Just do your job and go home

Stressed and exhausted, you scrape to the end of the day at your desk, doing as many menial tasks as you can to pass the time.

Despite being on edge all day, nothing of note happened. Lucy was acting slightly strangely, wearing her blazer tightly buttoned up for the rest of the day, but none of it seems related to you.

You're relieved to have made it to the end of the day without losing your job.

Not ready to provoke a demon again, you decide to walk rather than take the subway.

You look down the dark alleyway, lined with trash and fire escapes. You'd decided that you're still on a subway hiatus. The alleyway will save you walking a block or two, but at the risk of meeting ... whatever lives in alleyways. It's lit by a flickery street lamp, which does nothing to diffuse the eeriness of the alley.

You take a step into the darkness and focus on the light on the other side. You take more and more steps until you're half way through. Your heart is racing. You decide that it was foolish to walk into a dark alleyway but you're closer to the exit than the entrance by this point so you continue.

You hear a whimpering sound from behind a dumpster ahead, so you crouch down and watch.

A woman in a professional black dress is talking to someone. You watch on, confused as the girl cowers at nothing.

"You? I didn't -- how? I'm so glad to see you!" Something (other than the fact she's talking to empty space) feels wrong about how she's talking. She's shocked, but furthermore, you're not sure if she's being honest.

You watch the girl walk over to nothing in particular before something repels her. "Ow. Wha?"

You decide to move away but you find your feet held in place. "Shit," you whisper, confused. While you tug at them you watch the girl intently.

The girl keels down and looks up at empty alleyway. "I ... I mean ... yes I guess I did but they made me! It wasn't my choice!"

She pauses to listen to something.

"It wasn't! I swwwww-" She squeaks and clasps at her face. "WWW!!!!?!" She can't seem to talk.

She takes her hands away from her face slowly and reveals that something had distorted her lips. Not only had they puffed up dramatically, something is squeezing them into a puckered expression. Her mouth is almost taller than it is wide.

Suddenly she spins round and faces you directly, scaring you. "Shit!" You whisper again as you cower behind the dumpster. To your surprise, with an excruciating scraping, the enormous metal dumpster grinds along the floor, sliding across the alleyway revealing you.

"WW-ww-www!"

You have no idea what she's trying to say.

She turns back to the empty section of alleyway and makes begging sounds with her palms together before. Much like the night before, you see her eyes widen and her hair lift as if something invisible had grabbed a fistful of it. She wailed as her hair dragged her forwards. Towards you.