I Work The Night Shift

I'm shepherded into the stadium, dripping with darkness. Shadowed seats host invisible spectators, while a silent game transpires on the floor.

I shamble into the office, hushed. Few sounds permeate this place. The computer sits on the desk, green cursor blinking, waiting to be interacted with. The window behind it takes up the entire wall, heralding the inky midnight just beyond its silicate confines.

"Just patrol around the place every half hour or so," a voice drones behind me. I turn. It's the other guard, a black man in a grey uniform. Do I know him? The edges of consciousness have sanded down his face, until only a blank slate remains.

He has no mouth, but he talks nonetheless. I hope he doesn't scream.

Behind him is another specter, another faceless man like him. He's white, fatter, shorter. He doesn't talk, but I don't like him already. He shifts, floats, shudders. Like he's about to glitch out of this reality.

I hope that he does.

The two leave me be, leave me to my shift. I feel a cold breeze run past my naked body.

Why am I always naked?

I scramble through the halls, hoping that no soul will see me, witness my shameful grotesquerie. I know they would laugh at me. Always do. Always will.

I find a uniform in the storage locker by the office. I think it fits.

Wandering the halls now, I see everything is blurred. Fuzzy. Out of focus. The waters of my waking hell blur my dreams until nothing is left; nothing but impermanence and smudges. It's sickening to think about.

The stadium still lies in perpetual black. My eyes are headlights, shedding light on a situation no one asked me to. Towering, gaunt figures amble about the rows of seats, like creatures out of un-scary creepypastas. In the periphery of my eye, I see one of them dancing wildly, two men in hazmat suits supervising him. I let them be; they're only dangerous if you disturb them.

My patrol finished, I return to the office. The window is gone, only chill wind and encroaching night remain. I sit at the desk and type at the keyboard. The computer screen is see-through now, letting me see the inside of the machine. A goldfish swims about lazily within the plastic prison. I blink, and the goldfish is a greenfish. I blink again.

It's dead.