I worked for a back office consultancy office that worked for US and UK based business chain of hotels called "Hyatt Regency". I guess many of you guys would have heard about this hotel. Because of the difference between time zones, I had to work according to US timings which obviously means I have to work at nights. I used to be a bold strong and highly motivated person at my office and who never was afraid to take risks. I always used to cross the benchmarks by working a couple of hours late, after all, I have to go back to a hostel alone because I worked far away from my house and to not to get home sick, I have to indulge myself in work right?
As I worked for a conglomerate, staying back for couple more hours was never frustrating because my work floor consists of 250 employees and there will be at least 5 people working at any given hour from morning to night. But they say, things will change without a warning sometimes right? that happened to me on that day. I was working on an escalation on that particular day without realizing my surroundings but I heard constant byes from other employees. "Yippe, its finally solved!" I thought, after finishing my escalation thinking all the appreciation I was going to get from my manager next day. I was very happy to solve a month old issue and I shouted while standing up "I solved it" and turned over to see no one. Literally zero people in my floor.
Our floor was divided into three categories, Receivables, Payables and General Ledge". There was 100 chairs in first category and after that we get 20 feet walking distance to Payables and then in another room, there was Ledger department. So, you can imagine how vast the floor was and imagine being alone in the entire floor at 4.30 am in the morning. The only light that was on was on my desk and far off the corner at the receivables department, there was just one light on one desk. "Hello" I shouted at that direction as I was walking towards it. "Hellooooo" a faint whisper touched my ears. I almost knew everyone in the floor i'm working in for being working there from 2 years and I couldn't recognize the voice to call their name but however i continued slowly walking and rambling "oh thank God you are here, I thought I was so alone in this huge floor. What are you still working on, what's the new escalatio......." I stopped talking as I reached the chair and saw no one. Literally no one.
I stared at the chair for couple of minutes and looked around. The floor now seemed unbearably silent. I looked in all the directions and saw no one. Usually by this time when everyone leaves, the house maintenance staff will walk from floor to floor to clean the desks. They did not come yet today surprisingly. I was merged in these thoughts when suddenly the light above my head started flickering. I held the control rope and pulled it down to stop it but it was still flickering. I was still adjusting the light when I casually looked at my desk and saw a black shadow moving around my desk and my light started flickering too at my desk. As I was looking at it, it suddenly stopped moving around and looked straight at me, standing still but moving its head very slowly from right to left as if someone do when they say "no". This time, I got panicked and ran for the door because I had absolutely no intention to collect my handbag or close my desktop. I was about to open the door when it suddenly got opened and my heart skipped to beat. I saw the maintenance staff coming into the floor. The woman saw my pale face and asked me, "are you still here?". I ignored her question but questioned her back, "why are you late today?"
She replied me, "we were standing outside and trying to open the door because our access cards suddenly failed to work. We had to call the security and IT department to get the extras.". At this moment of seeing 4 people before me, I stopped panicking and smiled at them and gave them way to carry on their work. I slowly went back to my desk, which is well lit now and logged off my desktop and kept my belongings in the cabinet and was collecting my hand bag and turned around only to see the young lady from the staff standing right behind me without even giving an inch gap between us. I was shocked but slowly and about to say something when she kept her hands on my mouth to close it and slowly whispered, "I see that shadow too. No one believes me though.". She lifted her hands from me and walked past me still looking at me right in the eyes.
I never worked late after that and always used to leave with the last person or used to ask my manager to permit me to do remaining work the next day. They all love me and my work and hence never used to restrict me for anything. But I intended to know what the shadow was and next couple of days spent asking to meet the staff lady to talk about it. I got the same answer from everyone on that day, "apparently that's the last day anyone has seen her here. She stopped coming to work and did not even give any resignation letter too and the agency that sent her tried tracking her down to her house and it was always empty and they absolutely have no idea where she went"
Thanks for reading.