Chapter 4
1107 Words
The cold hours before morning dragged by slowly.
Natalie sat in the office with her homework spread across the desk, barely reading any of it as the clock crawled toward four a.m.
She didn’t remember walking back from C Block.
One second, she had been standing in that cell staring at him.
Next, she’d been inside the office with the door shut behind her and the flashlight still clenched tightly in her hand.
Her pulse still hadn’t fully settled.
Neither had the cold buried beneath her skin.
Or the memory of the way he had looked at her.
Careful.
Apologetic.
Not threatening at all.
She pushed the thought away and leaned back in the chair to stretch just as the office door opened.
Mr. Martin walked in carrying a clipboard.
“The cleaning crew is here,” he said without preamble. “After today, you’ll let them in yourself.”
He glanced down at the papers in his hand.
“How was your first shift?”
Natalie stared at him for half a second.
“I…” She swallowed, forcing her voice steady. “There’s someone in C Block.”
He didn’t look up.
His pen moved in slow, even strokes across the clipboard.
“There’s someone in one of the cells,” she continued, stepping closer. “He’s just sitting there. He talked to me.”
Nothing.
No reaction.
Not even a pause in the pen scratching across the paper.
Natalie’s chest tightened.
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you.”
His voice stayed flat and completely unbothered, like she’d commented on the weather.
Relief flickered briefly through her anyway.
“Okay, good, because I don’t think he’s supposed to be there, and the door wasn’t locked, and…”
“You stay out of C Block after midnight.”
The words cut straight through hers.
Natalie blinked.
“That’s not what I’m saying.” She shook her head. “There’s someone down there.”
Mr. Martin slowly set the pen aside and finally looked at her.
The same cold, measuring stare from earlier settled over her again, but this time there was something tighter beneath it.
Something strained.
“Stay out of C Block after midnight,” he repeated.
Not louder.
Not harsher.
Just absolute.
Natalie stared back at him. Part of her wanted to say it outright.
Ghost.
She wanted someone else to say the word first.
“Did someone get left behind after a tour?” she asked instead. “Is this some kind of reenactment thing? Because he didn’t look…”
“You follow the rules.”
Her words stopped.
The way he said it wasn’t irritated or dismissive.
It was controlled.
Like he was forcing himself not to say more.
Natalie’s frustration flared hot and immediate.
“I’m trying to tell you there’s a person in your building,” she snapped. “You don’t seem very concerned about that.”
“I am concerned.”
The answer came too quickly.
Too carefully.
“And that is why you follow the rules.”
That explained absolutely nothing.
“That’s not how concern works,” Natalie shot back. “Concern is you going down there and checking it out.”
Mr. Martin’s jaw tightened slightly.
His eyes flicked once toward the hallway behind her before returning to her face.
“You do not go down there after midnight,” he said slowly. “And you stay out of the basement.”
“There is obviously a reason for those rules,” Natalie said. “So which is it? Nothing’s wrong, or I’m not supposed to see it?”
He didn’t answer.
Didn’t even try.
He just picked the clipboard back up like the conversation was already over.
Like it had never mattered at all.
Natalie stared at him.
“You’re really going to ignore this?”
Silence.
Scratch.
Scratch.
The pen continued moving steadily across the paper.
Except his hand wasn’t quite steady anymore.
Natalie noticed the faint tremor in his fingers before he tightened his grip.
He was afraid.
Not of her.
Of whatever she had seen.
And he refused to say it out loud.
Natalie leaned back slightly, crossing her arms.
“That’s it?” she asked. “Just ‘don’t go there’?”
“Yes.”
He still didn’t look up.
“Because it’s dangerous?”
A longer pause followed this time.
Then:
“Because it is not your concern.”
A chill moved through her at that.
Not your concern.
Not “there’s nothing there.”
Not “you imagined it.”
Just stay away.
Natalie let out a breath and shook her head.
“Right. Okay. Sure.”
A scared old man running a museum.
That was all this was.
Rules passed down so long nobody remembered where they came from anymore.
Ghosts.
She almost laughed at herself for even thinking it.
Almost.
But her mind drifted back to the cell anyway.
To the way he’d sat there quietly apologizing for frightening her.
That didn’t feel dangerous.
If anything, he’d seemed more worried about her fear than his own existence.
“You know,” she said slowly, “he didn’t seem dangerous.”
Mr. Martin’s pen stopped.
Only for a second.
Then resumed.
Scratch.
Scratch.
“I’m serious,” Natalie continued. “He was just talking to me. Asking questions.”
No response.
Of course not.
Her frustration faded slowly into something quieter.
He hadn’t looked surprised once.
Not when she said there was someone in the cells.
Not when she said he spoke to her.
Nothing.
Just shut it down immediately.
Like he already knew.
Like he didn’t want her knowing more.
Natalie pushed herself away from the desk.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll stay out of C Block.”
That was clearly the answer he wanted.
His shoulders loosened slightly.
“And the basement,” he added without looking up.
“Yeah,” she muttered. “That too.”
Rules.
That was all he had.
Rules instead of explanations.
Natalie turned toward the door, tightening her grip around the flashlight.
But before she reached it, her thoughts drifted back to the cell again.
To the questions he’d asked.
To the way his face had lit slightly when she explained something simple.
Cars.
Microwaves.
The outside world.
He had been genuinely curious.
The realization settled quietly into place.
She had her phone.
Photos.
Videos.
Things he had probably never seen before.
Natalie glanced back once at Mr. Martin pretending to focus on the clipboard.
She didn’t feel afraid anymore.
Not really.
Mostly…
interested.
She opened the door and stepped back into the hallway.
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