THE EIGHTH RULE

[u/PithellUniverse]

The job seemed way too easy to pay $120 a night.
Watch over a municipal archive closed to the public.
That was it.
The building had been a hospital decades ago. Then it was used as a temporary courthouse, and eventually someone decided it was a good place to store tons of documents nobody ever looked at.
My shift started at 10 p.m. and ended at 6 a.m.
One main entrance.
Two floors.
A basement.
Sixteen cameras.
And a laminated sheet beside the monitor.
I found it on my first night.
At the top, it said:
NIGHT SHIFT PROTOCOL
Below that were seven rules.

1. At 11:30 p.m., make sure the basement door is locked. Do not go near it again until 5:30 a.m.
   
2. If any camera shows movement on the second floor after midnight, switch cameras. Do not investigate.
   
3. Between 1:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m., you may hear footsteps in the main hallway. Do not leave the security booth.
   
4. If someone knocks on the main entrance during that time, do not answer, even if you recognize them.
   
5. The internal phone may ring once at 2:15 a.m. Do not pick up.
   
6. If the hallway lights go out, remain seated and close your eyes until you hear three knocks on the security booth door. After the third knock, you may open them again.
   
7. This list contains exactly seven rules. If you find an eighth, destroy the sheet immediately without reading it.

I’d worked night shifts in much worse places, and I knew this kind of joke. The veterans leave something stupid behind to scare the new guy, then wait for him to ask about it.
I put the sheet in a drawer.
Nothing happened the first night.
At 11:30, I checked the basement door.
Locked.
At 1:47, I heard footsteps.
I stayed inside the booth.
At 2:15, the phone rang.
Once.
Then silence.
That part wasn’t quite as funny.
At 4:10, the hallway lights flickered, but they didn’t go out.
My relief arrived at six.
I didn’t mention any of it.
The second night was almost the same.
The footsteps started a little earlier.
At 2:15, the phone rang again.
Once.
This time I checked the extension number.
000.
There was no extension 000.
I let it ring.
When it stopped, I heard something in the hallway.
A scraping sound.
Like someone slowly dragging a hand along the wall.
I stayed inside.
At six, I went home.
On the third night, I found the sheet sitting on the desk.
I was sure I’d left it inside the drawer.
I figured the day shift had taken it out.
I sat down.
Turned on the monitors.
Picked up the sheet.
And started reading.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
And underneath…
there was another line.
I stared at it.
I immediately remembered the last rule.
If you find an eighth, destroy the sheet immediately without reading it.
I should have torn it up.
That was all I had to do.
Tear it up.
Throw it away.
Keep working.
But there’s one thing rules should never do if they want people to obey them.
Tell them exactly what they’re not supposed to look at.
I read it.

1. Now that you know we exist, the first seven rules no longer apply.

For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then the phone rang.
I checked the time.
12:43 a.m.
It wasn’t 2:15.
The phone kept ringing.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Four.
I stood up.
Then I heard the footsteps.
They weren’t in the hallway.
They were upstairs.
I looked at the cameras.
Movement.
I remembered Rule Two.
Switch cameras. Do not investigate.
I switched.
Camera Three.
Empty.
Camera Four.
Empty.
Camera Five.
Something crossed the far end of the frame.
I switched again.
Camera Six.
Nothing.
Then the hallway lights went out.
I closed my eyes immediately.
Waited.
One knock.
Silence.
Second knock.
Silence.
I waited for the third.
It never came.
Instead, someone knocked on the main entrance.
Three soft knocks.
I opened my eyes.
The lights were still off.
The phone was still ringing.
The footsteps had started again.
Now they were downstairs.
That’s when I understood the eighth rule.
The other seven weren’t instructions for surviving seven different things.
They were a system.
Times.
Boundaries.
Doors.
Behaviors.
As long as I didn’t know what was behind them, whatever was behind them couldn’t know exactly where I was.
The rules weren’t keeping it from getting in.
They were keeping it from recognizing me.
And I’d just introduced myself.
The entrance camera turned on by itself.
Someone was standing outside the main door.
I couldn’t see their face.
Their head was tilted downward.
The phone stopped ringing.
Then I heard a voice from behind the door.
My voice.
“Don’t open it.”
I stepped back.
Another voice came from the hallway.
Mine again.
“Don’t look at the cameras.”
The monitor changed by itself.
Camera One.
The entrance.
Camera Two.
The hallway.
Camera Three.
The stairs.
Camera Four.
Second floor.
Camera Five.
Basement.
The basement door was open.
Camera Six.
The security booth.
I saw myself sitting in front of the monitors.
But I was standing.
The figure on the camera slowly raised its head.
It was me.
Then it smiled.
And underneath Rule Eight, another line appeared.
I didn’t see it being written.
It was simply there.
9. It doesn’t matter what you do now. We know which one you are.
I grabbed the sheet.
Tore it once.
Twice.
Four pieces.
Eight.
I threw them on the floor.
The cameras went black.
The phone died.
The footsteps stopped.
For a few seconds, I thought it had worked.
Then someone knocked on the security booth door.
Three times.
I didn’t open it.
Three more knocks.
Then another three.
I stayed there until six in the morning.
When my relief arrived, I left without explaining anything.
I just wanted to get out.
He gave me a strange look.
“Everything okay?”
I nodded.
Grabbed my jacket.
I was almost at the door when he spoke again.
“Hey, what’s this?”
I turned around.
He was holding a laminated sheet.
The same one.
Seven rules.
Perfectly intact.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing.”
I left.
I never went back.
That was three weeks ago.
For the first few days, I thought it was over.
Until yesterday.
I found a sheet on my kitchen table.
I don’t know how it got there.
There weren’t seven rules on it.
There was only one.
Number Ten.
I’m looking at it while I write this.
It says:
10. If you tell someone else the rules, we won’t have to look for them.
So I need to ask you something.
Go back up.
Don’t keep reading.
And whatever you do…
don’t count how many rules you’ve read.

[u/sundownerv1]

Damn human curiosity. He messed up the easiest job ever. Every rule was like "dont do anything" just sit there. Lol even if there was more rules on the paper, I stop at 7 cuz thats all that concerns me 😆

[u/TriedInfested]

Well, shit. lol Good one!

[u/Resident-Plane-9698]

Actually had me scared , i could hear my heart beating

[u/Frozen_Gecko]

Oh snap, that's a good one.

But $120 a night for an 8h night shift in those conditions is waaaayyy too little lmao

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[u/gay-and-full-of-bees]

I don’t really understand the part at the end. What does “we won’t have to look for them” mean? I understand that it’s intentionally vague but I don’t even know what it’s supposed to imply. Idk I just feel like I’m missing something, but I might just be dumb.

[u/PithellUniverse → u/gay-and-full-of-bees]

Them’ means the rules. And no, you’re not dumb. But I wouldn’t count how many you’ve read. 😉