Chapter 3

By 11:00 PM, I was the only person left on the entire floor.

Carrying a stack of obsolete classified documents almost half my height, I trudged toward the copy room at the end of the hall.

Gideon had given me an absolute ultimatum before he left: every single page had to be destroyed tonight.

The windowless copy room felt like a concrete bunker.

Looming in the center of the room was a massive, industrial-grade smart shredder.

It was waist-high, encased in cold, unforgiving black metal.

Rumor had it this was yet another piece of the company's newly imported AI equipment, allegedly capable of automatically detecting paper density and adjusting its blade RPM to match.

I let out an exhausted sigh and shoved the first stack into the slot.

Vrrrrom—the machine roared to life with a deep, guttural hum.

The blades devoured the paper in a flash, spitting the confetti into the collection bin below.

I repeated this motion mechanically, my eyelids growing heavier by the minute.

Just as I leaned in to feed the very last handful of files, the shredder let out a violent, ear-piercing screech of metal against metal. Followed instantly by the safety guard violently snapping upward.

I instinctively jerked back, but I was too late.

The silk scarf around my neck was caught by a sudden, terrifying vacuum. It was sucked straight into the feed slot!

"Dammit!"

I gasped, grabbing the scarf with both hands and yanking backward with all my might.

But the suction power was monstrous. The gears inside groaned with a bone-chilling crunch, like a gaping, ravenous maw slowly dragging me into the abyss.

"Stop!"

"Stop it!"

I screamed, desperately kicking the front panel while trying to slam the emergency stop button.

But the red stopper wouldn't budge. It felt like it was welded shut.

The scarf tightened like a noose.

My airway began to crush, sending spikes of pure paralyzing pain through my neck.

The machine dragged me downward until my cheek was smashed flat against the frigid metal casing. And in that terrifying moment, I felt it—

The machine was vibrating.

No... it wasn't the rhythmic hum of a motor. It was a rhythmic, pulsing heave.

Like... breathing!

"Help..."

My vision began to swim. Oxygen deprivation was turning my brain to mush.

From the dark depths of the feed slot, I could hear a strange sound. It wasn't blades slicing paper. It was a wet, sticky, malicious whispering.

No. I couldn't die here.

I refused to let some busted office equipment kill me!

Pure survival instinct sparked a final surge of adrenaline.

My right hand flailed frantically across the adjacent table until my fingers curled around something heavy. A solid metal paperweight.

"Let. Me. Go!"

Summoning every ounce of strength I had left in my body, I swung the paperweight upward and brought it crashing down onto the shredder's side panel, right over the ventilation grate labeled Core Motor.

CLANG!

The metal casing dented inward.

The machine's roaring stuttered for a fraction of a second, but the suction didn't weaken in the slightest.

Seeing red, I raised the paperweight again and started bashing the exact same spot like a deranged maniac.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

On the third monstrous strike, the metal casing finally cracked open.

And then, something happened that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Sparks didn't fly out of the machine. It didn't leak motor oil.

Instead, it let out a horrifyingly piercing, chilling... scream.

"AGHHHHH—!!!"

That was no synthesized sound byte. It was an agonizing, visceral shriek ripped straight from a human throat.

Along with the scream, the deadly pull on my scarf instantly vanished.

I fell backward onto the floor, greedily sucking in massive lungfuls of air.

Hyperventilating, I looked up in total horror at the shredder.

A dark red liquid was sluggishly oozing out from the jagged crack I had just bashed open.

It carried a warm, sick vapor and the pungent, metallic stench of iron.

It dripped onto the gray carpet, rapidly blooming into a dark puddle.

It was blood.

Bright crimson human blood.

Just then, the frantic pounding of footsteps echoed down the hallway.

Gideon, Vesper, and several security guards burst into the copy room.

When they saw the puddle of blood and me sprawled on the floor, the blood entirely drained from all their faces.

But there was no shock in their eyes. Only the sheer, abject panic of a dark secret being ripped wide open.

"What did you do?!" Gideon shrieked.

I stared at my own trembling hands, now splattered with red, and then at the machine that was still bleeding out.

An utterly absurd, deeply horrifying realization exploded in my brain.

My shaking fingers fumbled for my phone in my pocket.

The second the screen lit up, Gideon completely lost his mind.

"Stop her! Get that phone!"

The two heavily-built guards lunged at me like vicious dogs.

I scrambled backward furiously into the corner, my back slamming hard against the wall.

Literally a split second before the guard's massive hand could crush my wrist, my thumb desperately jabbed the call button.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"I'm in the eleventh-floor copy room of the Apex Core building!"

Mustering every last drop of air in my lungs, staring straight into Gideon's utterly desperate, terrified eyes, I screamed at the top of my lungs:

"Help! There's a murder taking place!"

Gideon lunged over and delivered a brutal kick to my hand.

He hurled the phone at the wall, shattering it.