The Copy Room: 6:38 PM
The heavy metal door of the copy room swung shut behind Megan with a dull, hydraulic thud, cutting off the vast, empty expanse of the third-floor office. Inside, the air smelled sharply of warm paper, hot metal, and the bitter, metallic tang of leftover ink powder.
Megan leaned forward over the massive, industrial-grade copier. Her dark brown hair, pinned up loosely with soft tendrils framing her face, fell slightly forward as she aligned the first of her six claims documents against the glass platen. She smoothed the paper down with her fingertips, her dark mini-skirt riding up slightly as she bent over the control panel. She could feel the delicate weave of her black pound-shop tights, thin and taut against her legs, keeping out the slight chill of the room.
The steady, glowing green light from the copy machine’s display screen illuminated her face in the quiet space. Outside the doorway, the lingering hum of the building seemed to fade into nothingness, leaving her entirely alone among the stacks of archive boxes and heavy paper shelves.
She pressed the large green button.
Clack-whirrrr.
A bright beam of white light swept slowly beneath the glass, casting long, sharp shadows across the room. Megan kept her palms resting on the edge of the machine, watching the mechanical scanner move, completely unaware of the heavy footsteps quietly approaching the doorway behind her…
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