The Unseen Third Desk

I’m 24, a data analyst at a small firm, and I used to pride myself on my rationality. Ghosts, spirits, things that go bump in the night—I dismissed them all as products of overactive imaginations. That was before the incident at the office, and now I can’t even look at a dark room without my heart racing.

It started on a Tuesday. I always arrive thirty minutes early, around 7:30 AM, to get a head start on the day. My colleague and friend, Marcus, usually beats me there, but that Tuesday he wasn’t. I remember thinking it was odd but not concerning. I unlocked the main door with my keycard, flicked on the lights, and walked to our shared cubicle in the middle of the left row. The whole floor was a maze of low partitions, six pods in total, three on each side. Ours was the second from the front, with two desks facing each other and a window to the right. I settled in, booted up my computer, and began reviewing spreadsheets.

Around 8:15, Marcus still hadn’t shown up. I checked my phone: no messages. It wasn’t like him to be late without a word. I shrugged it off, thinking he might have hit traffic or overslept. But as the morning wore on, the silence in the office started to feel heavy. The only sounds were the hum of the AC and the occasional squeak of my chair. At 9, our supervisor, Mrs. Chen, came in and asked where Marcus was. I said I didn’t know. She tried calling him, but it went straight to voicemail. We were all a bit puzzled, but work continued.

I took a break to get coffee from the break room at the back, near the washrooms. As I passed the last cubicle on the left, I glanced in and saw a figure hunched over the desk. I froze. It was a man in a dark suit, head down, motionless. The desk was unoccupied; no one had been assigned there. I blinked, and the figure vanished. The chair was empty, the desk bare. I told myself it was a trick of the light—the blinds casting shadows. I hurried back to my desk, coffee forgotten.

The rest of the day dragged. I couldn’t concentrate. Every time I looked over at the empty cubicle, I felt a chill. At 5, I was about to leave when I noticed the light in that back cubicle was on. I walked closer, my footsteps echoing. The monitor was off, but the desk lamp was glowing. I reached to turn it off and saw a small, handwritten note on the desk: ‘Don’t sit here. He’s watching.’ My blood ran cold. I crumpled the note and shoved it in my pocket, then fled the building.

On my way home, I called Marcus again. Still no answer. I tried his home phone, but there was no response. That night, I couldn’t sleep. Every shadow in my apartment seemed to move. At 2 AM, my phone buzzed: a text from Marcus’s number. It read: ‘I am at the office. Meeting him. He has been waiting.’ I tried calling, but the number was dead. I spent the rest of the night in a cold sweat.

The next morning, I decided to talk to Mrs. Chen about Marcus’s absence. But when I arrived at the office, I was met with hushed whispers. Marcus had been found dead in his apartment, apparently from a heart attack, but the police said his face was frozen in terror. The date on his calendar for that day had a single word written: ‘Tuesday.’ But this was Wednesday.

I never believed in anything like that before. But now, I look at that empty desk and I know. That man in the suit, he wasn’t a mirage. He’s still there, waiting. And if you ever work late, and you see the desk light on, don’t go to turn it off. Because he might see you. And he doesn’t like being observed.

I’m writing this as a warning. If you hear that an office has a desk that’s always empty, but sometimes you see a shadow there, don’t try to find out why. Just run. And never, ever read the note. It’s not meant for you.