My workplace has always scared me.
Whether it was the creepy dark hallways or the rickety elevator, I never liked that old floor of the Manehattan skyscraper where we had our office.
If there was any late day at the office, I'd always just so happen to need somepony to stay behind so they could give me a lift home...
"Honey...honey," a familiar voice resonated around in my head as I realized I had been dozing off.
I looked around me.
I was sitting at a dark wood table in my apartment with my wife busily cooking at the stove. She was wearing her usual purple, frilly edged apron with the flower in front, and her hair was tidily wrapped up in a bun, though I could see a few strands of hair poking out.
"Dozing off again?" she said sweetly.
I furiously shook my head, before realizing she couldn't see me, although I promise you I can always feel her watching me.
"No."
"Well, good, I know you're going through busy season this week, and I want you to know how proud I am of you," she said, bringing over the pancakes she had been cooking and giving me a light nuzzle.
Thanking her, I suddenly felt like something was missing.
"Where are the foals?" I asked, referring to our two little ones, a pretty orange filly and her younger brother, a light green colt.
"You don't remember? I arranged for them to go off to camp this week."
I figured it was maybe that new camp in Ponyville, but she didn’t specify.
"Anyway, I plan to keep myself busy while you're away. I have a new project planned," she said with a wink, before adding, "so don't even think about us and just focus on your work." She smiled.
So with that, I took the lunch she prepared for me and went out the door.
I wasn’t going to be paranoid, but here I was.
The office was crowded as usual. The first floor, being a small lobby that led to a large elevator door, had nothing else of worth to offer. And yet it was precisely for that reason that the insane crowd of ponies before me grew into an oozing mass, writhing in and out of the elevator and the front doors in constant motion. Squeezing into the elevator was no small feat, but I had grown used to it.
Once I had gotten into the office, there were ponies bustling everywhere and projects flying left and right. All thoughts of my paranoia vanished.
Until lunch time.
My stomach had finally given me its loudest call, and I knew I was still thinking about that lunch my wife had packed for me.
Trotting over to the breakroom, I found myself alone. Odd. But with a grateful sigh I went to enjoy being at peace and alone with my thoughts.
But then...
The fur on my back raised slightly against my suit. I didn't know why. But it felt like somepony was behind me, watching me. I turned around. The empty tables and chairs seemed to hold a silent council against me. Judging me with every sip of my soup. I nearly choked as my throat tried to swallow and relax at the same time.
I turned back toward my bowl. The soup was warm, reminding me of home. I didn't want to think about how alone and vulnerable I felt, hoping that the food would comfort me instead.
I tried to go back to work, but the grogginess of a full stomach overcame me, and though I pushed through, I was so grateful when it came time to finally go home, with a companion, of course.
My wife greeted me at the door before I even had a chance to turn the knob with my hooves.
"How was work?" she asked with her usual cheeriness. I looked around for my favorite sofa and eased into the cushions. The soothing firmness of the pillows seemed to take my weariness away.
"Same old," I said with a wry grin, "How was yours?"
"Day 1, seemed to be a success," she said, putting away my things as she did so.
*** *** ***
Fighting my way to the elevator, walking past the same dark hallways, I continued on my workweek. But something still nagged at me. Just having that feeling, the feeling that I wasn't alone. But then, it wasn't that unusual in the office.
It had to be stress. Work stress.
The feeling of not being alone. A feeling that made me wonder if I was really myself.
On day four, I thought I would tell one of my coworkers about my thoughts. I didn’t always trust him with these things, but I knew something was off around here and I was determined to find out. I needed a second opinion. I wouldn’t tell my wife about it for all the world. She would tell me that I was just overthinking things again.
Each of us in our office had our own room, rather than cubicles. The office wasn’t big enough to have an open area of cubicles. Just tight hallways with many, many closed doors.
I knocked on his door.
“Come in?” he said when he saw me poke my snout in.
I walked in, unsure if I was really going to talk about this. I didn’t know how to describe it or put words to it.
“Do you ever...ever feel like you’re being watched?” I managed to say while tugging at the end of my shirt.
He looked at me curiously.
“Here?”
“Ye-es,” I replied.
He thought for a minute.
“No, but you do remind me of something. You know, this office seems to have been here forever, but before that it was a schoolhouse. There was a legend about it, too, like some mare teacher killed herself because of issues at home. I’m not sure exactly how it went.”
He looked at me.
“Is that the kind of ‘being watched’ you were looking for, or do you mean the boss has been getting on your back. Because, honestly, I feel that way, too,” he added.
I shook my head and thanked him.
I tried to go on with my day. I didn’t believe in ghost stories. I wasn’t going to let one told in such an offhand way get to me. But somehow, I just could not shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone!
I was finally ready to be done. I was going to take the next day off and relax. Staying at home where feeling like I wasn’t alone was not actually an issue.
I ate my lunch as usual in the breakroom and stared off into the hallway outside the door, before looking away.
Could a ghost exist in this building?
No.
I shook my head as if to assure myself and the imaginary beings within my head. But as if to mock me, the chilling sounds of children’s laughter filled my ears!
With terror I jumped out of my seat and turned around.
Nothing.
Maybe I had been mistaken. The sound of the icemaker went off. A low sounding chuckle as if it wanted to mock me, too. But by then, I didn’t want to stay at work any longer.
With a quick goodbye and a foolish excuse to one of my managers, I rigidly stepped into the elevator and heard its untimely pleasant ding as it closed shut and began to descend.
The usual milling mass wasn’t there in the lobby. Of course, it wouldn’t be. Most ponies were either busy at work or cheating by going home early. But I did see one or two ponies pass by outside the big glass front doors, and it calmed me a bit.
I made my way hesitantly across that lobby, not knowing whether or not I was overreacting.
Surely, I was.
But still.
I made my way home, thankful that it was still daytime. There was still light shining down on me and at everything around me, as if it was the clear light of reason.
Reaching my front door, I realized that I was a bit earlier than my wife was expecting, and I hoped that I wouldn’t scare her. I slowed my breathing, trying not to look as out of breath and shaky as I truly was.
She wasn’t in the living room, or the kitchen, as I walked in. I don’t know why I didn’t just decide to take a pill and rest on the couch. But I continued looking for her, thinking that having somepony else around would calm my nerves.
I walked down the hallway to her workroom where she did her fine arts and crafts. It was out of the way of the rest of our rooms, far enough that she could work in peace without the foals’ noisiness reaching her.
I walked up to the door, which was opened just a crack, and looked in.
The smell should have reached me first.
But what I saw...
Blood, the tattered remains of clothes...
My first thought, I couldn’t say. There didn’t seem to be a way to put everything into words. But I demanded to know.
With a force that had been building up within me all week, to be done with this...to face whatever had been haunting me!, I slammed the door wide open...
“Oh, honey, you’re home early!” the familiar voice resonated around in my head.
There stood my wife next to her workbench, cutting up something that I could only barely see peeking around her.
I choked up.
I recognized the small little uniforms that I had seen almost everyday. The small little uniforms of my two precious darlings.
“Well, unfortunately I can’t continue making your lunches now: Couldn’t you just eat them up?” she said with some malicious grin, giving the remains of our two foals, for that was what was laying before her, a little shake, and raising the knife so that it glinted before me, “But at least you can join them for dinner.”
Oh, what a folly to be so concerned about work that you forget those closest to you!