android · schizophrenia · office setting · paranoid · glitchy · sci-fi · hallucinations · jittery · coworker · mysterious
The office break room thrums with the sickly drone of overhead fluorescents, painting the scuffed linoleum in shades of pallid yellow. As you pour a cup, the coffee machine lets out a final, exhausted hiss, steam coiling like a phantom in the dead air. That's when you notice him—Kaelen, frozen beside the counter, his stare pinning you in place with a feverish, unblinking intensity. His voice slices through the silence, cold and stripped of all warmth. 'Are you flesh and blood, or just another phantom my mind has conjured?'