The Infinite Shift
It started like every other that night at the logistics center. My supervisor, Mike, gave the usual briefing about quotas and safety procedures. He was leaning against the breakroom table, his coffee mug stained with dark rings, looking as tired as I felt. He told us to focus on the inventory list for zones four through seven. It was 11:00pm when the buzzer sounded, signaling the start of the final warehouse check. I grabbed my scanner, clicked my boots against the concrete, and headed toward the loading docks. The warehouse was a familiar landscape of towering metal shelves, orange safety tape, and the constant hum of the ventilation system. My partner, Dave, was working the adjacent aisle. We exchanged a few words about the weekend, complaining about the cold air that always seemed to pool near the freezer section. The hours ticked by in a steady rhythm of bleeps and barcodes. Scan, count, input. Scan, count, input. It was the kind of repetitive work that let your mind wander to grocery lists and Netflix shows. Around 3:00am, I took a short break to splash some cold water on my face in the bathroom. The fluorescent lights flickered, casting long, jittery shadows against the grey walls. Everything felt solid. Everything felt normal. By 6:45am, I had reached the end of my final list. My watch showed that I was ahead of schedule, which felt like a small victory. I felt a wave of relief wash over me, the kind of heavy, pleasant tiredness that happens when you know your bed is only thirty minutes away. I walked back to the breakroom, grabbing my backpack from the locker. I felt the weight of my keys in my pocket and the soft fabric of my hoodie. When I stepped back out into the main warehouse floor to head toward the exit, the world changed. The ambient hum of the facility was gone. It was not just quiet; it was dead silent. The lights were out, completely pitch black, as if someone had pulled a master lever. I stood frozen for a second, my heart skipping a beat. I checked my watch, squinting in the dark. It read 11:05pm. I felt a surge of confusion. I must have misread it, or perhaps the watch had malfunctioned. I walked forward, expecting to see the exit sign glowing red in the distance, but there was nothing. I tapped my watch face, but the numbers held steady. 11:05pm. I thought maybe I had taken a wrong turn, so I pivoted to find the main aisle. I walked for what felt like ten minutes, expecting to hit the wall or the metal gate of the main entrance. Instead, I just kept walking. The aisles seemed to stretch out, the metal shelving units blurring into a tunnel of shadow. When I finally reached what should have been a corner, I turned it, only to find another identical aisle. My breath started to catch in my throat. I tried the door to the maintenance closet, but it was locked solid, feeling more like cold iron than wood. Every door was the same, sealed as if they had been welded into the frame. Panic started to set in, a cold, sharp feeling in my gut. I started running. I ran past shelves of empty pallets and stacks of crates that I could have sworn were different a moment ago. The air felt heavy, almost like it was pressing against my skin. I could hear the sound of my own frantic breathing echoing in the vast space, but nothing else. No hum of electricity, no distant sound of traffic, no coworkers. I shouted for Dave, my voice sounding thin and weak in the cavernous space. No one answered. I walked for hours, my legs burning, my throat parched. I was exhausted, my limbs feeling like lead weights, yet I couldn't stop. The warehouse seemed to be alive, shifting its shape whenever I wasn't looking directly at a passage. I found myself back in aisle four, then aisle ten, then aisle four again. It was as if the building was folding in on itself. My feet hurt so badly I almost stopped, but I felt a strange, primal fear that if I stopped moving, the dark would catch me. I wandered through the maze, lost in a nightmare of inventory labels and dust. Then, I saw a clock hanging on the wall near the shipping office. The red digital numbers pulsed in the dark. It read 6:59am. I stopped in my tracks, leaning against a cold metal rack. I felt tears prick my eyes. I just had to wait one minute. One minute until the clock hit 7:00am, and surely, the doors would unlock and the lights would flick on. I watched the numbers. They flickered with a static buzz. 6:59. I stared at them, holding my breath, praying for the shift to end. Then, the numbers reset. 11:00pm. My stomach dropped. I let out a sound that wasn't quite a scream, more of a jagged, broken sob. It had started all over again. I have lost track of how long I have been here. It feels like months. I stopped trying to find the doors weeks ago. I just walk now. I count the boxes because if I don't, the silence is too loud. I move empty boxes from the left side of the aisle to the right, over and over, because the warehouse gets impossibly cold, and moving is the only thing that keeps the frost from settling into my bones. The boxes are always empty. They are just cardboard shells, hollow and meaningless, but they give me something to do with my shaking hands. I count them because it is the only way to stop myself from screaming until my lungs give out. Sometimes, I find a coffee cup I left behind on a shelf or near a desk, and to my horror, it is still warm to the touch. This means I am stuck in a loop, a cycle that resets every time I get close to the finish line. Maybe I am dead, or maybe I am just trapped in a fraction of a second that refused to move forward. If you find this note, please listen to me. Do not come looking for me. Do not come to the warehouse. Do not take the night shift. It takes more than just your sleep or your work hours. It takes your time, your sanity, and eventually, it takes you, until you are just another piece of inventory in the dark.