MidReal Story
Whispers of El Nina
Scenario: a horror story about an storage warehouse haunted by a malevonent spirit of a young girl named, el nina.
Create my version of this story
I glanced up from my computer and saw Mark leaning in my office doorway.
I tipped my head back and looked at him through the bottom of my glasses.
He was tall, almost six and a half feet, with dark brown hair and a muscular frame.
He was also a security guard for the company.
He and his partner, Sarah, worked the day shift, but they often stopped by to chat after their office hours ended.
“Just the one,” I said.
“Should be done within the hour.”
“Good.” Mark flashed me a smile.
“Are you sure you can handle the warehouse all by yourself?”
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
I asked with a grin.
Mark chuckled and stepped inside.
He pulled up a chair on the other side of my desk and spun it around so he could straddle it backward.
Mark was like that.
He was big and intimidating at first glance, but once you got to know him, you realized he was just a big ol’ teddy bear.
“What about you?”
he asked as he propped his muscled forearms on top of the backrest.
“Got any plans for tonight?”
I turned back to my computer.
“I haven’t decided yet,” I said.
Mark leaned back in his chair.
I listened to him tapping his fingers on the backrest as I returned to my spreadsheet.
The warehouse was quiet, save for forklifts moving in the distance and the occasional beep as they backed up.
It wasn’t uncommon for me to work late.
In fact, I usually worked the evening shift because I liked the peace and quiet that came with it, not to mention I could sleep in in the mornings.
The warehouse itself was massive, with rows upon rows of shelves stretched out in every direction, all neatly stacked with boxes and equipment.
The dim overhead lights gave it an eerie quality at night, like a haunted house from a horror movie—especially when it was as quiet as it was tonight.
I thought about Mark’s question and realized I was staring into the darkness at nothing in particular.
I shook my head and continued working on my spreadsheet.
I was fairly new to this job, and I had a lot on my plate with managing inventory.
I had been so focused on my work that at first I didn’t even notice it—or maybe it had always been there—but I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me.
I glanced over my shoulder, but there was no one there.
Just to be safe, I locked my office door behind Mark when he left a few minutes later.
I went back to my computer and tried to ignore the sensation as I worked on my file.
It was probably just paranoia from stress at work and home life getting to me.
I decided to finish my file before taking a break, but before long the feeling returned—and it was more intense this time.
Someone—or something—was watching me through the window in my office door.
I glanced over my shoulder, but no one was there.
Maybe it’s just my imagination.
I tried to focus on my computer screen, but now my heart was racing too fast for that.
The feeling wouldn’t go away, and now I swore I heard a child’s laughter coming from the other side of the door.
Is that real?
I couldn’t tell anymore.
My hands shook as I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself down; instead, they trembled worse than before with each breath out.
There was a loud pop from behind me and I jumped so hard my chair almost tipped over.
It knocked my coffee cup off my desk—I had forgotten about it, and now there was only half a cup left—and it spilled all over my desk.
Cursing under my breath, I grabbed some tissues from a box on my desk and tried to mop up the coffee before too much of it soaked into my papers or spilled onto the floor where it would be impossible to clean up.
I knocked the tissues onto the floor and bent down to pick them up.
I grabbed my phone off my desk, hoping to see a message from my husband that would distract me enough to calm down, but there was nothing.
I checked the time.
It was almost ten.
I sighed and sat back down in my chair.
The coffee spill had reminded me of my earlier panic, and now I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
It was like the feeling of someone watching me was gone, but now everything I saw out of the corner of my eye made me jump.
I didn’t want to admit it, but I was scared.
I hated feeling this way, especially at work, when I was supposed to be in control and on top of my game.
I took another deep breath and tried not to let it get the best of me.
There was nothing there.
I waited for the moment to pass, and eventually it did.
Or maybe it didn’t—I was so focused on my computer screen that I didn’t notice if it did or not.
Either way, it didn’t matter.
There were no ghosts in the warehouse, and nothing was going to hurt me.
It was all in my head.
The stress of work was probably just getting to me.
But even as I tried to convince myself of this, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong—something more than just my imagination run amok.
I looked up from my computer screen and noticed the shadows were deeper now, darker and thicker than they had been earlier.
They seemed closer too, like they were closing in on me, getting smaller and smaller until they disappeared altogether, leaving only darkness in their wake.
I stood up from my desk and walked over to the light switch on the wall near my office door.
Something’s wrong with you, I thought to myself.
I took a deep breath and flipped the switch on.
The light flickered for a moment before turning off entirely.
I had been in the warehouse long enough to know the lights didn’t turn off automatically.
Something was wrong.
I tried to stay calm as I walked back to my desk.
It was just a coincidence, I told myself.
Nothing was out of the ordinary.
It was going to be okay.
I sat back down at my desk and opened the invoices I needed to enter into the system.
My hands were shaking now, but I tried to focus on my work so I wouldn’t think about it too much.
Everything was fine.
It was fine.
There was nothing wrong.
That’s what I kept telling myself anyway.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling of unease, no matter how hard I tried.
And then the printer started to make noise behind me.
It was one of those big industrial-size printers that could handle more than one job at a time, but it only ever printed one invoice at a time.
The printer was running a job, but there was nothing in the queue.
And it had never done that before.
I turned around and looked at it.
The green lights on the front flashed on and off as it printed.
I got up from my desk and walked over to the printer.
Just trying to see what it was printing made my heart race faster.
It was like I already knew.
I picked up the top sheet from the tray, and my blood ran cold.
It was covered in drawings, like someone had been using it as a sketch pad for their crayons.
They were all of a little girl with long, dark hair and sunken eyes.
She wore a white dress and no shoes, and she was standing in an empty room.
She looked sad, or maybe she was angry—I couldn’t tell which.
Her mouth was covered in a black scribble, like someone had crossed it out with a marker.
And her eyes—those sunken black eyes—were staring right at me as if they were alive.
I tried not to look at them as I flipped through the pages of the invoice, but I couldn’t help it.
Every time I glanced at them, I could swear they were following me.
It was impossible, I knew it was impossible, but I didn’t know what else to think.
My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing, but there was no way to deny it: someone—or something—had used the printer while I wasn’t looking, and they had printed those drawings just to mess with me.
It was the only explanation that made any sense, though deep down, I knew it wasn’t true.
And then I noticed something even more disturbing: there was no paper in the printer at all, let alone pages of drawings that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there staring at it, waiting to see what would happen next.
I was still on edge when I went back to my desk, but I tried not to think about it as I sat back down and got back to work.
A part of me wanted to leave, but I knew that wouldn’t solve anything.
I had to finish what I was doing before I could leave, and I had a lot of work to do if I was going to get out of there at a reasonable time.
I tried to focus on my work, but all I could think about was what had just happened.
It didn’t make any sense, any more than anything else that had happened that night.
But I did my best to put it out of my mind and get back to work.
I was in the middle of entering an invoice when I felt it again: that feeling of being watched.
I tried not to look up, but I could feel it getting stronger.
It was like someone—or something—was standing right behind me, reading over my shoulder, waiting for me to make a mistake.
And then I heard it: a whisper so low that I almost missed it.
I spun around in my chair, but there was no one there.
I was alone in the warehouse, or at least I was supposed to be.
The whisper came again, louder this time.
It sounded like someone was standing on the other side of the counter, calling out to me in a voice so soft that it was almost a sigh.
I stood up from my desk and walked around to see who it was, but there was no one there.
The shelves were empty, except for a few pallets with boxes on them, and there were no aisles on that side of the warehouse.
There was no one here, and yet I could still hear them calling out to me, their voice so close that it made my skin crawl.
I took a step back, but the voice followed me as it called out to me again, this time from the other side of the warehouse.
It was still close, but not as close as it had been before.
I took another step back, still looking around for whoever—or whatever—it was that was talking to me, but I couldn’t see them anywhere.
The voice was coming from all around me now, like it was echoing off the walls, and I could feel my chest tightening as I tried to figure out what was going on.
I had never heard a voice like that before, and yet there was something about it that made my blood run cold as I listened to it whispering my name over and over again in that soft, sing-song voice that sent chills down my spine, like it was trying to lull me into a false sense of security so I wouldn’t be scared by what was about to happen next.
And that’s when I realized what was happening: I wasn’t alone in the warehouse, and whatever was in there with me was about to show itself.
