Three days after quitting, I swiped my old access card and walked into the company building.
Security guard Wang Deshun glanced up at me, then went right back to scrolling short videos on his phone. I gave him a nod. He didn't even lift his eyes again. Three years working here, I knew his shift patterns cold—night shift, 8 PM to 8 AM. From 2 to 4 AM, he'd slump in his chair snoring, without fail, every single night. It was 3:15 AM now. He was so dead asleep he wouldn't recognize his own mother, let alone wonder why someone who'd already gone through the resignation process could still swipe through the turnstile.
As for why I came back.
Honestly, it wasn't because I found my access card this afternoon. That piece of plastic with my ugly photo on it was just the spark. On my last day, I was supposed to hand it in to HR. Xiao Lin said the system had already deactivated it, told me to keep it as a memento. I tossed it in my bag and didn't think about it again. Not until I was emptying my backpack to throw it in the wash—the card slipped out from the lining and landed face-down on the floor.
On the back, written in marker. My ex-girlfriend Zhou Yao's handwriting.
"Don't be the last one on the twelfth floor."
Zhou Yao broke up with me after the winter solstice last year. She moved to Shenzhen after New Year's. Haven't heard from her since. She'd scribbled that on my card back when we were still together, when she was tidying up my stuff. I'd forgotten all about it.
But if it were just those words, I wouldn't be heading to the office in the middle of the night. I'm not one of those characters in a horror movie who hears a strange noise and walks toward it.
The problem was, I hadn't slept in three days.
Every night since I quit, the same dream. It's simple—I'm standing in the corridor on the twelfth floor. The corridor's pitch black. At the far end, the emergency exit sign glows red, painfully bright. There's something behind the partitions at station 1207, waving at me. I can't make out its face, but I know it's telling me to sit down. On the third morning, I woke up slumped over my desk, a pen in my hand. Scrawled crookedly across my notebook was a string of characters: 1207.
I'd quit. I shouldn't even be thinking about a trash can in that building. But I'd drawn that workstation number without conscious thought.
That's what really got under my skin.
Then this afternoon, the access card slid out of my backpack lining. Looking at Zhou Yao's handwriting, something clicked—in our company, I was always the last one on the twelfth floor.
It wasn't really overtime. I was in charge of turning off the lights.
The twelfth floor was a split-level. Building management cut the main power at 7:30 PM, but each floor's sub-panel still had to be switched off manually. After Old Zhao quit, the job fell to me. The reason they gave: "Young people should stay active." Every day I checked the water dispenser in the break room, made sure the printers were off, shut down all the corridor lights and bathroom exhaust fans, then pulled the main breaker on the sub-panel and walked down the emergency stairwell in the dark.
Three years. Over a thousand workdays. Every single one.
When you turn off the lights long enough, you notice things. For example, some of the sound-activated lights on the twelfth floor had a mind of their own. They'd flicker on when no one made a sound and stay dead when you stomped your foot as hard as you could. I reported it to maintenance. The electrician came twice, said the wiring was old, swapped the bulbs. Same thing kept happening. Eventually I got used to it—just the floor's temperament, I figured.
Zhou Yao wrote those words not long after I'd taken over the lights. She'd waited for me too many times after work, always sitting in the convenience store downstairs. Eventually she grabbed my access card and said she was writing me a reminder. I laughed, called her superstitious. She said the twelfth floor wasn't clean to begin with.
I asked what she meant.
She said: you're the last one out every day. Haven't you noticed that workstation at the end of the corridor?
I said what workstation.
She said: the one no one sits at.
Of course I knew that workstation. 1207. Right by the emergency exit. Had been empty since my first day. Nothing on the desk. Chair pushed in. Not a single thumbtack on the partition. I'd asked Old Zhao about it once. He said no one had ever sat there, not since he started. I asked why. He thought about it, said it was probably bad feng shui—back to the corridor, anyone walking by could see you slacking off.
That explanation made sense to me. For the next three years, I never thought about it again.
But now, three days after quitting, with three nights of dreams and those words on my access card churning in my head, something about Old Zhao's face came back to me. The way he looked when he said "no one ever sat there." I turned it over in my mind and finally understood—that wasn't the face of someone too lazy to explain.
He didn't want to talk about it.
Then I remembered something else. Back when I was still turning off the lights on the twelfth floor, I'd sometimes take my access card off and set it on a partition ledge, go turn off the bathroom lights, come back for it. More than once, I came back to find the card flipped over—front side up turned to back side up. I figured it was a draft from the window or I'd just remembered wrong. Now, thinking about it, there was never any draft coming from the direction of 1207 at the end of the corridor.
I held the card in my hand, rubbed my thumb over the plastic. It wasn't cold, wasn't warm right now. But back when I was still turning off lights, it would sometimes heat up out of nowhere. Every time I dismissed it as my phone's heat bleeding through my pocket. For three years that card never left my side. Every night, it followed me down that corridor for the last round. By now, it was more than a piece of plastic—it was the thing on my body that had been closest to 1207.
I pulled out my phone, opened DingTalk, found Old Zhao's profile. He'd quit two years ago. We hadn't spoken since. I sent him a message: "Zhao, quick question. What's the deal with station 1207?"
Three in the morning. Thought he'd be long asleep.
The reply came instantly: "Why are you asking about this all of a sudden?"
I said: "Just came to mind."
The chat showed "typing" for a long time. Then the message came through. Six characters.
"Don't stay on the twelfth floor."
I stared at the screen for a good ten seconds, then typed back: "Why?"
Two minutes passed. A long message came in:
"I used to be the one turning off the lights too. I sat at 1207 once. Just once. Working late, figured no one would care if I sat there for a bit. Less than five minutes in, I felt someone pressing down on my shoulders. Looked back—nothing there. Never turned off the lights again after that. I quit because of it. Stay away from there too. That thing gets attached to the person in charge of the lights."
My hand froze mid-type: "What thing?"
No reply.
I waited until 3:20. Old Zhao's profile went gray. I sent another "you there?" A red exclamation mark appeared next to the message—he'd deleted me.
Staring at his last message, three things ran through my head simultaneously: the insomnia dreams, the access card that used to flip over and heat up on its own, and those forty missing minutes from the winter solstice.
After finding my access card this afternoon, I'd checked my phone's location history from that day. The location log showed me leaving the company building at 11:40 PM. That matched my memory—turn off the lights at 11:30, reach the lobby by 11:40. But Zhou Yao said she waited until 12:10 AM. Before Christmas, she'd even posted on social media. A screenshot of her ride-hailing record—pickup time 12:12 AM, pickup location right at the company building. I hadn't thought much of it at the time.
Which meant: my phone left the building at 11:40, but Zhou Yao was still waiting for me downstairs at 12:10. And I—the actual me—might never have made it to the convenience store at all.
So during that window, who walked out of the building and got into that cab?
Later I'd understand—the phone leaving the building at 11:40 was a false trail it fed the system. The real me, my consciousness, was pinned in station 1207. A stand-in walked that stretch for me.
I sent Zhou Yao a WeChat message. No reply. Her profile was offline. She'd changed her phone number. I didn't have her new contact info.
I put on my jacket, slipped the access card into my pocket, went downstairs and scanned a bike-share. My apartment to the office is fifteen minutes by bike. I took twenty, stopped midway to buy a pack of cigarettes. Smoked two outside the office building, looking up at the twelfth-floor windows. Only five floors in the building had lights on. The twelfth was dark.
Made sense. I'd quit. No one was turning off the lights. After building management cut the main power at 7:30, that floor sat in total darkness.
I crushed out my third cigarette and walked into the building.
The revolving door's tempered glass caught my reflection. I glanced at it without thinking and felt like my shadow was lagging just a fraction—I stopped, it stopped. Probably just too many cigarettes blurring my vision. I didn't dwell on it.
Now I'm standing in the lobby. The turnstile beeps. The screen reads: "Lin Yuan, Employee ID 0271, Welcome Back." The system's deactivation process takes about seven business days. Still four days left. I walked into the elevator and pressed twelve.
The doors closed. The elevator started rising.
My phone buzzed. I pulled it out—a text from an unknown number.
"Are you back at the office?"
I froze, then replied: "Who is this?"
"Zhou Yao."
The elevator hit the eighth floor. The signal cut for a second before her next message came through: "You saw the writing on the back of your card?"
I said: "Yeah."
"Don't go up."
"Why?"
"Do you remember last year's winter solstice? You said you were working late. I waited for you at the convenience store downstairs. You texted me saying you'd be right down. I waited forty minutes."
She said: "You didn't come down until ten past midnight. I asked what took so long. You said turning off the lights only took ten minutes. So who were you talking to for the other half hour?"
In my memory, that night I turned off the lights at 11:30 and was downstairs by 11:40. But my phone's location said I'd already left the building at 11:40—and she waited until 12:10. Thirty minutes of blank space.
I said: "I remember. I checked my location history this afternoon. My phone left the building at 11:40 on the winter solstice. Who did you wait for?"
Zhou Yao didn't reply to that one.
Two bars of signal in the elevator. Silence on the other end. I waited ten seconds and sent another: "Did you go upstairs that night?"
No reply.
The elevator doors opened.
The twelfth floor.
The corridor was dark. Only the emergency exit sign glowed, a faint green. I stepped out. One sound-activated light flickered on, lighting up the three meters between the elevator and the reception desk. The rest of the corridor was still submerged in darkness. I could see the emergency exit sign at the far end—red, like an unblinking eye.
The reception computer screen was black. The printer had no indicator light. The water dispenser's power light was off. Building management had cut the main power. No one had touched the sub-panel—because I'd quit. By all logic, nothing on this floor should be running.
But I heard something.
Coming from above the ceiling.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Like fingertips tapping a desk. Three taps, a pause, three more.
I stood by the reception desk, looking up at the ceiling. The sound-activated light went out. Darkness surged in. I stomped my foot. The light came back on. The tapping stopped.
The next second, it came from behind me.
Deep in the corridor. The direction of 1207.
Tap.
Just one. Like a knock, but too soft. Like it was waiting for something in response.
I should've turned around and walked into the elevator. I didn't.
The access card in my pocket was vibrating.
Literally. That plastic card, pressed against my thigh, let out a low buzz—like a phone set to vibrate. I pulled it out. Looked at the back.
"Don't be the last one on the twelfth floor."
Below those words, a new line.
Same handwriting. Marker, same style. But the ink wasn't black—it was brown. Like dried blood.
"You're not the last one."
I looked up toward the end of the corridor.
The sound-activated light went out. Darkness surged back in—but this wasn't the light's normal shutdown. The tube overhead was flickering, like a short-circuiting fluorescent, flash on, flash off, faster and faster. Then completely dead. Only the emergency exit sign at the end of the corridor still glowed. In the red light, the top of station 1207 was visible above the partition.
Something was moving behind the partition.
Not my imagination. Something was definitely moving. I could see the outline above the edge—a round shadow, swaying slightly, like someone sitting in a chair, turning their neck side to side.
The sound-activated light came on.
The shadow vanished. Nothing above the partition. Just ceiling.
I stood where I was, staring at the end of the corridor. The card in my hand had stopped vibrating, but the temperature was rising—warmer and warmer, like someone had been clutching it in their fist for a long time. I flipped it over. My photo on the front. The me in the photo was smiling, but the curve of my mouth seemed slightly off from what I remembered.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor.
Coming from the emergency stairwell. Someone climbing the stairs. Bare feet on concrete—soft, steady, one step at a time. From the eleventh floor, heading up.
I should have run.
I didn't. Because mixed into the footsteps was another sound—heavy, ragged breathing. Not the breath of a ghost. The kind of breathing you hear when someone's pushed past their limit. Someone was running up the stairs for their life.
The footsteps stopped.
The stairwell door handle turned.
I gripped the card, staring at the door. The handle turned all the way. The door didn't open. A pause of maybe three seconds. Then the handle started shaking violently—not turning, someone on the other side twisting it frantically, unable to get the door open. Then a dull thud, like a shoulder slamming against the door. Another slam.
Then I heard something behind me.
From behind the partition at station 1207, something made a sound. Not tapping this time. Fingernails scraping metal—sharp, brief, three seconds long, cutting through the far end of the corridor. Then silence.
Then, a voice.
It came from the direction of 1207, traveled the length of the corridor, reached my ears in the dark. Very soft, like someone speaking in a lowered voice. Tone flat, with a faint breathiness.
"Lights are off."
Pause.
"He's going downstairs."
Pause.
"She didn't run away."
Pause.
"Now she's coming in."
My head buzzed. There were at least two entities here—one speaking at the end of the corridor, one outside the stairwell door.
The sound-activated light started flickering again. White flash, black, white flash, black. In every flash of white, I could see the outline behind the partition shifting—it wasn't just turning its neck anymore.
It was standing up.
"But now you see him."
A crash from the stairwell door—the latch snapping open. A figure burst through, slammed into me, knocked me flat on my back. My skull hit the floor tiles. Darkness washed over my vision. When it cleared, a face hovered above mine.
Zhou Yao's face.
She'd lost weight. Cheekbones sharper than before. Eyes sunken deep. She was wearing pajamas. Barefoot. The big toe on her left foot was bleeding—probably kicked something on the stairs. Her left hand clutched her phone, the screen still showing the message she'd just sent me: "Are you back at the office?"
She was shaking all over.
"We're leaving," she said. Her voice trembled. Her lips trembled. "I'm begging you. We're leaving."
"How did you—"
"The scar started burning. I knew something was wrong. I live eight minutes from here on foot. I got the WeChat message you sent and ran—thought you were still downstairs. Then your voice on the elevator told me: come up."
She hauled me to my feet. I stumbled upright. She dragged me toward the elevator. The doors were still open. She shoved me in, followed, slammed the close-door button over and over.
Just as the elevator doors were sliding shut, through the narrowing gap, I saw the end of the corridor.
The sound-activated light was on.
Station 1207. Above the partition. A face.
A face I recognized.
My face.
The doors closed.
The elevator descended. Zhou Yao leaned against the wall, gasping. The soles of her feet were bleeding, leaving dark red prints on the elevator floor. She stared at me, nothing but fear in her eyes. The elevator's surveillance camera had its red light on. Elevators and surveillance ran on the emergency circuit—building management cutting the main power didn't affect them. Something I should've known after three years of turning off lights. Hadn't crossed my mind at all just now.
"Lin Yuan," she said, voice hoarse. "Why did you have to come back? You already quit."
I couldn't speak.
"Did you talk to anyone tonight?" she asked. "On the twelfth floor. Anyone at all."
"No."
"Look up at the surveillance."
I looked up at the camera in the corner of the elevator.
Zhou Yao said: "Tomorrow morning someone will review the footage. They'll see you enter the building at 3 AM, swipe your card, go up to the twelfth floor. But when the elevator opens—you won't be alone."
"What do you mean?"
"There'll be someone behind you. Looking exactly like you. Same clothes. Same shoes. Same height and build. Exactly an arm's length away. From the moment you get on the elevator to when you get off, walk through the turnstile—following you the whole way."
The elevator reached the ground floor.
The doors opened.
The lobby was empty. Wang Deshun was slumped over the desk, phone screen still lit, some short video looping endlessly. The turnstile showed a green light. The screen read: "Lin Yuan, Employee ID 0271."
I walked out of the elevator, crossed the lobby, swiped through the turnstile. Didn't look back. Didn't dare.
Zhou Yao followed me out. The early morning wind hit us. That's when I realized my back was soaked. Zhou Yao let go of my hand, crouched on the steps, arms wrapped around her shoulders.
I watched her back, rearranging the pieces in my head. How did she know? How did she end up in the stairwell tonight? I pulled out my phone. The last message she'd sent in the elevator hadn't finished loading—the signal had cut.
I scrolled back through the text history.
The first message: 3:02 AM. Right when I'd gotten into the elevator.
Before that, no one knew I was heading to the office tonight. Old Zhao didn't have the address. Zhou Yao didn't even have my new phone number. There were no cameras on the twelfth floor that could see me. No physical way anyone could've known at 3:02 AM that I'd stepped into that elevator.
"Zhou Yao."
She didn't look up.
"How did you know I was coming tonight? You sent that message at 3:02. I'd just gotten into the elevator."
She buried her face between her knees. Didn't speak for a long time. The wind lifted her hair, exposing the back of her neck. There was a scar there—thin, long, running from her hairline down beneath her collar. I didn't remember her having that scar.
"This." She touched the back of her neck without looking at me. "It's been there since the winter solstice."
"What?"
"I came up to find you. When you still hadn't come down by midnight—calls not going through, messages not answered—I thought something had happened. Took the elevator up. The twelfth floor was all dark. Thought you'd already left. But I heard your voice."
"What kind of voice?"
"Normal tone," she said. "Meeting-discussion voice. You were saying things like 'this proposal works,' 'I think that's fine,' 'I'll get back to you by next Monday.' I walked down the corridor. The voice was coming from 1207. Then I saw you. Sitting at that station. Typing on a computer. The computer was off. The screen was black. You were talking to thin air—like there were colleagues standing in front of you."
Her hand was still touching the scar on her neck.
"I called your name. No response. I walked over, pulled at you. You turned and looked at me."
She paused.
"There were no pupils in your eyes. Just white."
The wind died. A streetlamp flickered.
"I stumbled back, hit the partition. Then you—not you, the other thing—stood up. Pressed its hand against the back of my neck. Cold as frozen meat. It said something. I couldn't understand it. The next second I was in the elevator. Going down. I touched the back of my neck. My hand came back covered in blood."
I looked at her scar. The texture wasn't from sutures healing over a wound. Too uniform. Like a mark burned in by extreme heat.
"This scar," she said. "It's never hurt since that day. But it heats up. Every time it does, I know it's active. Tonight, around 2:50 AM, the scar burned like it was on fire. I just knew."
"Knew what?"
"Knew your access card had been activated."
I pulled out the card. The plastic was cold.
"It's been waiting for you to come back," Zhou Yao said. "That card in your hand—three years of you setting it on partitions, dropping it on floors, carrying it against your thigh down that corridor. It's soaked in its residue. You were gone three days. It couldn't wait any longer."
"Wait for what?"
"That night of the winter solstice, when you sat at 1207, it'd already started the transfer—using your face, your voice, your memories. But it didn't finish. Those forty minutes, you came back halfway. Tonight, when you went up, it started the second."
"Second?"
"It needs three times. After the third, you become it—and it becomes you. You'll sit at station 1207. Overtime, forever. Turning off the lights, forever. Waiting for the next last person on the floor."
She paused, turned her head toward the streetlamp.
"After the winter solstice, I looked into a lot of things. Station 1207—before our company moved in, someone from the previous company worked two straight weeks of overtime sitting there and died. Sudden cardiac arrest. Property management said no one knew he had a heart condition. Probably didn't know himself. He was still sending emails when he died. The last one to leave the office. The last one to turn off the lights. Saw 1207 still lit up. Sat down. Just like you on the winter solstice."
"What was his name?"
"Property management wouldn't say. I found an anonymous post on Maimai. The post mentioned his nickname—'the Light Turner.' When they carried him onto the ambulance, he still had a breath left. Looked at the ceiling and said: 'The lights are off. I haven't left yet.'"
The security booth light came on.
Wang Deshun was awake. He saw us standing at the entrance. Blinked, stood up, slid open the glass window.
"What are you two doing here so early—"
Then he noticed Zhou Yao's feet and pajamas. His expression shifted.
"It's nothing," I said. "Master Wang. I just quit. Came to grab some stuff. We're leaving now."
He nodded, didn't say anything. But his eyes moved from us to the surveillance monitor. The screen showed elevator playback footage. Black and white. I followed his gaze—the screen was too small to make out details, but you could see two people in the elevator.
One standing in the front left. Another in the rear right.
Wang Deshun's finger hovered over the mouse. Stayed there a long time. Didn't click play. Didn't ask. He picked up his thermos, took a sip of water, and minimized the surveillance window.
He didn't say a word.
It stood outside the main entrance, facing the twelfth floor.