The Third Floor Break

In 2012, I was working the night shift at a data processing firm in the old port district of Baltimore. The building was a converted warehouse, all exposed brick and creaking iron beams, and our office occupied the third floor. My team was still new, only a couple of months in, and we were all still learning the rhythm of the graveyard hours.

One evening, around 2 AM, the pressure of the shift was getting to us. My colleague, Marco, had just finished a particularly tedious batch of data entry and was desperate for a cigarette. He and two others, Liza and Ben, decided to take a smoke break on the fire escape at the back of the building. I didn’t smoke, but I often tagged along to keep them company and escape the hum of the servers.

We were standing on the narrow metal platform, leaning against the railing, when Marco mentioned a horror movie that was coming out that weekend. Liza said she’d heard it was terrible, Ben disagreed, and they started a playful argument. I was half-listening, watching the fog roll in from the harbor, when I saw a figure through the grimy window of our floor.

It was another member of our team, a quiet guy named Ivan. He was walking briskly towards the back stairwell, his head down. I nudged Marco and pointed. ‘Hey, Ivan’s done already? He said he’d be up for another hour.’ Marco squinted. ‘That’s weird. He just went to the bathroom a minute ago.’ We all watched as the figure disappeared through the door to the stairwell, not even glancing our way.

We called out to him, ‘Ivan! Over here!’ But he didn’t respond. He just kept moving, his footsteps echoing on the metal stairs. We shrugged it off, assuming he was in a hurry to get somewhere. But when we went back inside a few minutes later, we found Ivan exactly where we’d left him, hunched over his cubicle, typing furiously. He hadn’t moved.

We asked him if he’d just come from the stairwell. He looked up, confused. ‘No, I’ve been here the whole time. I haven’t even finished my report yet.’ A chill went through me. We all described what we’d seen, but Ivan insisted he hadn’t left his desk. To prove it, he showed us his screen – the file was still incomplete, and his last keystroke was timed seconds before we’d called out.

We tried to laugh it off, but the atmosphere in the office had shifted. The others went back to work, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. I decided to check the stairwell, just to make sure no one was playing a prank. I opened the heavy metal door and stepped onto the landing. The air was cold, much colder than the rest of the building. I looked down the stairwell, and there, on the floor below, I saw another figure – but it wasn’t Ivan. It was me.

I froze. The other me was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. Our eyes met, and a slow, horrible smile spread across its face. It raised a hand and waved, then turned and walked through the wall into the storage area. I stumbled back into the office, my heart pounding. No one saw my panic. I tried to tell Marco, but he just said, ‘You’re seeing things, man. It’s the sleep deprivation.’

I didn’t believe him. I had seen myself, and that thing was not me. I wondered if it was the same for Ivan – if what we’d seen was a copy, a doppelganger. And I remembered an old superstition: if you see your double, it means death. I couldn’t focus for the rest of the shift. I kept glancing at the stairwell door, expecting it to burst open.

At 6 AM, the shift ended. We were all exhausted, and the morning light was starting to filter through the grimy windows. I was packing up when I heard a crash from the stairwell. We rushed over and found Ivan lying at the bottom of the stairs, his neck twisted at an impossible angle. He was dead. The paramedics said it looked like he had fallen, but we were in a building where you had to take the elevator – the stairwell was only for emergencies, and no one had heard him fall. An accident, they ruled. But I knew.

The others talked about Ivan’s death for a few days, but then they forgot. I didn’t. I started taking the elevator everywhere, avoiding the stairwell entirely. But I couldn’t avoid the reflection in the office windows, or in the polished surfaces of the elevator doors. Sometimes, I would catch a glimpse of a figure in the corner of my vision, always looking like me, always smiling that same smile.

A week later, I quit. I couldn’t take it anymore. I moved to a different city, tried to forget. But sometimes, in the dead of night, I would wake up and see him standing in the corner of my room – not a shadow, not a whisper, but a solid copy of me, waiting. I knew then that the stairwell wasn’t just a place. It was a gateway, and something had come through.

Now, whenever I take a break, even in a crowded place, I feel that cold air on my neck and hear the echo of footsteps on metal stairs. I never go down to the third floor anymore. But I know it’s still there, waiting for me to make a mistake. And one day, I will.

The Third Floor Break.