The Job That Only Exists at Night

The job posting appeared at exactly 12:07 a.m.

No company logo. No address. Just a plain block of text glowing on my phone screen like it had been waiting for me.

Night Attendant Needed.

Hours: 11:00 p.m. – 5:00 a.m.

Pay: Cash. Daily.

Duties: Observation. Documentation. Silence.

At the bottom, one line stood out.

Do not discuss this job with anyone.

I laughed. Every sketchy job says that, right? Still, I needed the money. Rent didn’t care about red flags. So I replied.

The instructions came instantly.

The building sat at the edge of town where streetlights thinned out and the road forgot its own name. From the outside, it looked ordinary—too ordinary. Three stories. Brick. Dark windows. No sign.

A man met me at the door. He didn’t introduce himself.

“You’re early,” he said, even though my phone read 10:59 p.m.

He handed me a clipboard, a pen, and a small digital watch.

“Wear this. Don’t take it off. Don’t ask questions. You’ll be paid at sunrise.”

“What exactly am I watching?” I asked.

He looked at me for a long moment, like he was deciding whether I was fragile.

“Time,” he said finally, and let me in.

The job was simple at first. Sit at a desk in a long hallway. Every hour, walk the floor. Write down what you notice. No headphones. No phone. No sleeping.

The hallway lights hummed softly. Doors lined the walls, all identical, all closed. Each door had a number, but they weren’t sequential. Door 3. Door 19. Door 7. Door 42.

At midnight, nothing happened.

At 1:00 a.m., nothing happened.

At 2:00 a.m., I started to notice the silence wasn’t empty. It had weight. Like it was pressing against my ears.

At 2:17 a.m., I heard breathing.

Not close. Not far. Just… present.

I froze, pen hovering over the clipboard.

The rules never said what to write. Only to document.

So I wrote: 2:17 a.m. – Breathing heard. Source unknown.

The breathing stopped.

At 3:00 a.m., a door down the hall clicked.

I didn’t move. The clipboard felt heavier now, like it knew something I didn’t.

The door creaked open an inch. No light spilled out. No sound followed.

I waited.

After a full minute, the door shut again.

I wrote it down.

My handwriting was getting worse.

By 4:00 a.m., the watch on my wrist felt tight, even though it wasn’t. I checked the time obsessively. Seconds moved strangely—sometimes too fast, sometimes like they were dragging something behind them.

That’s when I realized something else.

The hallway was longer.

Not dramatically. Just… longer than before. The far wall seemed farther away. The doors felt slightly out of place, like they’d shifted when I wasn’t looking.

At 4:11 a.m., I passed a door I was sure I’d already passed.

Same number. Same scratch near the handle.

My stomach dropped.

I wrote: Hallway appears altered. Spatial inconsistency.

The lights flickered once, like a blink.

At 4:30 a.m., I heard my name.

Not shouted. Not whispered.

Spoken casually, like someone passing me in a grocery store aisle.

I didn’t answer. Every instinct screamed at me to pretend I hadn’t heard it.

The watch buzzed gently against my wrist.

I looked down.

4:31 a.m.

A new rule appeared on the clipboard. I swear it hadn’t been there before.

Do not respond.

So I didn’t.

The voice sighed. Disappointed.

By the time the sky began to lighten through the narrow window at the end of the hall, I was shaking. I hadn’t realized how tense I was until the tension had nowhere left to hide.

At exactly 5:00 a.m., the man from the door appeared beside me. I didn’t hear him approach.

“Did you talk?” he asked.

“No.”

“Did you open any doors?”

“No.”

“Good.”

He handed me an envelope thick with cash.

“Why does no one talk about this place?” I asked, the question slipping out before I could stop it.

He looked tired. Older than before.

“Because the night listens,” he said. “And because once it knows your voice, it remembers it.”

I didn’t come back the next night.

Or the night after that.

But sometimes, when my apartment is quiet and the clock reads 2:17 a.m., I hear breathing. Not close. Not far.

Just… present.

And I understand now.

The job only exists at night because that’s when something else is awake—something that needs to be watched so it doesn’t start watching back.

And because silence, it turns out, is the real work.