Station Number 375

In the office, workstations are like neatly arranged tombstones, each marked with a number, accurate to two decimal places. This morning, as sunlight poured like a stream into this concrete jungle, Xiao Wang at station 374 once again stole a glance at station 375 next to him.

Station 375 is always empty.

This is not an unusual occurrence; after all, in this company that pursues maximum efficiency, everyone is like a wind-up robot, and being even a minute late is recorded. But the emptiness of station 375 is particularly different. It is not the kind of emptiness that says, "He's on leave today," but rather an emptiness that says, "It seems like no one has ever used it."

On the desk, the keyboard and mouse are covered with a thin layer of dust, and the computer screen is also dim, like a pair of eyes that have not been opened for a long time, quietly staring at the ceiling. The drawers are empty, without even a pen, as if it was not meant for "use" at all.

Initially, Xiao Wang was merely curious, but it later turned into an obsession. He had subtly asked the head of human resources, but the manager only smiled and said, "Station 375? That's a reserved station; don't worry about it." Unwilling to give up, Xiao Wang also asked other colleagues, but they all shrugged, indicating that they didn't know.

During lunch break, while colleagues chatted about the latest gossip in the pantry, Xiao Wang walked alone to station 375. He carefully touched the corner of the desk, and the cold sensation made him shiver. He even turned on the dusty computer. The screen slowly lit up, revealing not the familiar Windows interface, but a black command prompt.

Xiao Wang hesitated for a moment, then tried to type "whoami". After pressing enter, a string of strange characters appeared on the screen, like gibberish or some kind of password. He tried a few times, and finally gave up.

From that day on, Xiao Wang began to secretly observe station 375. He noticed that every morning, the cleaning lady would wipe down station 375, slowly and carefully, as if she were wiping a precious work of art. But the cleaning lady never spoke and never looked Xiao Wang directly in the eyes.

Gradually, station 375 became a part of Xiao Wang's life. He began to notice some subtle anomalies. For example, every day at three o'clock in the afternoon, the desk lamp on station 375 would flicker slightly and then return to normal; every Friday night, the office surveillance footage would inexplicably skip a few frames, and this time just happened to be in the area where station 375 was located.

Xiao Wang had also tried to mention these things to others, but everyone just thought he was being strange, and some even joked that station 375 was haunted. Xiao Wang didn't pay them any mind; he felt that there must be a secret hidden behind station 375.

One day, the company suddenly issued a notice that all employees had to attend a three-day closed training session. The training location was an old sanatorium in the suburbs.

The rooms in the sanatorium were very simple, and the room numbers were arranged according to the workstation numbers. Xiao Wang pushed open the door and was immediately stunned. The number of his room was clearly written as "375."

The furnishings of the room were identical to station 375, a dusty desk, a computer that wouldn't start, and empty drawers. The only difference was that there was a mirror in the corner of the wall, covered in dust.

Xiao Wang walked closer to the mirror and wiped it with his sleeve. The reflection in the mirror was not him, but a stranger wearing the same work uniform as him. The stranger had an eerie smile on his face, and he slowly raised his right hand, pointing at Xiao Wang outside the mirror. Xiao Wang instinctively took a step back, only to find that the reflection in the mirror still kept the same movement as him, except that the smile became even more eerie.

At this time, the lights in the room suddenly went out, and the whole room fell into darkness, with only the mirror reflecting the faint starlight from outside the window. Xiao Wang held his breath and vaguely saw his "self" in the mirror raise his hands and slowly write something in the air. The strokes looked like code, or perhaps some ancient text.

The next day, the training officially started, but Xiao Wang never appeared again.

The company's human resources manager, after discovering Xiao Wang's disappearance, simply registered it and then began to look for the next person to fill station 375. On the new workstation number table, station 375 was still vacant, as if no one had ever existed there.

When people are used to defining themselves with numbers, who would remember the individual who was once trapped in station number 375, tried to break absurd rules, and eventually disappeared into the mirror? Perhaps he never left, just changed his way of existing in this highly alienated world. Maybe he was always there; we were just blind to him.