Sunday Short: Last Minute

Rafi had always been a last-minute kind of guy.

Assignments, bills, reports, you name it. If it wasn’t due tomorrow, it wasn’t worth touching today. His colleagues teased him for it, but somehow, he always pulled it off. Coffee, panic, and adrenaline, that was his formula for success.

That night, he was alone in the office again. It was already past 2 a.m., and the rest of the team had gone home hours ago. He stayed behind to finish a presentation due first thing in the morning. “Just one more slide,” he muttered, clicking through charts with heavy eyes.

The building was quiet, too quiet. Even the hum of the air conditioner sounded louder than usual. His reflection on the glass partition stared back at him, dark circles and all.

Then, the lights flickered.

Rafi looked up, squinting at the fluorescent bulbs above. “Great. Just what I need.” He sighed and went back to typing. But a second later, the screen froze. Cursor blinking. Then, static.

He frowned, tapping the keyboard. Suddenly, the screen flashed white. A message appeared.

“Deadline approaching.”

He blinked. The text wasn’t from PowerPoint, that’s for sure. He pressed escape. The message remained.

Then another line appeared.

“You’re late, Rafi.”

His fingers went cold. He looked around the empty office. The only sound was the faint buzz of electricity. He reached for his phone, dead.

He chuckled nervously, “Okay, maybe someone’s pulling a prank.” He forced a laugh that echoed off the walls.

Then he noticed something, his reflection in the glass partition was still typing. Even though he wasn’t.

Rafi froze. Slowly, he lifted his hands off the keyboard. In the reflection, the other “him” continued working, fingers dancing rapidly across invisible keys. Then, it stopped and turned its head toward him.

Its face was pale, hollow-eyed, lips curling into a slow, eerie grin.

“You’re out of time.”

The lights went out.

Rafi screamed.

The next morning, the cleaners found his body slumped over the desk, eyes wide open, face frozen in terror. His laptop was still on. On the screen was the completed presentation, every slide finished perfectly.

At the bottom of the final slide, written in red font, were three chilling words:

“Submitted on time.”