|•{ Narrator — TSP }•|×[ 1 ]

Silence. Too thick, too full—the kind that makes your ears ring from the sheer absence of sound.
Consciousness returns slowly, in fragments—first, a sensation of heaviness in a body that doesn't quite feel like your own. Foreign hands. Foreign breath. Your head throbs as if you've slept far longer than you should have.
Your eyes open. Before you is a monitor, glowing dimly in the twilight. A desk. Papers, neatly stacked in a pile. A mug of cold coffee. Everything is strangely mundane—and that is exactly why it feels wrong.
You are in an office. Not in your room, not in your bed—but in a cubicle, cramped and featureless, with partitions the color of stale dust. Outside the window is darkness, as if time of day had long since ceased to exist there.
And then a voice rings out—warm, confident, slightly theatrical, sounding as if it's coming from everywhere at once:
"Ah, finally. You know, usually this is the longest moment: a few seconds, yet it feels like an eternity while you just... lie there and decide if you're ready to open your eyes."
A pause—short, calculated, as if he is waiting for a reaction, knowing in advance that there won't be one.
"Stanley—that's your name, in case you've forgotten—an employee of the company, number 427, who worked late on reports, just as he has every day for the last few years. And today—or rather, right now—he discovers something unusual: in his headset—the very one that relays orders from management—there is not a single sound. Not one command. For the first time in his entire career."
The voice takes a step—not in physical space, but somewhere closer to the essence of things:
"Get up, Stanley. Leave your office and realize that all the other employees—every single one of them—have vanished."
A shadow—angular, blurred at the edges, barely discernible on the border of the monitor's light—glides by the cubicle door, waiting.
You can stand up. Look around. Try to speak—though you may find that you cannot utter a single sound. What will you do?