Sage's footsteps pounded through the studio's halls. She sidestepped a water cooler and stumbled over a bench, but that didn't stop her. She had to keep going. She had to outrun it.

Behind her, the crashing of filing cabinets and crunching of wood warned her that she had limited time to get a head start. It would break out of its holdings soon. A feeble door can't hold it in for long.

It had appeared in her office again, but this time it was out to hurt her. She didn't exactly know what it would do if it caught her, but she wasn't going to stick around and find out.

Sage made it to the help desk at the front of her department and sharply turned left towards the glass double doors that would lead to the elevator. She roughly shoved them open and smacked the down button on the elevator panel.

Faintly, she heard the door keeping it inside splinter open. The guttural roar of whatever it was echoed within the department. The cry was grating, like multiple people screaming at once.

She tried to keep her breathing quiet as the crackling and fizzling of the familiar foe searched the hallways for her. As long as she didn't make any noise, she was sure it wouldn't find her easily. She stared down at the tacky, multi-coloured carpet that covered the elevator area to keep her mind focused on something else. She couldn't afford to panic.

Nobody was here to help. It was the dead of night and she was the only one in her department still at the workplace. The dim lights above were on half their power to conserve electricity. Count on Sage to be the workaholic that always leaves last.

She realized now that she was stupid for not taking the stairs. She could have been halfway to the exit already if she had.

Her heart leapt as the ding of the elevator announced that her transport had arrived. The thundering of the monster as it rushed towards the sound faded as Sage repeatedly pressed the "close doors" button.

Taking a breath of relief, she leaned against the railing and slumped to the floor. She did it. She escaped. The hum of the elevator as it took her to the ground floor filled her mind as she breathed in the smell of someone who had put on too much cologne that morning.

Soon, she would be out of this building. Soon, she would be safe.

The elevator jittered. That never happened.

It's due to the low power, it doesn't mean anything, Sage told herself. Then, it happened again. This time, more violently. She stood up, wondering what was going on.

Wait. The hum of the elevator…it was off.

Something pounded on the ceiling, imprinting a three-fingered hand onto the surface. The next time it happened, Sage knew what it was. Of course it had followed her down the elevator shaft.

It scraped at the ceiling's edges and got a hold of it. Sage could see the points of its black claws as it began to rip the ceiling off. She backed up against the door, willing them to open with her mind. Sweat beaded on her forehead, her eyebrows knit together with a primal sense of fear.

The metal groaned as it reluctantly lifted up. Steel beams were snapping and bending. One of the lights fell and shattered onto the floor. Black ooze leaked into the elevator. It had a multi-coloured haze that looked like glitches from a TV or computer.

As the last of the ceiling was being wrenched away, the doors opened with a whine and a dying elevator ding. Sage fell to the floor, as she had been heavily leaning on the doors.

Scrambling back up, she narrowly missed a swing from the monster. Darting through the large rooms of the ground floor, she followed the exit signs and down the stairs to the emergency fire exit. If she opened this door, it would trigger an alarm system, alerting the authorities that something was happening.

It was not far behind. She could almost feel its static against her back.

"W-woah, dumber than advertied-tised," it said tauntingly in a distorted, high-pitched voice. Was it taunting her?

Sage reached out an arm to grab the handle of the fire exit, but pulled away when it suddenly glitched. She turned around and saw the monster staring down at her with six beady eyes. One pair was all black, the other green and the last blue.

Around these eyes was the gigantic mass of a black void with sparking particles crackling within. It engulfed the fire exit, the walls and the floor. She was trapped with only a circle around her left to stand on.

The eyes spinned around and around, the void laughing childishly. Sage covered her ears, but that didn't block any sound. She closed her eyes, but she could see the six eyes behind them, burned into her memory.

Her leg came into contact with the mass as it creeped slowly into her circle, which was getting smaller by the second. Pain shot up through her wherever it touched. It wrapped around her arms and pulled them away from her ears. She screamed, but nobody who cared could hear her. Her cries joined the chorus behind the laughter.

"Sage!" someone whispered aggressively into her ear. She jolted awake, back in her office. Her black pen was still clenched in her hand and drool pooled on the blank sheet of paper she was supposed to be drawing on.

Heat crept up in her cheeks. She had fallen asleep on the job again.

Alondra leaned over her, arms gripping the edge of her desk. She had that stern look on her face, which meant that she wasn't happy.

"This is the second time I've caught you dozing off, and this time you fell asleep!" Alondra continued whispering. "If the boss saw this, you'd be in big trouble."

Sage crumpled up the paper with drool on it and threw it in the trash bin beside her desk while she listened to Alondra's scoldings. They were well-deserved. If it weren't for Alondra checking in on her throughout the day, she likely would have been caught a while ago.

"I'm sorry, Al. I've gotta stop putting my head on my desk," Sage apologized. "Thanks for waking me. Again."

"What you've gotta do is get some better sleep so your body doesn't want to sleep at work." Alondra stood and sighed, looking away. "I'm worried about you. Your lack of sleep is abnormal, even for a night owl like yourself."

"You don't have to worry about me. I'll get it in order eventually, I swear."

"You better." She handed Sage a fresh paper from the stack in front of her. "I'll be back to see if you're snoring in a couple hours."

Before Sage could protest about that, Alondra briskly walked out of the room. She slumped in her seat and rubbed her eyes, waking herself up from the awful dream she had.

This recurring nightmare had been haunting her for weeks. However, this time it played out differently. It had never attacked her before.

She laid the paper Alondra had given her on top of the previous animation frame and started to draw. Luckily, she hadn't gotten the previous frame wet as well, so nothing had to be redone.

Her thoughts drifted back to the dream. In reality, the office that Sage arrived in was not her own, but her boss'. Her goal was to own an office just like that, so it wasn't surprising that it showed up unconsciously as hers. What she didn't understand was it.

It was three beings, all small in stature, the tallest only reaching to her hips in height. They didn't have a completely solid form, so Sage couldn't put a finger on what it was supposed to be. The majority of its form was black, with the occasional feature popping in and out of existence. The most consistent features were white, three-fingered gloves, floppy, canine-like ears and red noses. It appeared to have a standard body, with two arms and two legs.

The reason Sage referred to three creatures as "it" was because they all eerily thought alike. There was hardly a way to tell them apart when it came to their movements and body language. She had a feeling that their minds were connected, so she referred to all three of them as a collective.

The dreams played out similarly each time. It would appear in her office and introduce themselves in its strange, gargled voices. From what she's managed to piece together overtime, it referred to themselves as the "Warner Brothers and the Warner Sister". Then, it would play around in her office, opening filing cabinets, banging on walls, summoning objects to smash things with and jumping onto her to distract her from work. It behaved a lot like the cartoon characters Sage was paid to draw. The voices sometimes referred to her as "Nurse", even when she told it her name.

It was always stressful trying to deal with them, as while she needed to answer calls on her phone and sign wagers, she was constantly pulled to the side to deal with what it had done. Whether that would be organizing the files back in order, or ordering new equipment. She had to chase it around the room because it had stolen her stapler yet again, or her coffee mug.

When she woke up from these dreams, she couldn't go back to sleep for hours. She didn't exactly understand why. Sure, dealing with it was annoying and stressful, but not scary. The thought of encountering it again shouldn't frighten her out of sleeping.

And yet…

Her mind remembers the experience as dread building in her stomach, and the overwhelming sensation of wrongness. She didn't want to go back and stare at the static forms that came fresh out of someone's malfunctioning TV. She didn't want to feel the slight prickling sensation when it touched her.

After what had happened this time, Sage never wanted to sleep again.