I work night security at a luxury high-rise. Every night at 3 AM, a delivery arrives for an apartment that doesn’t exist.

I am writing this from the front desk of my job, and I need someone to read this and tell me what to do. I cannot call the police because I have no logical explanation for what happened, and I cannot call my supervisor because I am terrified he might be involved. I am completely trapped in this building for the next six hours, and I am watching the glass doors, waiting for something to come inside.

I work as a security guard in a very expensive residential tower. I took the job a few months ago after a long period of unemployment. The pay is good, and the environment is highly controlled. The building caters to very wealthy people who demand absolute privacy and quiet. The lobby is massive, covered in cold, polished marble, with floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the empty street. There are no visitors allowed without prior authorization, and the residents rarely interact with the staff.

I work the graveyard shift, which means my hours are from eleven at night until seven in the morning. For the first few weeks, the job was just incredibly boring. The building gets completely silent after midnight. The only sounds are the constant hum of the air conditioning system and the faint ticking of the analog clock on the wall behind the main reception desk. My responsibilities are very simple. I monitor the security cameras on the computer screens, I log any maintenance issues, and I handle the late-night deliveries.

The deliveries are where the problem started.

Most nights, a few residents will order food very late. They use standard delivery applications, and the riders come to the front doors, hand me the bags, and I leave them on a designated table for the residents to come down and collect. The residents prefer it this way so they do not have to interact with the delivery drivers.

Exactly one month ago, a new delivery started arriving.

It happens every single night at exactly three in the morning. The automatic glass doors slide open, and a delivery man walks in. He always wears a thick, dark jacket and a heavy motorcycle helmet with a tinted visor pulled down over his face. I have never seen his eyes or his features. He walks straight to the marble counter and places a sealed cardboard box in front of me. The box is always taped shut with thick packaging tape.

The first time it happened, I went through the standard protocol. I looked at the box, saw there was no printed receipt attached to it, and looked up at the delivery man.

“Which apartment ordered this?”

I asked him.

The delivery man stood perfectly still for a second. His voice was muffled behind the heavy helmet.

“Apartment 144,”

he said.

He turned around and walked out of the sliding glass doors before I could type the number into my computer system.

I looked at my screen. The residential tower I work in is very tall, but the layout is highly exclusive. There are only two apartments on every single floor. They are categorized by the floor number and a letter. For example, the tenth floor has apartment 10A and apartment 10B.

There is no apartment 144. It is a number that simply does not exist in the architecture of the building.

I assumed it was a typing error on the delivery application, or maybe the driver had come to the wrong building entirely. I could not leave my post at the front desk to chase him down the street, so I did what I was trained to do with abandoned or erroneous items. I took the cardboard box into the small back office located just behind the reception desk. The back office is a cramped room where the security staff keeps our personal bags, an old coffee machine, and a spare desk covered in old building blueprints. I left the box on the spare desk, assuming the person who ordered it would eventually call the front desk to complain about missing food, and I could sort it out then.

No one ever called.

When my shift ended at seven in the morning, the morning guard arrived to relieve me. I told him about the delivery from the guy in the motorcycle helmet and the fake apartment number. I pointed to the back office and told him the box was sitting on the spare desk. The morning guard just nodded, poured himself a cup of coffee, and told me he would handle it.

When I came back to work the next night at eleven, I asked the morning guard what had happened to the box.

He shrugged his shoulders while packing his bag to go home. He told me that when he went into the back office around nine in the morning to get his lunch, the box was gone. He assumed one of the building cleaners or the daytime maintenance contractors had seen it sitting there and decided to take it for themselves.

I thought that was slightly weird, but I did not care enough to press the issue. It was not my problem anymore.

But then the exact same thing happened the next night.

At three in the morning, the automatic doors opened. The same delivery man in the heavy helmet walked in, placed a sealed cardboard box on the marble counter, said “Apartment 144,” and walked out.

I took the box into the back office and left it on the spare desk. The next night, I asked the morning guard about it again. He gave me the exact same answer. He said the box was sitting there when he started his shift, but by the middle of the morning rush, when contractors and residents were moving through the lobby, it just vanished. Someone was taking it, but he never saw who.

We checked the security cameras for the back office. The building uses a very old, outdated camera system. The camera in the back office is mounted in the corner, but the angle is poor. There is a large filing cabinet that completely blocks the view of the spare desk. We could see people walking into the room to get coffee or grab their coats, but we could not see who was actually picking up the box from the desk.

This routine continued every single night for weeks. It became a strange, annoying habit. At three in the morning, the box would arrive. I would put it in the back office. By the time I came back the next night, the morning shift would tell me it had disappeared again. We joked about it a few times, wondering if a very hungry cleaner was enjoying free meals every day, but eventually, we just stopped talking about it. It became a normal part of the graveyard shift.

I got used to the quiet. I got used to the marble lobby. I got used to the helmeted man and his nonexistent apartment number.

I never should have gotten used to it.

Last night, the routine broke.

I was sitting at the front desk, drinking a cup of stale coffee to keep myself awake. I watched the digital clock on my computer monitor turn to three in the morning. I waited for the glass doors to open.

At exactly three-fifteen, the doors slid apart. The delivery man walked in.

Immediately, I noticed something was different. He was walking much faster than usual. His posture was rigid, and he seemed hurried, almost anxious. He walked up to the marble counter and placed the delivery down.

It was not the usual cardboard box.

This box was much heavier. It landed on the marble counter with a solid, dense thud. The material was different. It looked like thick, reinforced cardboard, almost resembling thin wood. The entire box was heavily wrapped in layer after layer of thick, black industrial tape. There were no logos, no markings, and no receipts.

The delivery man did not stop to look at me. He just muttered “Apartment 144” through his helmet and practically ran back out the sliding doors into the dark street.

I stood up from my chair and looked at the black box resting on the counter.

I reached out and placed my hands on the sides of the box to carry it to the back office. As soon as my skin touched the material, I pulled my hands back.

The box was warm, and It felt like the ambient, radiating heat of a living body.

I stood there staring at it. I leaned my head closer to the thick tape.

I could hear a sound coming from inside the box. It was incredibly faint, but the lobby was completely silent, allowing me to hear it clearly. It was a scratching sound. It sounded like small, hard nails dragging against the inside of the thick cardboard.

A cold wave of unease washed over my chest. I suddenly felt very exposed standing in the massive, empty lobby. I grabbed the box, making sure to hold it away from my chest, and quickly walked into the back office. I placed it down on the spare desk.

I stepped back and watched it. The scratching sound continued. It was persistent.

My mind started racing, trying to find a logical explanation. I thought that maybe the delivery man was involved in smuggling illegal exotic animals. Wealthy residents sometimes buy prohibited pets, and maybe they were using the fake apartment number as a code to drop off the animals discreetly.

If there was a live, prohibited animal in that box, and I just left it sitting in the back office, I could lose my job. If it got out and bit a resident, or if management found out I was acting as a middleman for illegal smuggling, I would be fired immediately, and possibly arrested.

I decided I needed to know what was inside. I needed to confirm it was just food, or if it was an animal, I needed to report it.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my small folding pocket knife. I use it for opening maintenance packages and cutting zip ties. I flipped the blade open.

I stepped up to the spare desk. The scratching sound paused for a brief second, as if whatever was inside the box could sense my proximity.

I pressed the blade into the thick black tape sealing the top flaps. The tape was incredibly tough, requiring me to press down hard and drag the knife across the center seam. I cut through the heavy adhesive, slicing the tape from one end of the box to the other.

I put the knife back in my pocket. I reached out with both hands and slowly pulled the thick cardboard flaps upward.

The inside of the box was very dark. I leaned my head forward, squinting my eyes to see past the folded cardboard.

The attack happened so fast my brain could not process the movement until it was already over me.

Something launched itself out of the dark interior of the box like a coiled spring. It was entirely silent. There was no growl, no hiss, just the sudden, violent displacement of air.

The creature slammed directly into the center of my face.

The impact knocked me backward. I stumbled over my own feet, my heavy work boots catching on the carpeted floor of the back office. I crashed to the ground, hitting my back hard against the filing cabinet.

I threw my hands up to my face, screaming, but the sound was completely cut off in my throat.

The thing attached to my head was heavy, feeling like a dense sack of wet muscle and bone. It felt like cold, damp leather pressing against my skin.

I could not see anything. The creature was completely covering my eyes, my nose, and my mouth.

I felt limbs wrapping around the sides of my head. There were too many of them. They were small, highly jointed, and possessed sharp, hard tips that dug deeply into the skin behind my ears and under my jawline. The limbs clamped down with terrifying strength, locking the creature onto my skull like a biological bear trap.

I thrashed wildly on the floor, kicking my legs against the desk and the walls. I grabbed the mass of cold, wet leather covering my face and tried to pry it off. My fingers slipped against the smooth, damp surface of the creature. I pulled with all the physical strength I possessed, but the sharp limbs dug deeper into my neck, piercing my skin. I could feel warm blood trailing down my collar.

I could not breathe.

The main body of the creature was pressed firmly against my mouth and nose, creating an airtight seal. My lungs burned. My chest heaved violently, desperately trying to pull in oxygen, but there was nothing.

I rolled onto my stomach, slamming my face against the carpet, trying to crush the creature between my head and the floor. It did not work. The thing did not yield. The limbs only tightened their grip, crushing my windpipe.

The crushing pressure in my chest was agonizing. I was suffocating. I realized with absolute, horrifying clarity that I was going to die on the floor of the back office, choked to death by something that came out of a delivery box.

My hands scrambled frantically across my utility belt. My uniform belt holds my keys, my radio, and my flashlight.

It also holds a standard-issue electric security baton.

My fingers brushed against the hard plastic handle of the baton. I unclipped it from the holster. My movements were growing weak. The darkness in my vision was consuming everything. I had only seconds left before I lost consciousness entirely.

I gripped the handle of the baton and pressed the activation button. I heard the sharp, aggressive crackle of the electrical current arcing across the metal prongs.

I knew that if I used the baton on the creature while it was firmly attached to my face and neck, the electrical current would travel directly into my own body. The voltage would hit my head and my chest. I risked injuring myself, but I had absolutely no other choice. It was the only option left.

I brought the sparking metal prongs up to the side of my jaw, directly pressing them into the thick, wet mass of the creature’s limbs gripping my neck.

I squeezed the trigger tightly.

The pain was indescribable.

A massive, violent surge of electricity exploded through the side of my face and down my neck. It felt like a hot iron spike was being driven directly into my brain. My teeth clamped together with bone-breaking force. I bit down hard on the side of my tongue, filling my mouth with the hot, metallic taste of my own blood. Every single muscle in my upper body locked completely rigid in a paralyzing spasm.

The electrical shock lasted for maybe two seconds, but it felt like an eternity of blinding white agony.

I released the trigger, my hand falling limply to the carpet.

The creature attached to my face violently convulsed. The sharp limbs digging into my neck suddenly went slack. The heavy, wet mass released its airtight seal on my mouth and slid off my face, dropping onto the carpet next to my head with a dull, wet thud.

I lay on the floor, gasping desperately for air. I pulled huge, ragged breaths into my burning lungs, coughing and choking on the blood from my bitten tongue. My entire body was trembling uncontrollably from the electrical shock. The side of my face felt numb and smelled faintly of burnt hair and ozone.

I slowly pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, my vision swimming. I looked down at the carpet.

The creature was lying there, completely motionless.

I stared at it, trying to comprehend what I was looking at. It was about the size of a large melon. It had no discernible face, no eyes, and no mouth that I could see. It was simply a central, pulsating mass of pale, wet, leathery skin, surrounded by at least a dozen multi-jointed, spindly limbs. The limbs were curled inward, twitching slightly from residual nerve damage, revealing sharp, hardened hooks at the very ends.

The terror crashed over me. My rational mind completely shattered. I was looking at something that defied every law of nature I understood.

My first instinct was to run out of the building and never come back. But the intense fear paralyzed my logic. I thought about the police. I thought about trying to explain this dead, alien thing on the floor of the luxury residential tower. I thought about the delivery man who brought it, and the nonexistent apartment number, and the morning guard who said the boxes always disappeared.

I panicked. I decided I had to pretend this never happened. I had to put things back exactly the way they were, or whoever was involved would know I was the one who interfered.

I grabbed a plastic dustpan and a broom from the corner of the back office. My hands were shaking so violently I could barely hold the handles. I used the broom to push the heavy, dead mass of the creature into the dustpan. It felt dense and heavy.

I carried the dustpan over to the spare desk. The thick black box was still sitting there, the flaps open. I dumped the dead creature back into the dark interior of the box.

I found a roll of clear packing tape in the desk drawer. I quickly folded the thick cardboard flaps back down and taped them shut. I wrapped the clear tape around the box several times, sealing the cut I had made through the black tape.

I wiped the blood off my neck using a paper towel and some water from the coffee machine. The scratches under my jaw were deep and painful, but the collar of my uniform shirt covered them. I cleaned a few drops of blood off the carpet using a stain remover spray.

I placed the sealed box exactly where I had originally left it on the spare desk.

I walked out of the back office, sat down at the front reception desk, and stared straight ahead at the glass doors for the rest of my shift. I did not look at the monitors. I did not move. I just sat there, my heart pounding, waiting for the sun to rise.

When seven o’clock finally arrived, the morning guard walked through the sliding doors. He looked completely normal. He smiled, holding his coffee cup, and asked me how my night was.

I forced myself to speak normally. I told him it was a quiet night. I did not mention the delivery, or the box. I just grabbed my backpack from the front desk, walked out of the building, and went straight to my apartment.

I locked my door, closed all the blinds, and sat in my bedroom for the entire day. I could not sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the cold, wet leather pressing against my face. I checked the scratches on my neck in the mirror. They were real. It was not a hallucination.

I spent hours debating whether I should quit the job immediately. But the financial reality of my situation weighed heavily on me. I needed the paycheck to survive. I tried to convince myself that by putting the dead creature back in the box and sealing it, I had successfully covered my tracks. The morning shift would say the box disappeared, just like always. Whoever was taking the boxes would take this one, open it somewhere else, and assume the creature died in transit. They would have no reason to suspect the night guard who always minded his own business.

I convinced myself I was safe.

I was wrong.

Tonight, I forced myself to put on my uniform and walk back to the residential tower. I arrived at eleven o’clock. The evening guard was packing his things. He waved to me, handed over the shift log, and left the building.

The marble lobby was empty and silent.

I needed to put my backpack in the back office. I took a deep breath, trying to steady my racing heart, and walked around the reception desk.

I stepped into the cramped back office.

I looked at the spare desk.

The heavy, black cardboard box was still sitting exactly where I had left it yesterday morning.

The morning shift had not taken it. The unseen person who always removed the deliveries had not removed this one.

I stood in the doorway, feeling the blood drain completely from my face. My legs felt weak.

I slowly walked closer to the spare desk, my eyes locked on the black box.

There was a piece of plain white printer paper taped securely to the top flaps of the box, right over the clear tape I had used to seal it.

I leaned forward, my breath catching in my throat, and read the words written on the paper in thick, black marker.

“You shouldn’t have opened the box. Now they have noticed you.”

I backed out of the office, never taking my eyes off the desk, and stumbled into my chair at the front reception counter.

That was twenty minutes ago.

I am sitting here now, staring at the sliding glass doors leading out to the dark, empty street. The digital clock on my monitor says it is almost two in the morning.

I am completely trapped. If I leave the building, I abandon my post, lose my job, and possibly run into whoever left that note in the dark outside. If I stay here, I am a sitting target in an empty glass lobby.

Please, if anyone reading this understands what is happening, tell me what I should do. Do I run and hide? Do I try to escape into the city?