but these lights took a second longer to come on, like they were thinking about it. First doors lined both sides of the hallway. Each one had a reinforced glass window, the kind with wire mesh running through it. I glanced through a few as I passed.
Most of the rooms were dark inside, Completely dark. I couldn't make out anything beyond the glass except shadows and the occasional gleam of something metallic. One room had a faint red light glowing, Just a dot really. Probably some kind of equipment on standby. I didn't slow down to look closer.
I wheeled my cart into the room and started setting up. Grabbed my mop bucket, filled it at the small sink in the corner. The water came out with that metallic taste I've been noticing all night, but stronger now. Made my mouth feel dry just from breathing near it. The room was bigger than I'd expected, maybe twice the size of the offices downstairs.
It had this weird combination thing going on, like someone had mixed a hospital room with a laboratory and couldn't decide which one they actually wanted. Medical equipment lined the left wall. Heart monitors, IV stands, some machines I couldn't identify at all. They all had screens and buttons and cables running everywhere. Most of the screens were dark, but a couple showed these green WAVY lines that moved up and down real slow, like breathing, but electronic.
The center of the room had an examination table, the kind you'd see at a doctor's office, except this one was different. It had restraints built into it, thick leather straps attached to metal clasps positioned where someone's wrists and ankles would go, and across the chest too. The table was empty now, just sitting there under these bright overhead lights that made everything look washed out.
The far wall had this huge observation window, floor to ceiling maybe 8 feet wide. It looked into another room that was completely black. I couldn't see anything through it except my own reflection staring back at me. I look tired, more tired than usual. I started with the floor around the edges of the room.
Stayed away from all the equipment like Molly's notes said. Didn't want to accidentally unplug something crucial or break anything expensive. The metallic taste kept getting stronger as I worked. It sat in the back of my throat now, not just something I noticed when I breathe deep. More like I'd been sucking on a penny.
I mopped my way toward the center of the room, working around the examination table. That's when I got a closer look at those restraints. They'd been used recently, and whoever had been in them hadn't gone quietly. The leather straps were torn in places, not cut. Torn like someone had pulled against them hard enough to RIP the material.
The metal clasps were bent too. One of them was completely twisted, hanging at an angle that didn't look right. I stopped mopping and stared at the table for a minute, tried to figure out what kind of force it would take to damage restraints like that. They looked pretty heavy duty. Industrial strength, maybe.
Then I noticed the stains on the floor underneath, dark brown spots that my mop wasn't picking up. I went over them again, pressed harder, used more soap. Nothing. They'd been there a while, probably set into the linoleum. I crouched down and looked closer.
The stains formed a pattern around the base of the table. Drops and splatters, mostly. A few bigger spots where something had pooled. Could have been anything, I told myself. Medical procedures get messy sometimes.
Could have been iodine or some kind of cleaning solution. That stuff stains everything, but it looked like blood to me. I stood up and kept mopping, went over the rest of the floor twice, making sure I got everything that would actually come up. The stains under the table stayed put. Whatever they were, they'd been there longer than tonight.
The observation window kept catching my eye while I worked. My reflection moved back and forth as I mopped, but the room behind the glass stayed completely dark. I wondered what was back there. More equipment, probably, Or maybe just storage. I finished the floor and started wiping down the surfaces I could reach safely.
The sink, the counters, a small desk pushed against the wall. Normal cleaning stuff, the kind of work I'd been doing for months. But this room didn't feel normal, not even close. The metallic taste was so strong now I could barely swallow, and those restraints kept pulling my attention back to them every time I tried to focus on something else.
Torn leather, bent metal, dark stains that wouldn't come up no matter how hard I scrubbed. I finished wiping down the desk and turned to check if I'd missed anything. That's when I spotted the clipboard sitting on the counter next to some kind of centrifuge. Probably should have noticed it earlier, but I'd been focused on those stains under the table.
The clipboard had a stack of forms clipped to it. Patient intake forms looked like. I figured I shouldn't look, but they were just sitting there in the open, Not like they were locked away or anything. I picked it up. The forms were medical paperwork, except where the name should have been.
Each one just had a subject number, Subject 01, subject 02. Like that. No actual names anywhere. The vital sections were filled out in blue ink. Heart rate, blood pressure, temperature.
All normal ranges mostly, though a few of the blood pressure readings seemed low. Really low. Like dangerously low. Each form had a section at the bottom labeled status. Every single one had the same word written there in neat handwriting.
Responsive. Just that responsive. I flipped through maybe 8 or 10 forms, all the same subject numbers, normal vitals, and that one word made my stomach feel weird. Something about the way it was written. Not like a medical note, more like someone was keeping track of something specific.
I set the clipboard back where I found it and stepped away from the counter. That's when the lights came on in the observation chamber. I turned toward the big window and nearly dropped my mop bucket. There was someone in there, a man in a hospital gown, standing against the far wall. Just standing there, staring right at me.
How long had he been there? The room had been completely dark when I started cleaning. I would have noticed if someone was in there. Had to have been, but there he was. The guy was tall, probably 6 feet, maybe a little more thin, though really thin.
The hospital gown hung loose on him like it was 2 sizes too big. His arms were at his sides, perfectly straight, not relaxed straight like someone had positioned him there. His posture was all wrong. People don't stand like that. Even when they're trying to stand perfectly still, there's usually some kind of shift or sway, natural movement.
This guy was completely rigid, balanced in a way that looked fake, like a mannequin someone had set up but didn't quite understand how real people actually stand. I took a step closer to the window. His face was gaunt, cheekbones that stuck out sharp, and his skin had this Gray color to it, like he'd been sick for a long time.
But his eyes were what really got to me. They were huge. Not just wide open, actually huge, Bigger than eyes should be. And they never blinked, not once. I stood there for probably 30 seconds and he didn't blink at all, just kept staring at me with his impossibly wide eyes.
I couldn't tell if his chest was moving. Usually you can see someone breathing, especially when they're that thin, but I couldn't make out any rise and fall. Maybe the distance was throwing me off, but it looked like he wasn't breathing at all. Then he smiled. That was worse than the staring.
Way worse. His mouth stretched wide, and I could see his teeth. Too many of them. They were packed together too tight, like someone had tried to fit extra teeth in there. Crowded in a way that made my jaw ache just looking at it.
I backed up toward the door. This was getting too weird. I needed to get out of here and find Molly or call security something. I reached behind me for the door handle and pushed. Nothing happened.
I turned around and really pushed this time. The handle moved, but the door didn't. Budget. I could hear the electronic lock mechanism humming. A little red light was blinking next to the door frame.
The door had locked itself. That didn't make sense. I'd propped it open when I came in. There was no reason for it to close, let alone lock. These doors didn't even have automatic locks as far as I knew.
I pulled out my phone to call Molly. No signal. Not even 1 bar. That was impossible. I'd had full signal in the elevator just 20 minutes ago.
These buildings aren't that thick. There was an intercom panel next to the door. I'd seen them on other floors but never used one. I pressed the call button and waited for someone to pick up static. Just loud, crackling static.
I tried adjusting the volume, pressing different buttons. Nothing but white noise. I looked back at the observation window. The man was walking toward the glass now. His steps were smooth.
Too smooth. Like he was gliding instead of walking, and he was covering distance way too fast. Each step seemed to move him forward more than it should have. Not running, just moving. With this predatory nature that made my skin crawl.
I pressed myself against the door and watched him approach the window. Up close, he looked even worse. His hospital gown was stained with something dark around the chest area. His skin had that Gray pallor all over, not just his face. And those eyes, they were even bigger up close, wide enough that I could see white all around the irises.
He reached the window and pressed both palms against the glass. His fingers were too long, way too long, and they bent at angles that weren't right. Too many joints, or joints that bent the wrong way, like someone had added extra knuckles to each finger. The fingernails were yellow and thick. I could see his breath fogging the glass now.
So he was breathing, just not in any way I could see from across the room. He lifted one finger, the index finger on his right hand. It was even longer than the others, and it moved in this slow, deliberate way. He started tracing something in the fog on the glass, first an R, then an E.
His finger moved perfectly, each letter exactly the same height. SPONI knew what he was spelling before he finished. SIVE responsive, just like on all those forms. I heard something that made my stomach drop. A soft mechanical sound from behind the observation window, like a door opening.
The figure at the glass turned its head toward that sound, and I saw there was another door back there in the observation chamber. A door I hadn't noticed because the lighting was wrong, but now I could make out the edge of it swinging open Into Darkness. That's when I stopped thinking and just moved.
I grabbed my cleaning cart and shoved it hard against the main door. The metal frame caught against the door handle and the wall wouldn't hold long, but maybe it did buy me a few seconds. My hands were shaking pretty bad at that point. The figure stepped away from the window, walked toward that opening door with those smooth, too fast movements, like it was gliding instead of walking.
I figured I had maybe 30 seconds before whatever was happening next started happening. I looked around the room for anything. Another exit. A phone that actually worked. Hell, a better place to hide.
That's when I spotted the ventilation grate up near the ceiling, right above the counter. With a centrifuge. The grate was maybe 2 feet by two feet size. I'd worked enough buildings to know they usually LED somewhere, and somewhere else was better than here. I climbed onto the counter, knocking over some test tubes in the process.
Glass scattered across the floor, but I didn't care about that anymore. The grate was held by 4 Phillips head screws, and I didn't have a screwdriver. Course I didn't. Behind me, I heard the observation chamber door finish opening. Then footsteps.
But not normal footsteps. These made a wet sound, like bare feet on tile, but with this weird clicking underneath, like fingernails tapping. I grabbed the closest thing I could find, a metal probe from one of the equipment trays. Flat edge, kind of sharp. I jammed it into the first screw and twisted.
The metal was soft enough that it stripped a little, but the screw turned, came loose after about 6 rotations. The clicking footsteps got closer to the observation window. I didn't look, kept working on the screws. Second one came out easier, third one too. By the time I got to the 4th screw, I could hear breathing on the other side of the glass.
Slow, deliberate breathing that didn't sound quite right, too controlled. The last screw dropped to the counter and I pulled the grate free. The opening was tight, but I'm not a big guy. 5-10, maybe 160. On a good day, I'd fit.
I stuck my head and shoulders into the shaft just as something touched the observation window again. This time it wasn't fingers. It was a whole hand, palm flat against the glass. But the proportions were wrong. The hand was too long, and when I glanced back I saw there were too many knuckles in the fingers.
That's when the thing spoke. Responsive. It said. Same word it had written in the breath fog, but hearing it out loud made my skin crawl. The voice was too deep, like it was coming from somewhere in its chest instead of its throat.
I hauled myself into the ventilation shaft, had to use my elbows and knees to pull my body weight forward. The metal was cold and sharp against my arms. I could hear my breathing echoing in the narrow space, way too loud. Behind me, something grabbed my ankle. The pressure was incredible, like a vice made of bone and muscle.
I felt my ankle bones compress and figured they might actually break. But the thing that got me wasn't the pain, it was how cold the grip was, like being grabbed by something that had been sitting in a freezer. I kicked backward as hard as I could, connected with something solid, and the grip loosened enough for me to pull free.
My sneaker came off in whatever was holding me, but I kept moving forward into the shaft. The thing made a sound then, not human, somewhere between a hiss and a growl, but with this wet quality, like it was coming from a throat full of fluid. I crawled faster. The shaft was maybe 3 feet high and two feet wide, just enough room to move if I stayed on my hands and knees.
The metal was cold against my palms and within a few minutes I could feel the skin starting to tear. But I kept going because behind me I could hear the thing following. It moved through the shaft differently than I did. No scraping of knees or elbows, more like it was flowing through the space.
And it was faster than me. A lot faster. I crawled for what felt like 10 minutes but was probably more like 3. My knees were definitely bleeding by then. Could feel the warm wetness soaking through my work pants.
My hands too. The metal edges were sharp and I was moving too fast to be careful. The shaft branched ahead of me, left or right. I had maybe 5 seconds to decide before whatever was behind me caught up. I went left.
No reason, just instinct. The sounds behind me got fainter after I made the turn. Either the thing went right or the branching confused it somehow. I kept crawling anyway, wasn't about to stop and find out. My hands and knees were in bad shape by the time I saw light ahead.
Not bright light, just the faint glow that meant an exit grate. I crawled toward it and found another ventilation grate, this one looking down into what appeared to be a supply closet. I could see shelves lined with cleaning supplies, paper towels, disinfectant, mops, familiar stuff, normal stuff. The grate wasn't screwed in from this side, just held by metal clips.
I pushed it open and dropped down into the closet, landed hard on my feet and nearly fell over my ankle. The one the thing had grabbed was already swelling up. The supply closet was on the 3rd floor. I could tell by the window, same view I'd seen plenty of times during regular cleaning rounds.
It was still dark outside, but the building's exterior lights were on. I found my phone and called. Molly figured she needed to know what was happening up on 4. Maybe she'd know what to do about it. Or at least she could call someone who would.
The phone rang twice, then someone picked up. Hello, Leon. Not Molly's voice. A man's voice, calm and measured, like he was reading from a script. Who is this?
I said, where's Molly? This is Randall Kelly. I'm afraid Molly Stevens was in an accident earlier this evening. Nothing serious, but she's currently at the hospital. I didn't know any Randall Kelly.
Never heard the name before, but something about his voice made my skin crawl almost as much as the thing in the observation chamber had. How do you have her phone? I asked. I don't have her phone, Leon. I have your phone.
You called the number we programmed into your contacts list 8 months ago. The number labeled as Molly Stevens Emergency line. That didn't make any sense. I'd called Molly's regular number the one I'd used before when I had questions about scheduling or supplies. Your assignment to room 4C tonight was part of a behavioral study, Randall said.
His voice never changed, tone still calm and clinical. Your responses have been recorded and analyzed. We're quite pleased with the results. What the hell are you talking about? You demonstrated exactly the survival behaviors we hypothesized.
Flight response, problem solving under extreme stress, adaptive thinking, all within acceptable parameters. I sat down on a stack of paper towel packages. My ankle was throbbing and my hands were still bleeding from the ventilation shaft. This guy was talking like I just finished some kind of job interview. The subject in the observation chamber was never intended to make physical contact with you.
Randall continued. The door mechanism was designed to delay, not prevent your exit. The ventilation shaft route was pre planned and monitored throughout. You're saying this was all fake? Not fake controlled.
There's a significant difference. I thought about the thing that had grabbed my ankle, the cold grip, the wrong proportions of its hand, the wet sound when it spoke. What was that thing in there? That's not relevant to your role in the study. Your final paycheck will include a substantial bonus for your cooperation, Leon Considerate compensation for the unexpected.
Overtime the line went dead. I sat in the supply closet for a while, holding my phone and looking at my torn up hands. The metallic taste was still in my mouth. My ankle hurt like hell, and somewhere above me, room 4C was still locked up tight with whatever that thing was still inside.
But according to Randall Kelly, I just earned a bonus for good behavior. I couldn't stay in that supply closet, not with that thing still up there in room 4C. Not after finding out I've been part of some behavioral study the whole time. I took the stairs down to the first floor. Didn't trust the elevator.
Figured if they were running behavioral studies they probably had ways to trap people in elevators too. The stairwell was cold and my sock got wet on the concrete steps. Some kind of condensation probably. Or maybe just water from the janitor's mop. That would be ironic.
The service entrance was still unlocked, same way I'd come in four hours ago when I thought this was just another shift. I pushed through the heavy metal door and the night air hit my face. Still had that metallic taste in my mouth, stronger now, like I'd been sucking on pennies. The parking lot stretched out in front of me, under these tall lights that were supposed to stay on all night.
Supposed to. Three of them were flickering like dying fluorescence made everything look like an old movie. My Honda Civic sat by itself in the middle of all that empty asphalt. I'd parked it under one of the good lights when I got here. Now that light was one of the flickering ones.
The lot felt huge, probably wasn't any bigger than usual, but walking across it with one shoe and a busted ankle made it feel like crossing a football field. Every step on my right foot sent this sharp pain up my leg. The sock was completely soaked through now, and my toes were going numb from the cold.
I kept looking over my shoulder, couldn't help it. The building behind me was mostly dark, except for a few security lights and that one window on the 4th floor, room 4C, still lit up, like they were expecting someone to come back and finish cleaning. My keys were in my front pocket, but my hands were shaking.
Not from cold, just shaking. I pulled them out and dropped them on the asphalt. The metal sound echoed across the empty lot. Real smart. Leon, drop your keys in a parking lot at 2:00 in the morning after escaping from some kind of medical experiment.
I bent down to pick them up, and that's when I looked up at the building. There were people in the windows, not just room 4C. Multiple windows on the 4th floor, 5 or 6 of them, maybe more, all lit up now when they've been dark before. Each window had someone standing in it.
They were all wearing the same thing that first guy had on those oversized hospital gowns that hung loose and shapeless. They were all looking down at me, not moving, not waving, just standing there perfectly still and staring. Even from 4 floors up I could tell they weren't blinking. Same way the first one hadn't blinked, like they forgot how or didn't need to.
I grabbed my keys off the ground and stood up too fast. Pain shot through my ankle and I almost fell over. The figures in the windows didn't react, didn't move at all. They just kept staring. One of them was in the window of room 4C, had to be the same one I'd escaped from.
The others were in rooms I'd never seen before, rooms that have been dark and empty when I walked down that hallway an hour ago Now they were all occupied, all watching. My hands were really shaking now as I tried to get the key in the car door. The metal kept scraping against metal.
Couldn't get it lined up right. The key ring had this little flashlight on it, but I didn't want to use it. Didn't want to make any more light than necessary. Finally got the key in and turned it. The Honda's locks clicked open and I yanked the door handle, slid into the driver's seat and immediately hit the lock button.
Like that would help, like car doors could keep out, whatever those things were. I stuck the key in the ignition, but didn't start the engine yet, just sat there, looking up at the building through my windshield. The figures were still in the windows, still staring down. One of them raised its hand and pressed it against the glass, same way the first one had done in the observation chamber.
Long fingers with too many joints spread against the window. Then another one did the same thing. And another. Soon all of them had their hands pressed against their respective windows, like they were reaching for me through the glass or saying goodbye. Hard to tell which.
The flickering parking lot lights made everything strobe on and off, light and shadow. Each time the lights came back on, the figures were still there, still pressed against the windows, still staring down at me with that same unblinking intensity I'd seen up close. I turned the key and the Honda's engine coughed to life.
The headlights came on automatically and lit up the empty asphalt in front of me. In the side mirror, I could see the building behind me, all those windows on the 4th floor glowing like Jack O lanterns. That's when I realized something that made my stomach drop. The parking lot was supposed to have security cameras.
I'd seen them before, little black domes mounted on poles around the perimeter, but looking around now, I couldn't spot a single one. Either they'd been removed, or they'd never been real in the 1st place. How long had they been watching me? How long had this whole thing been set up? I put the car in drive but kept my foot on the brake.
The figures in the windows hadn't moved, still standing there with their palms pressed against the glass, all of them facing my direction, all of them perfectly still except for those hospital gowns that seem to move slightly in whatever air was circulating up there. Thus, metallic taste in my mouth was getting worse. Made me want to spit, but my mouth was too dry.
I reached for the water bottle I kept in the cup holder, but it wasn't there. Must have forgotten it at home. That's what I get for rushing to work after Molly's supposed emergency. Except Molly hadn't called Randall Kelly had, and there was no emergency except the one they'd created for their behavioral study.
I was probably the only real emergency in the building tonight, the only one who hadn't been planned. I looked up at the windows one more time. The figures were still there. Still watching, but now I noticed something else in the window of room 4C. The original figure had written something new in the condensation on the glass letters spelled out backward from my perspective, but I could read them anyway.
Goodbye.