The Stalled Space

For nine years, I’ve worked at the Meridian Technical Institute, a glass-and-steel monolith that rose from the New Mexico desert in 2007. It’s a modern building, all clean lines and recycled air, but there’s a wrongness to it that I’ve learned to live with—or at least, to avoid. It started in the third-floor restroom, the one near the east stairwell. I’d walk in, choose a stall, and as I sat down, I’d hear it: the soft creak of the adjacent stall’s door, the rustle of fabric, a breath that wasn’t mine. I’d look down at the polished floor, expecting to see shoes, but there was never anything there. Just the faint, sour smell of old sweat and the sense that someone was hovering just out of sight.

At first, I thought it was my imagination, or maybe a faulty vent. But it happened every single time, for years. I mentioned it to my colleague, Dana, who had been there just as long. She gave me a knowing look and said, ‘Oh, the ghost. Yeah, it’s been around since I started. It only uses that bathroom, and it’s harmless, I guess. But it’s creepy as hell.’ Harmless. I wasn’t so sure. I began using the bathroom on the second floor, and later, the one inside the HR suite, which required a key. Anything to avoid that empty stall.

Two years ago, the university decided to expand our department. They knocked down a wall behind our office and added a new suite of cubicles. My new desk ended up right next to a heavy fire door that led to a narrow service corridor. My boss, a woman named Eleanor, discovered that this corridor was a shortcut to the haunted restroom. She loved propping that door open, claiming it ‘aired out the space,’ but really, I think she enjoyed the thrill of the ghost. We begged her to keep it shut, but she’d just laugh. ‘It’s just a draft,’ she’d say. ‘You’re all letting your imaginations run wild.’

Then one afternoon, a temp worker named Maria was using that restroom. We heard a scream, a clatter, and then silence. Maria came stumbling out, pale as a sheet, and quit on the spot. She never told us what she saw, but after that, Eleanor finally relented. She kept the fire door closed, but from my cubicle, I could still hear the door’s latch clicking open and shut at odd hours. When I’d glance over, it would be shut, but I’d catch a glimpse of movement in the frosted glass—a shape that was too tall to be human, too thin to be real.

Last week, I stayed late to finish a grant proposal. The building was empty, the lights dimmed to night mode. I was alone, or so I thought. As I typed, I heard the fire door creak open. I looked up, and standing in the doorway was a figure—a woman, or what used to be a woman. Her skin was gray and stretched over bones, her eyes were black pits, and her mouth was open in a silent scream. She pointed a long, skeletal finger at me, and then she mouthed something, but no sound came out. I couldn’t read her lips, but I felt the words like a chill: ‘You see me now.’

I ran. I didn’t stop until I was in my car, hands shaking. The next day, I told Eleanor. She went pale. ‘It spoke to you?’ she whispered. ‘It’s never spoken to anyone before.’ She then confessed that she had known about the ghost since she started, that it had been there even before the building was built. The architect who designed it, a woman named Glenda, had died on the site during construction—a freak accident involving a faulty crane. They never found her body, and since then, the ghost had haunted the building, growing stronger with each year. Eleanor had been trying to ‘communicate’ with it by leaving the door open, but she had never gotten a response.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I kept replaying that image: the ghost, so real, so angry. The next morning, I went to the restroom, the original one, out of some desperate need to understand. I stood at the sink, staring at my reflection. Then, from the stall, I heard it again—a soft, rhythmic knock. Three times. I looked down, and this time, I saw feet. Bony, gray feet, with cracked toenails. They shifted, as if the ghost was standing right there, waiting for me. I slowly pushed the stall door open, and inside was… nothing. Just the porcelain bowl, the sad roll of paper, and the missing bolt on the door where someone had once tried to break in.

But as I stood there, I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. I spun around, but there was no one. My breath fogged in the air, and I heard a voice, clear as a bell in my ear: ‘You broke the seal. It’s your turn.’

I don’t know what that means. But this morning, I found my office door locked from the inside. When I managed to get in, my desk was covered in a fine gray dust, and someone had written in it: ‘They’re coming through.’ I’ve been avoiding the haunted restroom, but I know it’s futile. The ghost has chosen me now, and I can feel it, watching me from the mirrors, from the glass of my computer screen. Last night, I caught my own reflection smiling at me when I wasn’t smiling. And in the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow that didn’t match my own.

I’m writing this at my desk, doors locked, hoping someone reads it. But I can hear the fire door creaking open behind me, and I know that when I turn around, I’ll see her again. And this time, she’ll be wearing my face.