"Thank goodness you're here! I was wondering where you went."
Apparently, this woman had been holed up in the restroom the whole time I was struggling with the malfunctioning automatic door.
"Yeah, sorry about that! One of my boyfriends—he's a bit of a handful sometimes, wouldn't stop talking. You know how it is."
'I don't know since I never had a boyfriend.'
"Why are you standing there? Are you waiting for someone?"
"Ah, about that-" I told her everything that happened while she was gone.
Yana's smile twitched as she glanced over at the door, now behaving like nothing had happened.
"It's here again... Well just ignore it," she looked back at me although her smile didn't reach up to her eyes.
"Here what?" my curiosity bubbling up again.
She approached me and whispered near my ear, "the ghost of a little girl."
Her whisper sent an involuntary shiver down my spine, her words hanging in the air like a cold draft.
I pulled back slightly, narrowing my eyes at her. "Hah. Nice try but that won't work on me."
Her eyes widened upon seeing my reaction, "What? You don't believe me? Just wait until you meet Xavier, he's the one who told me that a little girl was playing there. He has a third eye and I somehow believed him since there was this rumor that a little girl also died in front of this convenience store. She was hit by a truck trying to catch her ball, the parents only noticed it late as they were busy buying."
In the end, I didn't believe her, "Yana, you must be tired from all the talk with your boyfriend. I'm sorry but I don't believe in ghosts."
She gave me a bitter smile, "Trust me, I'm not scaring you just so you could leave this job."
I nodded at her, "I know you're concerned but it's probably just a faulty sensor or something."
She shrugged, her expression softening a little. "Maybe. But like I said, if you last long enough, you'll see for yourself." Yana headed back toward the shelves, leaving me standing there, unsure whether to laugh off her warning or start paying closer attention.
The door tinged again, opening and closing briefly as if testing my resolve. I glanced at the clock—3:10 AM.
From then on until 7 A.M, we finally swap shifts from the morning crew. I bid goodbye to Yana as I rode my motorcycle.
By the time I got home, the night's oddities seemed like distant memories. I kicked off my shoes, tossed my bag aside, and collapsed onto the bed, too tired to dwell on the malfunctioning door or Yana's eerie ghost stories. My first shift had been uneventful, mostly quiet, except for that strange moment, but it wasn't enough to keep me up.
As I stared at the ceiling, my eyes grew heavy. "Ghosts... huh," I mumbled to myself. Yana's words echoed faintly in my mind, but exhaustion took over quickly, and soon, I drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
I managed to survive the first week with only the occasional shutting and opening of the door. However, during a lull in my shift, I sat in the break room sipping on a canned drink. The convenience store was as quiet as ever, the usual late-night calm settling over the place. Yana had stepped out for a moment, leaving me alone with the security monitors. I glanced at the flickering screens out of boredom when something caught my eye—a shadow.
It darted across the screen, swift and unnatural, as if someone—or something—had passed by the front door. The strange part? No one had entered. I choked, spraying my drink all over the counter.
"What the...?"
I rubbed my eyes and stared at the monitor again, but the shadow was gone, leaving me wondering if I'd just imagined it. But deep down, I knew something was off. That was only the beginning.
Over the next few days, strange phenomena began to pile up. Lights flickered without reason, items moved from where I knew I had left them, and that cursed automatic door kept opening and closing on its own at odd hours.
Every time I mentioned it to Yana, she'd just flash that cryptic smile and say, "Told you, didn't I?"
But I didn't believe her—until one night, something much worse happened, something that would shake me to my core. And by then, it was too late to turn back.