Speaker 1: It was my first day in Western Hill Medical Care,
and I drove up the mountain, reaching minutes before dawn.
The hospital looked like it had seen it all. The
head nurse showed me around and brief me on my responsibilities.
She was showing me the different wards when another caregiver
came rushing. He looked young but very frightened. Catching his
panting breath, he told the head nurse about some patient
who had just had an episode of incontinence. The head
nurse asked the name of the patient, and the minute
the caregiver uttered her name, I could see lines forming
on her forehead. Both of them discussed for a minute,
who will attend to this patient because the one who
takes care of her is on leave. Thinking it was
my chance to shine on the very first day, I
recommended myself. Are you sure, the head nurse asked me.
I chuckled, as if it was a very silly question.
I've had training on attending old and disabled patients, so
i know what I'm doing. The head nurse gestured for
the caregiver to take me to the patient so I
could give her a bath and a change of clothes.
As I started to follow, the caregiver. The head nurse
called out to me and warned me. She told me
to be careful on our way to the patient's room.
I casually asked the caregiver about her, and he said,
the patient is a bit weird. A normal day, she
keeps to herself, but sometimes she can get violent, which
is why they always keep her physically restrained.
Speaker 2: She has been through a lot. Her abusive husband tortured
her for years until one day he came back home
drunk and beat her badly, and then he killed himself too.
If you ask me, she's way better here than she
was with him.
Speaker 1: The caregiver exhaled, and I realized things are about to
get pretty serious around here. We stopped outside a small room.
Inside the room, I could see a bed with its
white sheets covered in fecal matter. A smell of urine
waste and perspiration hit my nostrils right away, and I
covered my nose muttering. Got some strong spell. On the
bed sat this frail, average height woman with her hands
tied to her body. She had long, stringy gray hair
and an expressionless face. Her eyes were wide like a
night owl.
Speaker 2: Dorothy, this is Lynchin. She's going to help you. Okay,
can you promise me you'll cooperate?
Speaker 1: Dorothy nodded her head up and down, then shifted her
gaze towards me. She didn't speak, didn't blink. The caregiver
pulled out this wheelchair and I placed a towel on it. Together,
we helped Dorothy get down from the bed and take
a sit on the chair. I was instructed to unlock
her handcuffs only during the shower. Once done, I shouldn't
wait a second to put her back in restraints. I've
dealt with violent patience in the past, so I was
confident I would handle it. Also, Dorothy was very skinny,
and I'm stronger than her in every aspect. I wanted
the caregiver leave to attain other duties. When I looked down,
my eyes met with Dorothy's. She was staring at me.
I gave an awkward smile and took her to the
shower room. I turned on the warm water and began
gently rinsing her arms.
Speaker 2: You'll feel better after this, Dorothy, nice and clean?
Speaker 1: Okay, no answer. Her eyes were open, but empty, like
windows with no curtains, just darkness behind them. I knelt
to rinse her leg when Dorothy whispered, it's still insideer.
I looked up, confused, What did you say? I asked.
She tilted her head at an unnatural angle, her wet
hair clinging to her face. It helped me a.
Speaker 2: Slice his throat in one bow.
Speaker 3: She murmured, do you know how people bleed when their
veins are cut?
Speaker 1: I took a cautious step back, my heart picking up pace. Dorothy,
are you all right? She smiled, blinking her eyes like
a robot. But it wasn't a smile of relief. It
was something sinister.
Speaker 3: If I had it with me, I would have cut
you all open.
Speaker 1: The lights above flickered, My breath caught in my throat.
The bathroom had no windows, just a single fluorescent light overhead.
I think we're done here. Then she started screaming. She
thrashed in the chair, shaking the handles violently, her face
twisted with pure rage. Her screams were blood curdling. I
frozen shock. The caregiver came rushing in, but those five
minutes felt like forever. Dorothy was sedated and taken back
to her room. Later, the caregiver tried to console me.
He said, it happens at patients sometimes lash out, but
when I told him what Dorothy said, he went pale.
I asked what was wrong, and that's when he told me.
The murder weapon was never found, but based on the clean,
deep cut in her husband's neck, authorities believed it was
a scalpel, something swift and sharp. It's been months now
and I still work here, but ever since that day,
I haven't slept the same because part of me wonders
set weapons still hidden somewhere inside some walls, because I
don't think Dorothy's lying, do you. I felt it before
the elevator even reached the thirty seventh floor, A tight
twisting knot just under my ribs, probably just first day jitters,
new job, new city, knew everything, But the second those
elevator doors slid open, I knew I'd made a mistake.
She was the first thing I saw, sitting at reception,
clicking those bloodbred nails against her keyboard like she'd been
waiting for me. Vanessa Miller. Our eyes locked. She smiled
that same slow, devious smirk she flashed me the night
I told her it was over, right before she picked
up a kitchen knife and whispered that one of us
was about to bleed. What are you doing here? I choked.
She tilted her head playful and giggled, I work.
Speaker 3: Here, silly, isn't it crazy?
Speaker 1: I forced myself to keep walking past her, past the
weight in my chest. People work with their exes all
the time, even the unhinged ones. A thick stack of
presentations was already waiting at my desk, along with the
instruction notes, million dollar recounts due by end of day.
Don't screw it up. I threw myself into the work
for a couple of hours. I even forgot she was
out there watching. It might have been eleven o'clock when
I stepped away for a tea break. Ten minutes tops.
When I got back, every file on my system was corrupted.
I stared at the screen like maybe I was dreaming.
Tried rebooting, reopening, recovering nothing. By noon, the phones were
ringing off the hook, Clients were screaming. Greg's voice came
through my headset tight with anger. My office now every
woman in the department received explicit messages from your email,
mister Raynolds, he said, sliding printouts across the desk. I
didn't write these, I pleaded. It's Vanessa, she's my ex.
Greg was frantic, You've been here six hours and created
nothing but problems. Fix everything you've broken before leaving tonight.
I don't care if you stay all night. As I
left his office, I swear i'd heard a giggle slumped shoulders.
I buried myself back in work, pretending everything had already
gone to hell. By seven, the office was empty, just me,
my monitor's cold glow, and that thick kind of silence
wherever keyboard click sounds like a gunshot. I was digging
through my email settings when the lights flickered before it
went out totally, not just at my desk, the whole floor,
even the emergency exit signs blinked out like dying embers.
Then a dim glow flickered to life in a corner.
I froze. It was a flashlight, not mine, and right
there on the inside of the glass wall was smeared
and wet red A question she had always asked me,
you promise you love me, baby. My breath caught, My
heart pounded so hard I felt it in my teeth.
She'd been right here waiting. I spun around, grabbed my bag,
and bolted for the elevators. Debt, tried the stairwell locked,
Every goddamn exit was sealed. I was contemplating my next
move when from the dark, her voice floated out, sings
songs soft.
Speaker 3: Remember our first note together, you said we'll be together forever.
Speaker 1: Such a liar, Ethan. I dropped behind a row of cubicles,
trying to quiet my breath. My hand landed on something solid,
a stapler, not ideal, but heavy enough. You know what's funny?
She was close.
Speaker 3: I got you this job, saw your resume, told the
director how brilliant you were.
Speaker 2: I handpicked this office for us.
Speaker 1: A beam of light swept the floor. I crawled, elbows
and knees burning as I moved away from the voice.
Speaker 3: You think blocking my number would stop me. I watched
you for three years, Ethan. You're linked in your socials.
Your sweet mom still likes my comments.
Speaker 1: I made it to the break room, grabbed the heaviest
thing I could find, metal thermis. Just as the flashlight
swung toward me, she laughed that same brittle, high pitched
laugh that used to echo through my apartment walls when
I ignored her calls that she'd still show up. You're crazy,
I shivered, No, she spat.
Speaker 3: Crazy was when I waited outside your building for six days.
Speaker 1: Straight, just to see your face? This is love? The
beam found me there she was in the doorway. Fox
cut her in one hand the flashlight and the other.
Blood Red lips parted sinfully.
Speaker 2: I've been planning this for months.
Speaker 1: She whispered, stepping closer.
Speaker 3: Do you know how hard it is to hack into
a building security?
Speaker 1: The things we do for love, right? I hurled the
stapler at her face and barreled past her, slamming her
into the wall. She didn't cry out, she laughed, giddy,
like she was proud of me. I ran blindly and
landed in the conference room. The fire escape was just
across the gap, but the glass wouldn't budge. I grabbed
a chair, smashing it again and again, so the window
exploded outward. Cold air rushed in. City lights blurred through
my stinging eyes. Behind me, the footsteps hastened.
Speaker 3: Where are you gonna go? Ethan?
Speaker 1: She stood at the broken window, blood dripping from her temple.
She wiped it and licked.
Speaker 3: It's the thirty seventh floor. Drop, you jump, you die,
you stay. We topped this out.
Speaker 1: I backed up to the edge, legs swinging out. This
isn't talking, this is fucking insane. You're married. You made
me mad. She shrieked and lunged. I didn't decide to jump,
my body did. One second I was at the window,
The next I was flying. The gap was so much
wider than I remembered. I hit the fire escape hard,
steel grated against my palms. My leg screamed, something tore,
but I didn't care. I was alive. I passed out
seconds later, and when I woke up. Next I was
in the hospital and Vanessa was locked up. The security
had heard the crash and stepped in. They arrested her immediately,
breaking hacking, assault, attempted murder. The charges were inescapable. My
boss apologized, begging me not to sue the organization and
promised he'd take care of the hospital expenses that I
had quit. Anyway, it was my first day at LUX,
and I was assigned the storage room duty. Nobody lasts
long down there. Grayson mumbled, handing me the clipboard and
never once looking me in the eye. Something about those
mannequins freaked people out, and soon I'd know why. The
storage room was a nightmare, this massive space with lights
that kept flickering shelves stretched into narrow aisle that seemed
to go on forever, and scattered upon them where the
mannikins everywhere, standing in corners, hanging from metal hooks, or
just body parts thrown into bins waiting to be put together.
Just sort them by gender and then by size, Grayson said,
already backing away toward the stairs and dry finishing before dark.
Then he added, oh, and ignore anywhere noises, old building
and all the doors slam shut, And I swear it
sounded like someone laughing at me. For the first hour,
I sorted mannikins into sections, trying to ignore how the
faces seemed to track my movement. The stores playlist booming
overhead only made the silence between songs creepier than I
heard it tapping from somewhere deep in the room, like
fingernails on metal, tap, tap tap. I stopped holding a
mannequin torso awkwardly in my arms. Hello. My voice cracked
as it echoed faintly in the space. I peered around,
listening to my heart beat in my ears, dead silence.
Maybe some rats scurried behind the shelves, But then when
I saw made my heart drop a mannequin, a male
one with the unsettingly realistic face, glared at me from
the end of the aisle. I knew i'd left it
in the men's section. I remembered the exact spot, and
yet there it was, lurking quietly, as if waiting to pounce.
Pretty sure I moved you already, I muttered, grabbing its shoulders.
That's when I noticed the eyes. They changed. Before they
were just flat painted eyes. Now they looked deep. Don't
spook yourself, moron, I scoffed at myself. I picked it
up again, avoiding those eyes, and hauled it back to
the men's section. By late afternoon, I was totally on edge.
I'd found mannequins in places I definitely hadn't left them,
A female one with a cracked face by the elevator,
a child sized one sitting on a shelf I couldn't
even reach with the the ladder. Each time I found one,
my hands shook worse putting it back. During my break,
I called up the stairs, mister Grayson, I think someone
else is down here, he appeared, looking tense. Nobody else
except you as access today, Alex. But the Minnikans are
exactly where they've always been, he cut me off. It's
just the light playing tricks on you. Something in his
voice made me pause. He knew whatever was happening. He knew.
As closing time hit, the lights dimmed and I rushed
to finish, desperate to leave. Then all the lights went out,
total darkness, not even emergency lights. I grabbed my phone,
turning on the flashlight with trembling fingers. The beam hit
a mannekin standing directly in front of me, the one
with the glass eyes. I swung my light around. More
Mannikins surrounded me, now at least a dozen arranged in
a circle, all facing me. This isn't funny, I yelled,
my voice breaking mister Grayson. No answer. The store was closed.
I was alone, or that's what I wanted to believe.
I tried the freight elevator dead the stairs. Then i'd
get out through the stairs. The beam of my flashlight
revealed the path was blocked. Mannikin stood shoulder to shoulder
before the door, their blank faces somehow accusatory in the
harsh light. They only move when you're not looking. The
realization hit me like a physical blow. Every time I'd
turned away, blinked looked elsewhere. They'd move closer. My phone
battery flashed a warning, ten percent remaining. I backed against
a concrete pillar, moving my light constantly, trying to watch
all of them at once, an impossible task. What do
you want? I whispered, by light flickered, dimming momentarily. In
that split second, the mannikin with glass eyes moved just
twitch of its head, angling slightly to the left, toward
the far corner of the room, where a human shaped
shadow stood. That wasn't a mannequin at all. He was
mister Grayson. I'm sorry, Alex, he said, stepping forward. They
need someone new, they always do. What are you talking about?
My voice was barely audible. They let me go after
I gave him you. His laugh was hollow. That was
our agreement, twenty years down here, watching over them, and
they finally chose a replacement. You're insane, I whispered. But
even as I said it, I saw his eyes glassy, reflective,
like marbles embedded in flesh. My phone died with a
pathetic beam, plunging us into absolute darkness. I felt it immediately.
Movement all around me, the soft scrape of plastic limbs
against concrete the whisper of mannequin hands reaching out. Don't
fight it, mister Grayson's voice drifted from somewhere in the darkness.
It doesn't hurt, not really, You just become like them, silent, watching,
waiting for the next person. Something cold brushed against my cheek,
plastic fingers gently exploring, I ran, blindly, crashing into shelves,
mannequin parts raining down around me. My hands found a door,
not the stairs, but the emergency exit to the alley
behind the store. I slammed my body against it repeatedly
and toil The lock gave way. Night air rushed in
as I tumbled out, gasping into the alleyway. I didn't
stop running until I reached the main street, the store's
neon signs still glowing in the distance. I never went
back for my final paycheck, but sometimes, walking past high
end clothing stores, I glimpsed the Mannikins in their windows,
posed elegantly dressed in thousand dollars outfits, and I swear
one of them has mister Grayson's face. It's glass eyes
following me as I hurry past. They're patient, they silent ones.
They can wait. After all, I still need a job,