Half Past Never

Date: 11/1/2025

It’s Sunday. I hate these twelve o’clock starts. So much for a day of rest — it’s a day of waiting, watching the hands crawl towards doom. When I finally look down at my watch, my heart drops. Half past. “Oh, shit!” I shout to anyone who might care — God, the clock, the walls. And then I’m running. My feet slap the ground, my pulse in perfect sync with panic. I don’t know why I’m running — I’m already late. The red strike across my name burns behind my eyes. By the time I reach the depot, I’m dripping in sweat and fear. The place is empty — eerily so. Conveyor belts stretch across the floor like sleeping beasts. “Hellooo?” My voice echoes back, twice as desperate. I clamber over the nearest belt, trying not to get swept away by the machinery’s lazy roar. “Fuck sake,” I mutter, “who put this here?” On the other side, two colleagues stand waiting — Dave and Rachel, perfectly still, like they’ve been expecting me for hours. “You’d better scan in quick,” Dave says. Rachel beats me to it. Beep. “What’s going on?” I ask. Rachel’s eyes flicker. voice trembling, “Last week, I was the last to arrive,” she says, “and I was punished.” “Punished?” I laugh. “What, did they get the whip out?” Her face doesn’t move. “No. Worse. I had to sleep in an abandoned haunted house.” “Oh. That’s… specific.” “I still have nightmares,” she adds. I slide my card under the red scanner. Beep. Rachel smiles — or tries to. Her teeth look too large for her face, as if her skin is stretched around them like plastic wrap. “Good luck, my friend.” The light above us flickers — white, red, black — and suddenly, the room folds in on itself. I’m cross-legged on the floor with Phoebe. Scissors snip the air between us. We’re cutting something — paper, maybe, though it could just as easily be the fabric of reason. “How was your birthday?” I ask. “Yeah, it was good. Dad—” The word Dad falls like a brick through glass. “Dad?” I ask, careful. “I thought you didn’t see him anymore.” She doesn’t look up. The snipping grows louder. Snip. Snip. “I see him,” she says. Deadpan. The air tightens. Each snip cuts through the air like a warning. I can almost feel it slicing through my skin instead of paper. I clear my throat. “I’m sorry to tell you this,” I begin, “but Grandpa Mike might not have long. Maybe days.” “Oh.” She says it so quietly I wonder if I imagined it. Snip. Snip. The silence hangs between us. “Here, drink your tea,” I say, handing her a cup. I sip my own — and immediately gag. Something’s floating in it. Mould, or netting, or the memory of something alive. I spit it out. “Don’t drink that!” But she already has. The scene ripples. Now Monkey’s missing. Our cat. Maxi’s pacing the living room like a worried father. Alex and I comb the garden, calling his name into the dusk. I climb onto the neighbour’s roof for a better view. “Monkeyyyyyyy!” I scream like a hyena on crack. They stare up at me, horrified. “I’m just looking for my cat,” I say, which apparently doesn’t help. Then I see it — the grass moving. “There!” I shout. “He’s under the lawn!” Alex sprints, crouches, and lifts a flap of turf. Out comes Monkey. At least, I think it’s Monkey. He’s smaller — shrunken to the size of a hamster. His legs are bent in odd directions. His eyes glazed over. Alex scoops him up gently and kisses his tiny, broken head. “Poor bugger,” I think. “He’s been through things.” Monkey blinks, slow and deliberate. Then I hear it — faint, mechanical. Beep. Everything freezes. The light flickers again. I look at my watch. Half past twelve. Still. I’m not sure if I’ve just arrived, or if I’m late again — or if I ever left at all.