City A, 1:00 a.m.
Twenty-seventh floor of a Grade A office tower.
The entire office had gone dark hours ago, except for one corner beside the floor-to-ceiling windows, still washed in cold white light.
The downpour had begun at midnight.
Eve Lam sat by the window.
Rainwater trickled slowly down the glass, blurring the view outside into hazy shades of blue and gray. The whole city looked as though it had been submerged beneath a night of endless rain.
Her supervisor's parting words still echoed in her head.
"The client doesn't like the direction. Do it again."
She glanced at the corner of her screen.
01:13.
The twelfth revision this month.
She was alone in the office now. The central air conditioning hummed low and steady, and the white light overhead was cold as a hospital ward.
The iced Americano on her desk had long since gone flat and watery, its smell mixing with paper and the sour fatigue of too many late nights — nauseating.
Eve rubbed her aching eyes and opened the proposal again.
As she clicked on the file, there was a moment when she couldn't even remember what her original idea had been.
Or perhaps—
it had simply been a long time since she'd truly had an idea of her own.
Every day was the same.
Meetings. Revisions. Apologies. Late nights.
Like being trapped on a conveyor belt with no end in sight.
She looked down at her phone.
A message from her mother, sent hours ago, still sat on the screen.
[Busy with work lately?]
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
[Your cousin just got promoted to manager, you know.]
Eve stared at it for a few seconds, then turned the phone face-down on the desk without replying.
Outside, the rain fell harder.
Her reflection hung faintly in the glass — pale, exhausted, like someone who hadn't truly slept in a long time.
It suddenly occurred to her that the last time she'd left work on time had probably been half a year ago.
2:04 a.m.
She finally sent off the last version of the file.
The moment her computer screen went dark, the whole office fell into a silence so complete it was almost frightening.
Eve slowly rose from her chair, her neck and shoulders stiff with pain. She picked up her coat and took the elevator downstairs.
Cold wind hit her the moment she stepped outside.
The rain was heavier than she'd expected.
The subway had already stopped running, and the streets were nearly empty,
Eve walked beneath her umbrella down the deserted pavement, her footsteps splashing through puddles in a flat, monotonous rhythm.
She couldn't quite remember why she'd entered that alley.
Maybe her navigation app had stopped working.
Or maybe she was simply too tired.
By the time she came back to her senses, the streets around her were unfamiliar.
She couldn't tell when the fog had begun to thicken.
One by one, the streetlights went out.
The entire street had become unnaturally quiet. Even the sound of the rain seemed to have been cut off by something unseen.
Eve stopped.
Ahead, deep in the fog, a faint warm light flickered.
There stood a building she had never seen before.
It looked like a hotel from some older era — a wooden sign, neither new nor quite worn out, its warm yellow light swaying gently in the rain.
The sign held only four words.
—The Long Night Hotel.
Eve frowned.
She had worked in this neighborhood for almost three years.
She had never seen this hotel before.
A wind blew in from behind her.
For some reason, a strange feeling suddenly came over her.
As if the entire city around her were slowly, quietly drifting away.
A chill crept through Eve.
Then—
The hotel's front doors opened on their own.
Warm light spilled through the doorway.
Like a quiet invitation.
Or perhaps —
something inside had been waiting for her for a very long time.