The day on which Emma Goodworth would die began like any other day in all ways but one: she woke up feeling like she was being watched.

The baying of dogs outside her window and the aggravating squeal of her alarm startled her awake. She nearly broke the “off” button on the old digital clock by her bed for the third time that week as she sat up slowly and quietly, careful to not rustle the sheets too loudly. She was sure she had heard an impression of squishy footsteps on soil outside her window, joined together with the slight patter of rain.

When the noise didn’t repeat, she sighed. Night terrors had been quite frequent these last six years; this wasn’t the first time she awoke hearing things just after odd dreams. They weren’t always unpleasant hallucinations, though: just a few weeks ago she thought she heard her father’s warm voice as she awoke, as though he were waking her up for school again like when she was a kid - as though he had never been murdered, and somehow had found his way to her studio apartment.

The dreamy suspicions retreated into shadows as she pulled back the curtain that constituted a door to her bedroom.

“Calm yourselves, piggies,” said Emma as she entered the living room to the excited squeals of her guinea pigs and picked up their treats. The pair of them, Buster and Keaton (her late father had named them) grunted cheerfully as she fed them and patted their heads. “Manipulative brutes,” she added, smiling as they shuffled off to the other sides of their cages once her fingers were relieved of their goods.

Then, just like any other day on which she would not die, she ate a granola bar in the shower for just long enough for the warmth to ease the knot in her stomach, brushed her teeth, grabbed the least-dirty jeans and work shirt she could find (she was low on cash for the laundromat until payday), and stood in the living room staring at the wall for a few moments. She often stared at the wall before leaving in the morning, but something about that morning felt strange.

An odd feeling in her stomach told her this would be a bad day. She had learned to trust that feeling, self-fulfilling though it no doubt was.

She grabbed a bag of tea from her kitchenette and placed it on a small, scratched table she had found at a secondhand store. She had developed a habit when she was very young of placing sweets for herself to find at home after a long day, mostly on days when things seemed like they would be particularly bad. These were her reward to her future self for making it through the day. This, though, was not entirely accurate, and she knew it: it was really a sort of ritual representing a promise to herself that something better lay at the end of rotten experiences - a hopeful reminder to herself, almost like a prayer, that the ordeal was temporary.

Then, like any other day, she rode the bus downtown and jogged to the front door of the enormous downtown corporate office building at which she worked. The brute, square building thrust a bit higher than other buildings in the area, its concrete exterior slick with pouring rain. It glowed with six floors of indoor lights shining through the windows to repel the wet early morning darkness.

Upon entering, Emma offered her usual smile and greeting to Johanna at the front desk, who did not return it. So far, so normal. If Emma didn’t notice the woman in the black raincoat follow her onto her bus and into the building, she could be forgiven; few people expect to be followed by a hitman into their own workplace.

“Morning, Johanna.”

Johanna, with her toad’s face and bowl of brown hair, had always disliked Emma for reasons Emma could never guess at. Each morning she briefly made eye contact when Emma entered and then returned her attention to the yellowing and slightly smelly dime store book she was reading, nose wrinkled. Walking through the doors each day was consequently always one of the less pleasant parts of every morning. Still, Emma was determined to greet the woman, if only as a reminder that their cold working relationship wasn’t her own fault.

Emma made her way, dripping with rain, towards the other side of the room and pushed the elevator button, trying not to look at the corporate paintings on the walls depicting monochrome gardens and certain inoffensive oddities, like a raccoon gripping a donut. Something about those paintings always creeped her out, especially the raccoon. Combined with the self-conscious atmosphere in the bright, carpeted lobby, the paintings gave off an uncanny air of… dead softness. She had no idea how she could still stomach entering the creepy, stagnant lobby, day after day.

I believe in you.

She heard the voice in her head as clearly as the day her little brother had spoken it. Tapping her foot as she waited for the elevator doors to open, Emma took her phone out of her pocket and pulled up Evan’s name in her text message inbox.

Hope you’re having a good morning, kiddo, she typed out. Her thumb barely hesitated over the send button before she pressed it.

Emma looked up again, expecting the elevator to have come by now. Why was it taking so long? A stranger moved up next to Emma, waiting just beside her for the elevator doors to open. The woman, whom Emma had never seen in the building before, seemed to be wearing a dark raincoat, slick and audibly dripping all over the carpeted floor. Unsure if she should try to make small talk with the newcomer, Emma instead glanced down at her phone again. It vibrated a moment later as Evan’s name lit her screen:

When are you coming home? it said.

I’ll have enough money saved up soon, hopefully, Emma typed. Give me another month, maybe two or three. She hesitated, deleted hopefully, and sent the message as the door to the lobby opened again behind her.

“Morning, Johanna!” called an unnecessarily loud male voice.

“Morning Jeff,” came Johanna’s girlish reply. “Elevator is out again, so you’ll need to take the stairs.”

Blood rose warmly into Emma’s cheeks. She clenched her teeth, remembering her wish to remain on good terms with everyone at the company, and turned the other direction, towards the stairwell. Johanna was rising from her desk and following Jeff, who was wearing his usual three-piece suit and wild smile, a silver tooth glimmering in the dead office light, towards the stairwell.

“Oh - morning, kid,” Jeff said, turning to Emma and smiling awkwardly, his silver tooth gleaming.

“Morning, Jeff,” said Emma, as her phone vibrated in her pocket. A sinking feeling of guilt she couldn’t quite place was settling into her stomach, as it always did when she thought of her brother. She could imagine him sitting at home under the covers, texting his big sister: his one source of comfort since she’d left for a failed stint at college. And she still wasn’t there for him.

“Let me get that for you,” said Jeff. His shoulder bumped past Emma’s as he made a beeline for the door, which squealed unpleasantly on unkempt hinges as it opened.

“Thanks,” said Emma, just as Johanna said, “Oh, every time, you really don’t have to!”

Repressing her embarrassment, Emma pushed as casually as she could manage past them both. She rushed up the stairs towards the second floor, ignoring the two - or was it three, now, including the woman in the raincoat? - sets of footsteps coming up the stairs, audibly much slower and more at ease than hers. She realized she was going to be late to her desk yet again. Her heart became a hammer in her throat, dreading the inevitable talk with her boss. This was her third time being slightly late this week. Her phone vibrated against her thigh again as Emma tried to mentally compose herself for whatever might happen. Knowing Jeff would “have a talk” with her boss if he spotted Emma on her phone, she decided to wait until she was in the bathroom later to reply to the texts.

The door on the second floor landing opened and closed just as noisily as the first, announcing her somewhat tardy arrival to the dark office at which she worked just down the hallway. Behind her, she heard two sets of footsteps go up to the third landing, and a third which was right behind her. A few faces turned toward Emma in her peripheral vision as she casually entered the door to the advertising department before turning back to their computer monitors. She was dimly aware of the footsteps behind her suddenly retreating.

“Morning,” said Emma to the room at large as she passed the jungle of half-cubicles revealing the upper chests and faces of all her coworkers, careful to affect a mood of cheerfulness that she didn’t feel.

“Morning,” said Terry. Terry was of course the only one to greet her with a genuinely friendly flash of his dentures. Terry had been a life saver since Emma started her job at the company after dropping out of college, nearly a year ago. She didn’t quite fit in with her other coworkers, even those in her age cohort: while she could exchange a few bits of light-hearted talk when she felt brave enough, she did not generally make an effort to join in on their conversations - and nor did they make an effort to include her. That was fine, as far as Emma was concerned.

“It’s just like the moose I used to see back at home,” Terry had said one day when Emma held her cell phone over the half-cubicle wall and showed him a picture of one of her paintings, which had in fact been a rendering of a willow tree. “I bet you could sell that at a fair, or hang it up in one of those yuppie bars.”

“What, you’re not gonna buy it?” said Emma, pouting exaggeratedly. “I’d give you the friendly coworker discount.”

“They pay us the same, you know,” Terry replied tartly. The inability to tell whether Terry was serious or joking - or both - was one of his most charming features.

Emma pulled up the content management system used by her office as her phone buzzed against her thigh again. She was a low-level sales representative, responsible for acquiring new advertising clients and maintaining ongoing relationships. Her phone buzzed yet another time as she sent her third email of the morning and Terry, with his usual cheeriness, quipped loudly on the phone with one of his clients, drawing some dirty looks from the other representatives. Feeling a nervous flutter in her belly, Emma decided to finish up the email she was working on and then go check her phone in the bathroom.

As she crossed the room towards the door, Emma saw her office manager, Margot - whose desk was facing all the others - get up and head towards her, as if to follow her out the door.

As Emma crossed the threshold, her teeth clenched in anticipation, she noticed the woman in the black raincoat from earlier, still standing in the stairwell, clearly waiting for someone. Isn’t it uncomfortable in that wet raincoat? The woman caught Emma’s eye and she thought she saw her move forward a step, and then back again, down the stairs as Emma felt Margot come up behind her.

“Have a moment, Emma?”

Margot, in her enormous blue pantsuit and faux pearl necklace, latched the door to the office shut behind them with an air of disturbing finality, leaving them alone in the deserted hallway. She looked at Emma with a self-conscious expression of patient sternness. The large mole above her lip, which usually fairly well broadcasted her mood, was sagging as she frowned.

“What’s up?” Emma said, trying - and, as it turned out, failing - to remember what she had done earlier to build up her composure.

“This is the third time you’ve been several minutes late in the last week,” Margot said, peering at Emma over her glasses. “Is there anything going on?”

Margot’s tone suggested that it would be in Emma’s best interest if there were something going on. Panicked, Emma briefly thought of listing various excuses that were already presenting themselves, but elected to simply tell the truth. “I’m really sorry, the elevator was broken this morning, and the bus has been really bad about being on time this week.” When Margot offered only a blank stare, Emma added, truthfully, “They have an app. You can check it yourself if you want to see what I’ve been dealing with.”

“Well,” Margot said after another moment, “you need to start planning more carefully, then, and adjusting for what you’re calling the lateness of the bus. Tardiness interrupts the workflow of our office.”

“Of course,” Emma said, suppressing the urge to fidget. “I’m sorry, Margot.”

“One of your clients complained recently,” Margot said, pointedly, as though they had been discussing it the whole time. “You’ve actually lost a couple recently. I’m sorry to acost you like this, but this is as good a time as any to discuss these recent disruptions.”

Emma gripped the hem of her shirt and started twisting it despite herself. She had been here before: in the clutches of a boss who, suddenly finding a distaste for their employee, began listing grievances for losses that were also common among other, more favored team members.

“They’ve got their own jobs to handle,” Emma said, breathless but resolute. “Sometimes clients ghost me. They’ve got their own reasons. I can’t control them. I do my best with the clients who do stay in contact.”

“Your clients ‘ghost’ you?” Margot said, blinking at Emma, a hint of clear derision in her voice.

“It means they stop replying for reasons of their own,” Emma said. She’d stopped twisting the hem of her shirt and was now gripping it tightly. Context clues, Margot.

“Nevertheless,” Margot said, as though talking to a child, “I hope we can work a little harder to iron things out. And we’ll need a record of this talk, I think, for your record. I hope you’ll sign it?”

Emma let the hem of her shirt go, suddenly cold. She had been impoverished before - well, even more impoverished. She still sometimes felt that painful lack of food in her stomach like a bruise.

“You mean a write-up,” said Emma, flatly. One write-up almost always meant two more soon after, and a resulting paper trail justifying termination.

“We don’t need to call it that,” Margot said, now smiling sweetly. The mole above her lip was nearing her eye. “It’s for the records, as I said.”

“I’ll sign if I agree with what’s written,” Emma said. She’d hoped to sound confident, but the words tumbled through her teeth a little breathlessly. She turned from Margot towards the stairwell to continue towards the bathroom, which thanks to the apparently drunken whims of a World War One era architect was located only on the third floor. She walked quicker than she’d have liked as her heart knocked on her ribs.

As she neared the door on the third floor she thought she saw a shadow move, and heard too-close footsteps behind her, but she barely registered them with Margot’s words - and her own - still swirling through her mind.

“Morning, Emma,” said Joe, who appeared from around the corner as Emma entered the hallway off the third landing. He was pulling his bucket with a dripping-wet mop in his hands. He stepped aside to let Emma through, then moved towards the doorway just as the woman in the black raincoat from earlier, who Emma supposed was the person who had been close behind her on the stairs, was about to follow Emma through. The stranger stopped in her tracks, somewhat huffily. “Careful, it’s dripping wet today,” said Joe. “‘Scuse me, ma’am,” he offered to the woman whose passage he’d impeded.

“Morning, Joe. Thanks, I’ll be careful.”

Emma crossed into the bathroom across the hallway, peered under the stalls to confirm they were empty, and pulled out her phone, trying to calm herself. Her phone now had four unread text messages. Emma released some tension in her diaphragm with a deep breathing exercise - something her old college roommate, Kara, had taught her - and opened them.

When will you have enough money?

I hope itll be soon.

Moms drinking again and I need someone to talk to.

I love you

Emma turned on the cold water faucet and leaned over the sink. She loved talking to her brother, and resented the feelings of trepidation that arose when he texted. It had nothing to do with her brother. No: she simply hated receiving bad news from home every day, which her brother had for her in spades. She was happy he was comfortable enough to share the news with her, and wanted him to keep doing so, but the news nonetheless piled up and up and up with no discernible cutoff point. The guilt at her reaction piled on to the stress associated with dealing with her father’s death and its aftermath, even all these years later.

But really, the main crux of guilt surrounding her feelings about her brother was that she still hadn’t saved enough money to go back home so that she could be there for him - and, to a lesser extent, even for their mother, whom Emma resented. Not because their mother had done anything particularly wrong since her husband had been murdered - but because she had failed to pick up the slack, leaving all of it for Emma. She wanted to be kind to her mother, who was clearly hurting. What made Emma upset with their mother was that she apparently had no desire to return the favor of kindness and care for her children.

I love you too buddy, Emma typed out. You’re doing so well. Keep it up. I’ll call you later tonight and we can talk about whatever, k?

Emma smiled a little. Talking to her brother, even with bad news he brought, did make her feel better. She hit the send button and then reached for the paper towels, only to find they hadn’t been replaced. Making a mental note to mention the paper towels to Joe, she lifted up her shirt to dry her face instead and then headed for the door as her phone buzzed again.

K, Evan had sent. Got to get ready for school now. I might already be late

Better get ready, Emma typed, and she opened the bathroom door.

Joe was far down the hallway mopping up by the men’s bathroom, which - also thanks to the whims of the drunkard architect - was a single-person room, the multi-stall lavatory being located on the first floor. The woman in the raincoat, who was tapping her feet by the stairwell, turned to Emma.

Emma stared at the woman, really registering her for the first time. Visitors weren’t uncommon at the offices, but normally a visitor would have found their way to their destination by now, or at least have inquired at the front desk. Should she tell someone? She’d never had to deal with a situation like that before. Her stomach twisted uneasily as she thought of reporting the stranger to Margot, who was no doubt now perched at her desk, stewing at what she would call “borderline insubordination” from her low-level employee at the first written opportunity.

The woman started towards Emma. She couldn’t see the stranger’s eyes under her hood, but an unnerving feeling crept into Emma’s stomach.

Emma looked over, and Joe had disappeared, the door to the bathroom propped open. Emma’s phone buzzed again.

“Hey, Emma!” called a voice from down the hallway.

Emma turned. It was Josie, the woman who worked in graphic design in the third-floor offices.

The stranger disappeared into the stairwell again.

“Josie!” Emma called. “How’re classes?”

“Good,” Josie called back, her hand on the office door handle. “How’re sales?”

“You try selling ad space to a crematorium and tell me,” Emma called back.

They shared a laugh, and Josie disappeared into the office a moment later. Emma, who had forgotten whatever had been concerning her, headed towards the stairwell. A strange knot formed around her midriff. Oh - she actually had to pee now. She had already been in the bathroom too long as it was. Was that what she’d been worried about?

She entered the bathroom again, headed into a stall, and pulled her phone out. It was Evan, of course. Deciding she’d open the texts after she’d washed her hands, she pocketed it, finished up on the toilet, and opened the stall again.

The woman in the raincoat was standing in front of the sink, looking at her. When did she come in? Beneath the fluorescent lights Emma could see her eyes now: set on either side of a blonde curl down the middle of her forehead, they were frighteningly blue. And they glimmered with hatred and intent.

“Oh -” Emma said. “I’m almost finished -”

Her mind raced as her hand felt for her car keys, which had her pepper spray and a small switchblade, but there was no familiar lump in her jeans. She realized with horror that she had left them at her desk.

Would Joe be able to hear her scream from here?

“Listen, back up -” Emma began, but then the woman lifted her arm. The sleeve of the raincoat slipped back a little, revealing a small, narrow blade the size of a finger.

Emma’s phone buzzed again.

Emma tried to run for the door, but the woman moved in front of her. In two, three, four quick movements she punched Emma in the chest and stomach. Before Emma registered what had happened, the long back of the woman’s raincoat was disappearing through the bathroom door as Emma fell very slowly to her knees, and then her back, like a marionette being gently set down by its puppeteer.

The buzzing electric lights seemed so much louder and brighter now, as though the waves of sound were pushing down on her in ringlets of light. She hiccuped as her breath slowed and suddenly she felt tired, very tired. A certain, biting pain she’d never felt before made its way up her torso. A part of her wondered if this was how her father had felt.

She needed to text Evan, she realized, though she still hadn’t fully put together why this intuition was so urgent.

She pulled out her phone, which buzzed again as she grabbed it, and opened her text screen.

I love you, Evan, she tried to type, but her phone was slippery and the buttons didn’t register the letters. Why were the letters of her phone obscured with thick smears of blood? Her head now felt like it was slipping and sliding, like her fingers over the blood on the screen. No - she needed to text her brother, and maybe Kara, too. Come to think of it, there were a lot of people she needed to talk to. People who she should have talked to more. She should call someone about feeding Buster and Keaton, too, shouldn’t she? But her phone was getting heavier. As Emma’s grasp slipped, her eyes moved towards Evan’s three most recent texts, seeing them like they were runic inscriptions in a nightmare that only she could understand.

The bright lights and their rings of noise disappeared, and in the darkness, Evan’s text messages rang out in her mind. In her slipping consciousness, she thought she imagined them being read in his voice, as though he were right next to her:

Okay, Im ready now. Dont think Ill be late after all!

I hope you can come home soon

I love you