“These need to be filed alphabetically into these file cabinets.” Then he pulled another box from the other side of the large file cabinets.

“These need to be shredded,” he motioned to the box. “The shredder is actually in the break room which is out those doors,” he pointed to the main office doo rs. “Down the hall, on the left.”

“That seems like an odd place for a shredder,” Cassie said absently.

Her dad let out a huff of laughter. “You don’t have to tell me. But do you want to be the one who tells Martha where she should put her shredder?” He turned to go back to his office then paused. “You’ll be okay out here by yourself?”

Cassie rolled her eyes. “Dad, I’m eighteen. Technically I no longer require supervision.”

He let out a groan. “Don’t remind me,” he said, leaving her to it.

An hour and three paper cuts later, Cassie finally finished the filing. She stood and stretched her legs and then her arms. She looked down at the box full of papers to be shredded and quickly decided that she was not going to be able to carry it down the long hall. She looked around the office for some sort of cart.

“Bingo,” she smiled as she pulled a rolling cart from a closet to the right of Martha’s desk. She hefted the heavy box onto the cart and then steered it from the office and down the long hall. Cassie had to admit that it was kind of creepy being alone in a large building, knowing there was no one else inside. It reminded her of a movie that she once saw where the lead character woke up from a lengthy coma and staggered from the hospital only to discover that there was no one left alive in the city.

She found the door that her dad had been talking about and poked her head inside to make sure that it was indeed empty. She saw that no one occupied the room and proceeded to pull the cart inside and over to the shredder sitting at the back of the room. She began the monotonous task of pushing paper into the machine and listening to the grinding sound it produced as it cut the paper into tiny pieces that would be impossible to read. Just as she grabbed the last of the papers, she heard raised voices that sounded as if they were coming from just beyond the wall to her right.

Cassie froze. Without thinking, she tried to quiet her breathing, which had inexplicably begun to speed up. Cassie stood and walked over to the wall and pressed her ear to it. The voices were intoxicating, smooth and intriguing, like melted milk chocolate. She found herself wanting to get closer, wanting to find out who could have such a voice. Before she realized it , she found herself walking back out of the break room and to the very next door in the hall. The wall of this office was made of glass instead of painted sheet rock. The blinds that hung in front of the glass were closed, blocking her view to the inside of the room. She walked a few steps down the hall, passing in front of the glass. When she reached the end of the glass, she saw that there was a small, roughly four inch opening where the blinds weren’t quite covering the window. She peered in through the opening and her breath caught in her throat.

A long table filled the room and was surrounded by chairs, halfof which were filled with men, though they were far from normal looking. These men were beautiful, regal, and masculine all at the same time. Each had long hair, board straight and shiny, with unorthodox coloring. The hair of one of the men was stark white, though he looked as if he were in his early twenties. Another sported hair of pale blue, while another’s was light purple. This was bizarre in and of itself, but that was far from their most unusual feature. Cassie’s mouth dropped open when she noticed that their ears were pointed at the tips. Not sort of pointed, like some people have, which are often described as ‘elfin’ in appearance. No, these ears were well and truly pointed, strikingly different from anything she had ever seen before. Cassie blinked her eyes and rubbed them fiercely, trying to make sure that she wasn’t just seeing things that weren’t really there. She looked away from their ears and instead studied their faces. Again she noted that they were inhumanly good looking. Everything about their faces was perfect. High cheek bones, straight, perfectly proportioned noses, pale, smooth, flawless skin that seemed to shimmer under the florescent lights. Then she noticed that their eyes, like their pointy ears, seemed unbelievable. They sparkled, containing unnatural colors that appeared to match the color of their hair.

One of the beautiful men stood from the table and she saw that he was unusually tall. His fitted clothes left no wonder to his body structure. This man’s hair shimmered a dark blue, and his eyes were a matching sapphire. He was muscular, but far from bulky. He was built for speed and agility. He wore loose fitting brown pants that looked as if they would allow him to move without hindrance. The material of his white shirt appeared to be the same as his pants and while it also seemed to be fitted for allowing maximum movement, was tight enough to reveal a flat stomach. His chest was broad, but not too thick. His arms, even covered by the sleeves of his shirt, were obviously muscular.

He began to walk around the table and she noted that his movements where so smooth as to be catlike in their grace. He walked confidently, owning the room and commanding the attention of the others. As he drew closer to the back of the room, nearer to where Cassie stood on the other side of the glass, she held her breath, wondering if he could hear her. He stopped only feet away from her on the other side of the glass and his eyes snapped up, meeting hers. His piercing stare seemed to root her in the spot, even though everything inside her was telling her to run as fast and far as she could from the room, and the beautiful men that occupied it. His lips began to move and the motion of another man standing behind him broke her eyes from the intense stare. She saw that the man was moving towards the door. Cassie made a quick decision, albeit the wrong quick decision. Instead of heading in the direction of her dad’s office , she turned and ran in the opposite direction, grabbing the first door she came to. The door opened into an empty office next to the conference room. She rushed inside and pulled the door closed, pushing the lock in place, not bothering to check and see if the room was empty. Once again, not her brightest moment.