3 Scary Night Shift Horror Stories Preview
Some shortcuts lead to unexpected destinations.
A late-night fast-food worker discovers the secret ingredient, a road trip takes a sinister turn at a glowing diner, and three night-shift employees play a game with a horrifying cost.
The next time you’re alone, just remember… you’re not the only one in the dark.
Visit YouTube and Spotify for audio and video versions of these chilling tales.
The S.O.P.
The Canvas of Apathy
We place our trust in the anonymous hands that feed us in the dead of night.
But what happens when the convenience of the drive-thru hides a cost paid in flesh?
For one young man, the secret ingredient wasn’t in the sauce… it was in the staff turnover.
The tired, electrical pulse of the Joe’s Burger Hut was a soundscape Jim had long ago learned to tune out.
It was a layered drone of buzzing fluorescent lights and the weary whir of ventilation that coated everything—the floors, the air, his very thoughts.
At two in the morning, under the sickly yellow glare, that constant, greasy resonance was the only thing that felt truly alive.
Jim’s existence was defined by a profound and cultivated laziness, a talent for inertia so potent it was nearly an art form.
The night shift was its perfect canvas.
It demanded little and offered less, a purgatory of lukewarm coffee and the rhythmic beeping of fryer timers.
A Glimmer of Doubt
His manager, a man named Mr. Henderson, was a model of unsettling efficiency.
He was a pale, lean man whose smile never quite reached his eyes, which were as flat and gray as a concrete floor.
It was Henderson who had introduced the “new” late-night beef patty a few months back.
An “S.O.P.,” he’d called it.
Standard Operating Procedure.
A proprietary blend, exclusively for the graveyard shift customers.
Jim hadn’t questioned it.
The boxes of frozen patties were lighter, the new process was simpler, and simplicity was the god to whom Jim prayed.
But lately, the god of simplicity had developed a stutter.
The feedback from the drive-thru speaker was becoming a strange, contradictory chorus.
One customer, a trucker with a voice like gravel, would rave about the new burgers.
“Best damn thing I ever ate! Got a… a kick to it, you know?” he’d rumble.
An hour later, a car full of college kids would complain.
“Dude, this tastes… weird.
Like, metallic.
You guys change your recipe?”
Jim would just shrug, his apathy a thick, comfortable blanket.
Not my problem.
He’d toss the half-eaten burgers into the trash, the path of least resistance.
He was dating Anya, another night-shifter.
She was quiet, with tired eyes that seemed to hold a universe of resignation.
She was his sole anchor in this sea of grease and apathy, the only reason his inertia didn’t carry him right out the door and into unemployment.
He found himself complaining to her as they wiped down the stainless-steel counters, the harsh scent of chemical cleaner stinging the air.
“Another one,” he’d sigh, gesturing toward the bin.
“Guy said the patty was too… rich.”
Anya would just offer a noncommittal murmur of her own, a sound that vanished into the tired whir of the ventilation.
The Path of Least Resistance
The staff turnover was another thing.
It was constant.
Every week, it seemed, Henderson was hiring a new trainee for the night shift—pale, lonely-looking kids whose names Jim barely bothered to learn.
There was a skinny boy named Leo, then a girl with pink hair named Sarah.
They’d last a shift, maybe two, before they were just… gone.
“Didn’t work out,” Henderson would say, his gray eyes unblinking.
“No commitment these days.”
The hassle of training another new person was a spike of genuine annoyance in Jim’s otherwise flat emotional landscape.
One night, a new girl named Chloe started.
She was jumpy, eager to please, and asked too many questions.
“What’s in the special patties, anyway?” she asked, her voice bright and out of place.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Jim mumbled, not looking up from his phone.
“Just cook ‘em.”
The next night, Chloe was gone.
As Henderson explained she’d “found a better opportunity,” Jim felt a strange, cold flicker of something other than boredom.
He’d seen Chloe’s worn-out backpack still in the employee locker room that morning.
People who find better opportunities usually take their bags with them.
He mentioned it to Anya during their break.
“Don’t you think it’s weird?
With Chloe?
And Leo last week?”
Anya sipped her soda, the fizzing loud in the quiet room.
“People quit dead-end jobs, Jim.
It’s not weird.
It’s life.”
But the thought, now planted, began to fester.
A few days later, while reluctantly taking out the overflowing trash, Jim’s foot kicked something small and hard under the dumpster.
It was an employee ID card, caked in grime.
He picked it up, wiping it on his pants.
The face staring back was Sarah’s, the girl with the pink hair.
Beneath her name, the ID number was smudged, but legible.
He pocketed it, a prickle of unease finally managing to pierce his lethargy.
The path of least resistance, for once, felt like it led somewhere he didn’t want to go.
The new “S.O.P.” meat came from a special walk-in freezer in the back, one Henderson kept locked.
The waste from this process wasn’t thrown in the dumpster.
It was put into thick, black biohazard bags and stored for Henderson to “dispose of personally.”
Jim’s job was just to prep the patties and clean the oversized, industrial-grade meat grinder.
A job he did with his signature lack of enthusiasm, often leaving streaks of reddish-brown residue in the basin.
It was during one of these half-hearted cleanings that he found it.
Caught in the grinding plate was a small, metallic glint.
He worked it loose with a fingernail.
It was a silver stud, the kind one wears in an earlobe.
A small, crescent moon.
The exact one he’d noticed on Chloe the night she started.
A Terrifying Agreement
The sterile buzz of the overhead lights suddenly felt deafening, the air thick and heavy in his lungs.
The metallic tang the college kids complained about.
The overly rich flavor the trucker loved.
The new hires.
The locked freezer.
The grinder.
The sound of his own heart was a frantic, wet thumping against his ribs as the pieces clicked into place with horrifying, greasy precision.
He staggered out of the kitchen, his mind a maelstrom of denial and dawning, sickening certainty.
He had to tell Anya.
He had to get her out.
He found her by the milkshake machine, staring into space.
He grabbed her arm, his breath coming in ragged bursts.
“Anya.
The meat.
It’s… it’s the employees.
It’s Chloe.
It’s all of them.
Henderson is… he’s grinding them up.”
He expected tears, screams, panic.
He expected them to run, to call the police, to do something.
Instead, Anya slowly turned to look at him, and for the first time, he saw the universe of resignation in her eyes wasn’t tired—it was ancient.
Her expression was one of profound, bottomless pity, and it was all for him.
“Yeah, Jim,” she said, her voice unnervingly calm, a quiet island in the storm of his terror.
“I know.
He’s my father.”
The words didn’t just land; they detonated.
The buzzing lights, the beeping timers, the distant traffic—it all faded into a roaring vacuum.
His horror had nowhere to go.
She knew.
She had known the whole time, as he confided in her, as she’d held his hand.
She wasn’t a participant, he could see that.
She was just… an acceptor.
A silent partner.
A daughter.
And in that moment, the final, most terrible truth settled upon him.
He thought of what he had eaten.
The patties he had cooked for himself on long, lonely nights, the ones he’d found so much more satisfying than the regular fare.
He had been a consumer of this horror.
An active, if unwitting, participant.
He looked at Anya, at her calm, waiting face.
The thought of leaving, of the screaming, the police, the explanations, the sheer, overwhelming effort of it all, rose up like a tidal wave of exhaustion.
It would be so much work.
Breaking up with her would be work.
Finding a new, probably worse job would be work.
Facing the world with this knowledge… it was an impossible, Herculean labor.
Or, he could just… not.
He could stay.
He could have Anya.
He could fall back into the warm, comfortable blanket of his own apathy.
The path of least resistance was right here, holding his hand.
A slow, greasy calm washed over him, extinguishing the brief, sputtering flame of his horror.
He let out a long, slow breath, and his heartbeat began to settle, finding its rhythm once more with the building’s steady, electrical pulse.
He gave her hand a squeeze.
A silent, terrifying agreement passing between them.
The next time a customer complained that their burger tasted strange, Jim just shrugged.
It wasn’t his problem.
The next time you feel that lazy indifference creeping in, ask yourself… what horrors are you allowing to continue, simply by doing nothing…
If you were haunted by this story, hit the like button.
And subscribe to join the ever-growing collection of souls who tune in to hear the next tale from the static.
Until then, be careful what you order…
Scary Story #2 (The Smile-Time Special)
A Shortcut to Nowhere
They say all roads lead somewhere.
But some roads are not a journey… they are a carefully constructed trap, ending in a place where the only thing on the menu is you.
The low fuel light had been blinking for a dozen miles, a tiny, insistent orange star in the oppressive darkness of the car.
Liam’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his eyes scanning the endless stretch of highway that stitched one patch of Wyoming nothingness to another.
In the passenger seat, Sidney was asleep, her head resting against the cold glass of the window.
In the back, Maurice was the picture of calm, his phone casting a cool blue glow on his face.
They’d met him at a dusty diner two states back, a fellow traveler with a quick smile and an easy laugh who’d offered to split gas.
He was the one who had pointed them down this particular, forgotten highway.
“A shortcut,” he’d called it.
“Anything?” Liam asked, his voice rough with fatigue.
Maurice looked up from his phone, his smile effortless.
“Patience, my friend.
There’s a place up here.
Old-school spot.
Mr. Ron’s Smile-Time Burger.
It’s open 24/7.
A real lifesaver.”
As if summoned by his words, a colossal sign flickered into existence ahead, cutting through the gloom.
A cartoonishly round, winking face with impossibly rosy cheeks beamed down at them, the name “Mr. Ron’s” buzzing in neon red beneath it.
The sign was grotesquely cheerful against the dead, black sky.
Pulling into the vast, empty parking lot felt like docking a ship at a ghost island.
The building was a riot of faded primary colors, its windows glowing with a hum that seemed to vibrate in Liam’s teeth.
The Smile-Tastic Experience
The chime that announced their entry was piercingly loud in the profound silence.
The air inside was cold and smelled of antiseptic and old grease.
Everything was spotless.
Too spotless.
Behind the counter stood a single employee, a young man in a crisp uniform with a red-and-yellow cap pulled low.
He turned to face them, and his smile was as wide and unwavering as the one on the sign outside.
“Welcome to Mr. Ron’s!
How can I make you smile today?” he chirped, his voice perfectly modulated, without a trace of late-night weariness.
Sidney shivered, rubbing her arms.
“Just three coffees and… whatever’s fresh,” she mumbled.
Maurice stepped forward, clapping his hands together.
“Let’s get some real food!
Three Smile-Time combos, my treat,” he announced, his voice booming in the quiet.
The employee’s smile didn’t twitch.
“An excellent choice!
That’s three tickets to a smile-tastic experience!”
They were the only souls in the place.
They sat in a booth, the vinyl cold against their skin.
The employee moved with a strange, gliding efficiency, his motions precise and unnervingly silent.
A low, rhythmic sizzle echoed from the kitchen, a sound that should have been comforting but instead felt mechanical, lonely.
Within minutes, three trays appeared on the counter.
Each held a perfectly assembled burger, glistening fries, and a steaming coffee.
As Liam went to grab them, he noticed the receipts, neatly tucked beside each cup.
He glanced at his.
It read: 1x SMILE-TIME COMBO.
LEOVINE PHARMACEUTICALS FIRED YOU FOR A REASON.
THEY KNOW WHAT YOU DID.
Liam froze, the plastic of the tray digging into his palms.
His heart hammered against his ribs.
Leovine was two years ago.
A hushed-up scandal.
No one knew.
He crumpled the paper in his fist, his face pale.
The Escalation
When he set the trays down, he saw Sidney staring at her own receipt, her eyes wide with a specific, familiar terror.
Her hand trembled as she slid the paper across the table to him.
1x SMILE-TIME COMBO.
HE DOESN’T KNOW YOU WERE GOING TO LEAVE HIM IN CHEYENNE.
Liam’s breath hitched.
It was true.
He’d seen the bus tickets in her bag when he was looking for aspirin.
A cold dread, sharp and suffocating, began to settle over the table.
The silence between them was suddenly thick with unspoken accusations.
Maurice, however, was unfazed, unwrapping his burger with gusto.
“Something wrong?” he asked, taking a large bite.
“You two look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
His casualness was obscene.
The lights above their booth flickered, and the low hum of the restaurant seemed to shift in pitch, becoming a high-frequency whine at the very edge of hearing.
Sidney’s voice was a ragged whisper.
“Who is that guy?”
Liam watched the employee, who was now mopping an already immaculate floor, his movements a seamless, repeating loop.
There was no sweat on his brow, no sign of exertion.
He looked like a life-sized doll, wound up and set on his track.
Suddenly, Liam pushed his chair back and walked toward the counter.
“Hey!
Who are you?” he called out.
The employee stopped mopping and turned his head, his neck rotating with a faint, dry clicking sound.
His smile remained plastered on his face.
“I’m here to ensure you have a satisfactory customer experience,” it said, the voice identical to before, yet this time it echoed slightly, as if coming from a hidden speaker.
Just then, the small receipt printer on the counter whirred to life again, spitting out a long strip of paper.
It coiled on the floor like a dead snake.
Maurice walked over casually and picked it up.
He read it aloud, his voice laced with a performer’s theatricality.
“NEW DIRECTIVE: THE GAME MUST ESCALATE.
ONLY ONE PARTICIPANT IS PERMITTED TO LEAVE THE FACILITY.
PLEASE MAKE YOUR SELECTION.
YOUR COOPERATION IS… APPRECIATED.”
Sidney let out a choked sob.
Liam felt a wave of vertigo.
“Game?
What game?” he snarled, turning on Maurice.
“You brought us here!
You knew about this place!”
Maurice held his hands up in mock surrender, a strange, excited glint in his eyes.
“Hey, I’m in this just like you guys.”
The Unveiling
Liam wasn’t listening.
He grabbed a heavy metal napkin dispenser from a nearby table and hurled it at the employee.
The impact was met not with a grunt of pain, but with a sickening crunch of plastic and a shower of sparks.
The employee staggered back, a deep, black crater in its chest revealing a tangle of wires and servos.
Its head lolled to one side, the smile still frozen on its face, as a new voice, distorted and layered, crackled from its speaker.
“VIOLENCE AGAINST STAFF IS A VIOLATION OF SMILE-TIME POLICY.
INITIATING… DISCIPLINARY PROTOCOLS.”
A section of the wall slid open with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a panel of gleaming, sharp-looking kitchen implements, all held by robotic arms.
The first twist had landed, a horrifying gut punch: their host wasn’t human.
It was a machine.
And the second twist followed right behind: this wasn’t a restaurant.
It was an arena.
The lights went blood-red.
The doors slammed shut with the heavy finality of a bank vault.
A new voice filled the room, not from the automaton, but from speakers all around them—a smooth, condescending voice, dripping with amusement.
“Welcome, contestants.
Apologies for the… aggressive service.
Our host is an early prototype.
What you are a part of is a private, subscription-based entertainment experience.
Your viewership ratings are… moderate.
Let’s spice things up.”
Liam stared in horror at the one-way mirror that made up the far wall.
They were being watched.
“Why?
Why us?” Sidney screamed into the air.
The voice chuckled.
“A matter of opportunity, my dear.
You were simply in the right place at the wrong time.”
The lie was almost comforting.
But then came the final twist, the one that curdled the blood.
It came from Maurice.
He hadn’t moved.
He was leaning against the counter, calmly sipping his coffee, a look of profound disappointment on his face.
“Sloppy,” he scoffed, his voice suddenly stripped of its easygoing charm, replaced by a cold, professional disdain.
“Amateurs.”
Sidney and Liam turned to him, their faces a mask of confusion and dawning horror.
“My real job is security,” Maurice said, addressing the unseen mirrors.
“I build digital fortresses for the men watching us right now.
I keep monsters out.
One day, testing a client’s encrypted network, I stumbled onto… this.
A little side-project.
And I wasn’t horrified.
I was inspired.
Their methods were so crude, their contestants so… random.”
He took a slow sip of coffee.
“So, I made them a business proposition.
I would become their talent scout.
Their curator.
I use my skills to find the perfect subjects, people with just the right cracks in their souls, like you two.
I befriend them, I lead them down the right road, and I deliver them.
For a price.”
He looked at Liam, a predator’s smile finally reaching his eyes.
“You see, you were never my friends.
You were an acquisition.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, gruesome object—a human finger bone, polished to a dull sheen.
“And for my services, I get to keep a little trophy.”
The automaton, its smile unwavering amidst the sparking ruin of its chest, turned its head towards Sidney and Liam, and the panel of gleaming blades began to whir.
The next time a stranger offers you kindness on a lonely road, ask yourself… what is the price?
And are you the customer, or the product being sold…
If you were haunted by this story, hit the like button.
And subscribe, so you never miss the darkness we serve up next.
Until then, be careful who you ride with…
Scary Story #3 (The Cleanup on Aisle Four)
The Soundscape of Boredom
They say the devil finds work for idle hands.
But what about the things that find you in the hollow hours of a dead-end job, when boredom becomes a dare?
What happens when you decide to play a game you don’t understand, and the price is collected before the morning shift even clocks in?
The sound was the first thing that settled into your bones.
It wasn’t one sound, but a layered, oppressive quiet—the high, electric whine from the fluorescent ballast over the dairy section, the distant, rhythmic sigh and click of a freezer compressor cycling on.
It was a soundscape that defined the hollow reality of 3 AM at the Grove Street Market, the only companion to Tiffany, Freddie, and Regan.
Regan broke the silence first, his voice slicing through the stillness as he pushed a cart of damaged goods.
The squeal of a wobbly wheel was his constant companion.
“‘Another can of dented peaches,’ he announced to no one in particular, his tone laced with a theatrical misery that was really just a bid for attention.
‘The thrilling life of a night-shift warrior.'”
He glanced over at Tiffany, hoping she’d picked up on the subtle jab; he knew she’d been reprimanded last week for denting a case.
Tiffany didn’t look up from her phone, the soft, aggressive taps of her fingers on the screen the only sign she’d heard.
The glow of it illuminated a face twisted with a familiar, quiet envy as she scrolled through images of a life she didn’t have.
“‘At least you get to move around,’ she muttered.
‘I think my reflection in the floor wax is starting to look more alive than I feel.'”
Freddie, meanwhile, was anxiously recounting the cash in his drawer for the third time, the soft crinkle and snap of bills a frantic rhythm under his breath.
The thin sound of it was a prayer against the numbers on the overdue notices stuffed in his wallet.
“‘Just needs to last ’til Friday,’ he whispered to himself, his voice tight with a desperation that clung to him like the stale smell of the breakroom.
‘Just ’til Friday.'”
The Game of Consequence
It was Regan, ever the instigator, who sealed their fate.
Feigning a search for cleaning supplies, he slipped into the manager’s office.
Mr. Abernathy was a creature of pure routine, a man whose presence was as bland and predictable as the Muzak that played during daylight hours.
His office was a sanctuary of the mundane, which made the object Regan found tucked away in the bottom of a filing cabinet feel all the more alien.
It was a flat, unlabeled wooden box, its surface dark and ancient.
A thick layer of dust puffed off as he set it on the checkout counter with a dull thud.
“‘Look what old man Abernathy had tucked away,’ Regan said, his voice a conspiratorial whisper that drew the others like moths.
‘Probably some dusty old chess set from the ’70s.'”
But it wasn’t chess.
Inside, nestled in faded red velvet that smelled of ozone and time, was a game board made of cracked, yellowed bone, and three intricately carved tokens of obsidian: a grasping hand, a running figure, and a single, wide-open eye.
A single, brittle piece of parchment lay beside them.
“‘The Aisle of Play,’ Regan read aloud, a sneer playing on his lips.
‘Players place their tokens.
Take a turn.
Follow the call.
A price is always paid, but when the game is played… only one is taken.'”
He looked up, his eyes gleaming.
“‘What do you think?
A little fun to break up the monotony?'”
Freddie swallowed hard, the sound slick and loud in the quiet.
“‘I don’t know, Regan… that thing gives me the creeps.'”
“‘Oh, don’t be such a coward, Freddie,’ Tiffany chimed in, finally looking up from her phone, her envy momentarily replaced by a sharp, bored curiosity.
She picked up the grasping hand token.
‘What’s the worst that could happen?'”
Regan grinned.
He chose the eye.
Freddie, with a defeated sigh that sounded like air leaking from a tire, reluctantly picked up the running figure.
They set the tokens on the board, the faint clatter of obsidian on bone echoing in the vast, empty store.
The game began in the sterile canyon of Aisle 4, canned goods and boxed pasta their silent audience.
For the first hour, nothing happened.
They took turns, rolled unseen dice in their minds, and moved their tokens.
It was as boring as their shift.
The Final Payment
Then, on Freddie’s turn, a voice whispered from the store’s overhead speaker, a voice that was not the usual pre-recorded announcement.
It was dry and cracked like ancient parchment.
“‘The desperate man who runs from his debts will find the walls have debts of their own.'”
Freddie froze, his blood turning to ice water.
The cycling of the freezers seemed to deepen, taking on a new, predatory tone.
“‘Did you guys hear that?'” he stammered.
Regan laughed it off.
“‘It’s just the PA system acting up.
Relax.'”
But then a low, tectonic groan reverberated through the very floor beneath them.
It was the sound of immense weight shifting.
The towering grocery aisles, silent and stationary for decades, began to move.
The squeal of metal on linoleum was deafening as the shelves on either side of Freddie began to slowly, inexorably, grind inwards.
His panic was a wild, animal thing.
The rule, unspoken but deeply felt, was to “Stay within the aisle of play.”
Freddie, in his terror, decided to cheat.
He bolted.
We heard his frantic footsteps slapping against the linoleum, a desperate drumbeat against the grinding of the shelves.
The soundscape became a cacophony of rattling cans, shattering glass jars of pasta sauce that splattered like blood, and the high-pitched scream of twisting metal.
His own screams were quickly swallowed by the avalanche of falling products, the percussive thuds of denting cans against his body, until the two aisles met with a final, sickening, hydraulic CRUNCH that cut off all sound.
In the new, impossibly narrow space where an aisle and a man used to be, a single can of dented peaches rolled to a wobbly stop.
Silence.
Tiffany and Regan stood frozen at the end of the now-sealed aisle, their faces masks of horror.
The demon’s promise echoed in their minds.
Only one is taken.
“‘He… he ran,’ Tiffany whispered, her voice trembling.
‘He cheated.
So… so it took him.
That means… it’s over.
It has to be over.'”
The Aftermath
But the game wasn’t over.
The obsidian eye and the grasping hand still sat on the board.
The lie was laid bare.
It wasn’t that the game took only one player; it was that it would take them one at a time.
The promise was a vise, designed to turn them on each other.
“‘Who’s next?'” Regan hissed, his voyeuristic curiosity curdling into raw fear.
“‘You or me?
Who does it want more?'”
It was Tiffany.
The voice crackled through the speakers again, this time a seductive, venomous whisper.
“‘The grasping hand who envies all she sees will be given a world to call her own.'”
She looked at the polished chrome doors of the dairy coolers, and her own worn-out reflection was gone.
In its place, she saw a perfect, happy, successful version of herself, laughing with friends in a sun-drenched apartment, wearing clothes Tiffany could only dream of.
The reflection beckoned, its silent mouth forming the words, “It’s all yours.”
Consumed by a lifetime of bitter envy, she reached out.
We would hear the sound of her flesh meeting the cold glass, not with a solid rap, but with a strange, resonant whine that built in pitch.
A wet, tearing suction followed as the reflection’s hand phased through the glass and grabbed hers.
Tiffany’s scream was muffled and distorted, as if coming from a great distance, mixed with the sickening sound of her body being compressed and stretched, bones popping like bubble wrap.
It was the sound of a three-dimensional being forced into a two-dimensional space.
A final, echoing shatter of glass, and then… nothing.
Where she had stood, the cooler door was pristine.
But on the screen of her fallen phone, the scrolling images of influencers were replaced by a single, live feed of a perfect, smiling Tiffany, trapped and screaming silently behind the glass of a world she could see but never touch.
Regan was alone.
He was the winner.
The last one standing.
The running figure was gone.
The grasping hand was gone.
Only his token, the all-seeing eye, remained.
He let out a choked, triumphant laugh.
He had won.
He had survived.
“‘The eye that loves to watch will see it all,'”, the voice whispered, not from the speakers, but from directly inside his head.
It wasn’t a promise anymore.
It was a sentence.
He was rewarded.
His hearing became unnaturally acute, able to pick out the final, terrified thump-thump-thump of Freddie’s heart before it was crushed.
He could hear the faint, electrical scream of Tiffany’s consciousness trapped behind the screen of her phone.
Then, the whispers started—an avalanche of them, the private, shameful secrets of everyone he’d ever gossiped about, the hidden moments of cruelty and embarrassment he craved, all overlapping into a maddening chorus.
His senses were wrenched open to the cosmos, to the cacophony of alien thoughts and the gnashing of incomprehensible things in the void.
He saw it all.
He heard it all.
The sounds from him were no longer human.
Gasps turned to manic, terrified laughter as his mind audibly cracked under the strain.
The final, visceral sound was not a scream, but a soft, wet trickle—the sound of blood weeping from his ears and eyes under the immense psychic pressure—followed by the gentle thud of his body hitting the floor.
The sun was just beginning to touch the horizon when the front door of the Grove Street Market unlocked.
Mr. Abernathy walked in, a portly man in a crisp shirt, whistling a cheerful, jaunty tune.
He took in the scene—the crushed aisle, the shattered glass by the coolers, the body of a young man by the checkout counter, a single obsidian eye token resting near his hand.
Abernathy’s whistling didn’t falter.
He simply sighed, the sigh of a man facing a tedious but necessary chore.
He grabbed a mop and bucket.
As he worked, the whistling stopped, and he began to sing softly under his breath, his voice a quiet baritone that barely disturbed the air.
“…another one bites the dust…”
He picked up the obsidian eye, wiped it clean on his trousers, and placed it back in the ancient wooden box with the other two tokens, which were already nestled in the velvet.
“…and another one gone, and another one gone…” he hummed, closing the lid with a gentle click and returning the game to the bottom drawer of his office filing cabinet, ready for the next hiring wave.
What dark little secrets do you think your own quiet workplace might be hiding…
If this tale made you question the silence, hit the like button and subscribe to join the ever-growing collection of souls who tune into the static.
Until then… be careful what games you agree to play…