It started with a feeling—something crawling at the edges of my mind.
Everything looked the same. The sky was still that impossible blue. The fountain still hissed. But underneath the stillness, something was wrong. Deeply wrong. Like an alligator lurking under still water: unmoving, ancient, and quietly, slowly watching.
And somehow, I kept walking closer.
The feeling got worse every time I drove home. As I approached the front gate, my skin would prickle. That night, I was almost at my building when a man suddenly stepped in front of my car. I slammed the brakes.
The streetlight on that corner was broken, leaving a pocket of darkness.
From the shadows emerged a man in a navy-blue uniform—Security Officer Jenson, in charge of Building J.
He wore a red cap, red shoulder straps, red belt. Regulation outfit. But his teeth were yellow and black, and his smile too confident.
"Sir, this is a pedestrian walkway," he said calmly. "Please park in the designated lot. Take a short turn—it'll only cost you two minutes."
I was annoyed. "Next time, don't stand in front of my car."
He looked at me squarely. "Then I'll stand to the side. But next time, you also don't drive this way again."
That was it. I didn't know his name, but I remembered his face.
He had clean hands—pale, almost feminine hands—but everything else about him seemed... stained. I called him 'J' in my mind. Officer J.
He became a thorn I couldn't pull out.