Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s a suspiciously neutral office, all things considered. Neutral grey cubicles surrounded by neutral beige walls. The colored ‘accents’ only make it worse, because the maroon cabinet doors and the blue floor mats can hardly be called those colors, really. They’re ugly, and somehow remind Carlos of vomit. Or make him want to. He’s not sure. 
And there’s something about the lighting. Garish, buzzing, keening florescents that cast everything into sharp and sickly relief. He can see all the wiry little fibers in the bland carpet, and all the infinitesimal, nigh-microscopic lines in his own skin.

He isn’t sure how he got here.
He isn’t sure where ‘here’ is.
He might be alone here. But he’s not really sure about that, either, because the silence is a little too solid and the flickering bulb at the end of the office is casting shadows where it shouldn’t, and they are getting closer.

There are always exit signs in these kind of places, and Carlos looks for one now, calmly, scanning over the grey maze of cubicle paneling for anything neon and red and exitlike.
Neon green restroom sign. Neon blue sign that implies a faculty lounge.

The light flickers, and his sense of alone flickers with it. There is, almost undoubtedly, something here with him. Not in spite of the stillness in the air, or the heavy, tangible quiet, but because of it. The kind of conspicuous emptiness that suggests someone, somewhere, is causing a tremor in the air with their breath, causing a tension throughout the entire room, taut like a wire and vibrating, simply by trying so hard not to let their presence be known.
Carlos knows.
Who ever is here with him knows now that he knows.

There are no neon red exit signs. There are no exits.
He is not alone here.