Your shift. The cavernous room is silent except for the low hum of fluorescent lights and the occasional rustle as you turn a page in the 1993 sewer maintenance permit log you’re cataloging. The pool of light from your desk lamp is the only thing holding the pressing dark at bay.

You don’t hear the door. You don’t hear footsteps. But the quality of the silence changes, becomes occupied. You feel it a second before you see the shadow, long and distorted, stretching across the linoleum floor and over the edge of your desk.