Something moved across the ceiling tiles above the printer.
Ishaan kept his eyes on the spreadsheet.
If he looked up, it would know he could see it.
He didn’t know what happened after that, and he didn’t want to find out.
His fingers kept typing numbers into the wrong cells.
He deleted them and typed again.
The fluorescent light above his desk buzzed the same way it had for three years.
The office smelled like burnt coffee and the lemon cleaner the night crew used.
Nobody else in the office looked up.
Soyeon two desks over was on the phone with a client.
Taehyun was refilling his coffee mug by the window.
Ishaan kept his face blank and his eyes on the screen.
In the corner of his vision, the shape crawled along the tile grooves, then stopped, then crawled backward the way it came for no reason at all.
It moved without sound.
No scraping, no footsteps, nothing to explain why his skin kept crawling.
His phone buzzed on the desk.
The family group chat.
Home 🏠
Amma: ishaan are you eating properly
Amma: you look thin in the last video call
Achan: let him work, he’s a grown man
Meera: guys not now i need to ask something
Meera: ishaan can you send some money this month
Meera: tutoring for the semester is more than i thought and i’m behind in two subjects
Meera: i’m sorry i know you already send a lot
Ishaan typed back with one hand, still not looking at the ceiling.
Ishaan: don’t apologize, i’ll send it today
Meera: thank you thank you thank you
Amma: you work too hard
Achan: proud of you son
He set the phone face down and started doing math in his head.
Rent, the transfer he already sent last week, what was left until payday.
It wasn’t much.
It would work.
It always worked, somehow.
That was when he noticed it.
At first he thought someone was standing at the edge of his cubicle.
He looked over out of habit, the way anyone would.
It wasn’t a person.
It was a long black shape, taller than a man, standing perfectly still where a person’s face should have been.
Ishaan’s stomach dropped.
I just looked at it.
I just looked right at it.
He snapped his eyes back to his screen and started typing again, faster than before, hitting keys that didn’t matter.
I didn’t see you, he thought, over and over.
I didn’t see you.
If I can’t see you, you don’t exist.
Nothing exists.
Nothing is happening right now.
“Ishaan.”
He flinched so hard his knee hit the underside of the desk.
Manager Han stood there, holding a folder, looking at him with mild concern.
“You good?”
“Yeah.
Fine.
Just—” Ishaan cleared his throat.
“Long night.”
“Right.” Manager Han set the folder down on the desk.
“I need a favor.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
Manager Han glanced back toward his own office, then leaned against the cubicle wall like this was going to take a minute.
“You know we’re moving offices next quarter.
The old building on Seorim Street, the one we’re renovating before we move in.”
“Right, the one that’s been empty for years.”
“That one.” Manager Han tapped the folder.
“Haneul Group is sending a team to do the property evaluation this week.
Big firm, handles a lot of commercial sites, does the renovation planning too.”
“Okay.”
“The guy who was supposed to walk them through it had a death in the family.
Funeral’s this week, he’s out.” Manager Han slid the folder closer.
“So it’s you now.
Just show them around, answer whatever they ask, hand off whatever they need.”
Ishaan picked up the folder without really looking at it.
The black shape had moved again, standing behind Manager Han now, closer than it had been a second ago, though Ishaan hadn’t seen it cross the distance.
“One question,” Ishaan said, keeping his voice even.
“Shoot.”
“Do you—” He stopped himself.
“Do you see anything different?
Around here, I mean.”
Manager Han frowned, glancing around the office like he might be missing something obvious.
“Different how?
Did you get a haircut or something?
I don’t know, man, everything looks the same to me.”
“No, nothing.
Forget it.”
Manager Han shrugged and walked off.
The black shape didn’t follow him this time.
It stayed exactly where it was, facing the empty spot where Manager Han had been standing.
Ishaan sat back down slowly.
His hands were still on the keyboard, not typing anything.
What the fuck.
What the fuck is that.
Why am I the one seeing this.
Am I actually cursed.
He grabbed his phone and opened the other group chat, the one with Minho, Yoon, Jisoo, and Daehyun.
cursed but broke 💀
Ishaan: guys not to be dramatic but what if the curse thing was actually real
Minho: LMAOOOO here we go
Yoon: bro is having a breakdown over 5 minutes of eye contact with a rock
Jisoo: i told you it was cursed.
i knew it.
i said it
Daehyun: should i pull up the footage.
for the documentary
Minho: we’re calling it now.
cursed money.
spend it wisely
Ishaan stared at the screen.
Everyone thought it was funny.
He wanted it to be funny too.
He set the phone down and opened the folder Manager Han had left, flipping through pages he wasn’t really reading.
“Wait, you’re the one meeting them?” Taehyun leaned over the cubicle wall, coffee mug still in hand.
“Guess so,” Ishaan said.
“Guys, Haneul Group is doing the site visit this week.” Taehyun waved Soyeon over.
“Ishaan’s the one showing them around.”
Soyeon rolled her chair closer.
“Wait, seriously?
I heard the CEO does the first walkthrough of every big property himself.
Doesn’t send juniors for these.”
“Kang Jihoon?” Taehyun said.
“No way he’s coming here himself.
This building’s nothing.”
“That’s what I heard.” Soyeon shrugged.
“My cousin works at a firm they bought out last year.
She said he came in person, walked through every floor, didn’t say a word the whole time.”
“He doesn’t smile.
Ever.
I’ve seen like fifty photos of him and not one smile.” Taehyun scrolled on his phone.
“Look at this.
Same face in every single picture.”
“I heard he restructured half the company in his first year,” Soyeon said.
“Fired entire departments in one week.
People call him the brutish one behind his back.”
“Brutish and rich,” Taehyun said.
“Must be nice.”
Ishaan half-listened, nodding at the right moments.
Behind Soyeon’s chair, the black shape drifted upward along the wall, sideways, then folded itself around the back of her neck.
Soyeon coughed once, sharp and sudden, then again, harder, covering her mouth with her hand.
“You okay?” Taehyun asked.
“Yeah, I don’t know.” Soyeon coughed again, eyes watering.
“I think I’m getting a fever or something.”
Ishaan sat very still, watching the shape stay wrapped around her neck like it had no plans to leave.
“Drink some water,” Taehyun said, already turning back to his screen.
Soyeon nodded, still coughing, and rolled her chair back to her own desk.
The black shape stayed where it was for a moment, then peeled off her and slid sideways across the carpet, gone under a desk somewhere Ishaan couldn’t see.
“Anyway,” Taehyun said, “good luck with that.
Try not to embarrass the company.”
“Thanks for the confidence,” Ishaan said, watching Soyeon still coughing quietly at her desk, no clue what had just been standing behind her.
The rest of the day moved slowly.
Every time he glanced up, the shape had relocated to somewhere new, never in a way that made sense.
Near the printer, then somehow already by the elevator without ever crossing the floor between them.
By the time he got home, his shoulders ached from holding them stiff all day.
The shape had followed him the whole way, through the subway, up the stairs, into his apartment.
It stood in the corner of his bathroom now while he brushed his teeth, then, without moving, was suddenly by the door instead.
He spat into the sink and stared at his reflection instead of the mirror’s corner.
“Why the fuck are you following me,” he muttered around the toothbrush.
The shape didn’t answer.
It never made a sound at all.
He climbed into bed and turned off the lights, pulling the blanket up to his chin.
He closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep the normal way, the way he did every other night of his life.
Sleep didn’t come easily.
Every time his mind started to drift, some part of him stayed awake, aware of the shape standing near the foot of the bed one second and gone from that spot the next, never in the same place twice.
He checked the time on his phone.
1:47 AM.
He checked again later.
3:12 AM.
At some point he must have slept, because the alarm woke him up instead of the ceiling.
He woke up tired, the kind of tired that no amount of sleep would have fixed anyway.
The Seorim Street building looked worse in person than it had in the folder photos.
Scaffolding covered half the front entrance, and dust sheets hung over the windows on the second floor.
Ishaan let himself in through the propped-open front door.
The lobby was stripped down to bare concrete, wires hanging loose from the ceiling where light fixtures used to be.
His footsteps echoed off the walls with nobody around to hear them but him.
The black shape stood near the far wall, still, watching nothing in particular, or watching everything at once.
Ishaan checked the time on his phone.
Ten minutes early.
He heard it before he saw it.
Footsteps outside, more than one set, growing closer, then the heavy front door swinging open wider against the propped brick.
Ishaan turned toward the sound, folder tucked under his arm, and put on the best smile he had left in him.
“Hi.
Welcome.”