Jasmine B.L. Laden. She looked like a trashy, blonde, rotting Jack-o-lantern in clown makeup, being used as an ashtray, and had the personality of one to boot. If you saw her at a store, she’d be the one carrying around the “Let me speak to your manager” type energy, which is funny since she is basically a manager. She was a supervisor who was part of the management team and jockeying to be its biggest jackass.

She seemed to have it out for me in particular. To her, I didn’t tackle certain tasks quickly enough, while I’d tried to take care of a much larger workload. I would get it all done at a better pace using procedures proven to be more efficient and accurate, if she didn’t threaten me with disciplinary action for not using by-the-book procedures. Not that there were rules against it what I did, but just because she wasn’t happy with it. She treated me as if I’m lazy for trying to decompress in between long bouts of work, while she plays games on her phone and looks up memes and houses on the internet almost all day. Oh, and how she loved yelling and talking down to me. Even the thanks she’d give me when she did, were so insincere bordering on sarcastic.

To be fair, Jasmine was a jerk to every one of us under her supervision. She’d say it was how she was raised, but she’d then be all sweet and soft spoken whenever the manager was around. It was exactly how she was the morning of the incident. Everyone on the floor were told to stop working to have a meeting. It entailed Jasmine scolding us as the manager watched, interjecting every so often to act friendly. This came off the day before when the janky-ass printer network decided not to print, causing everything to pile up and throw everyone off. Got the impression during the meeting that corporate wasn’t going to do something of worth, so management wanted to act like it was entirely our fault and not make any real mention of the network yesterday. I remember her saying, “I’ve been too lenient on you all.”

Funny, since she was yelling at me for taking a mandatory break later than I usually take, because I had to catch up on a load of overdue work thanks to some other problems we had occur.

With the meeting over, it was getting near noon, and I decided to take my toilet break early, so I could go straight to my lunchtime afterwards. I usually take ten to fifteen minutes, but I finished much sooner on that day. I was passing by the breakroom to sign out for lunch when I overheard management and coworkers talking. I wondered why they were taking their lunchbreak early like I was, when I noticed they were all speaking to Jasmine, telling her things like, “You’re pushing too hard, ease up a little” and, “You must remember that there is a balance.”

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

First, I thought they were giving warnings about overworking, until I heard one of my colleagues talk about how a cousin had to report on the aftermath of one of “their” rampages. Officially, it was reported as a workplace shooting, but what really happened to those seventeen people that day was far more gruesome. It was so bad that none of them were allowed to have open-casket funerals. The culprit had to be put down by the authorities, and that cost them over a hundred bullets and a few officers.

Then, the manager told how only months after the incident, the town where it happened ended up getting wiped out by an out-of-control wildfire. She elaborated to Jasmine that whenever “one of them” dies, if there are no others like “them” living around the area, whichever community “they” called home faces ruination only months later. This however can cause a cascading effect if there are none alive so to stabilize the natural order within “their” radius of influence. Events like the Black Death, Krakatoa, and the period from 536 to 575 AD, were all due to “their” low population numbers scattered across the world at those times. A low world population of “them” must be in existence in modern times, which was why it seems everything is going to pot now. Despite attempts to properly track the numbers worldwide to better manage “them,” not many governments were honest in their reporting, since people would generally avoid communities that has “one of them” as a resident.

This whole time, I had no idea who “they” were. Then Jasmine said, “It would have been nice if someone warned me before I moved here. Now that I can’t leave, I’m just making the best of bad situation by getting what I deserve, having to deal with that THING lurking around!”

It was at this moment, a sudden thought came to me, like: Oh God, it wasn’t paranoia!

There were occasions throughout my life, when it was late at night and I was tired, but I couldn’t go to bed from one reason or another. It was during those times, I could’ve sworn I saw something from out of the corner or my eye that would startle me. I’d quickly turn to see what it was, only to find myself alone in the room by myself. I would just blame my paranoia, but now it turns out that there’s likely a connection between all the misery I’ve been put through and whatever I saw those nights. Whatever it was, there is more than one, and they lurk outside of everyone’s periphery, I thought.

I entered the breakroom, and everyone went straight to the usual phoniness and aloof posturing I’m used to seeing, except for Jasmine who immediately left the room. I had no idea on why no one would tell me about this thing’s existence, but I was determined to find out that night and I had just the person in mind to get an answer from.