Before Midnight Novelas e Histórias

I didn’t get into college, so I took a job driving a city bus. Once I finished training, I started working the night shift with Uncle Tim. He had always been the kind of guy who followed every rule. But that night, he wouldn’t let me pick up a single passenger. He even made me keep the bus dark the entire route. Uncle Tim died shortly after that incident. A few days later, someone told me something that made my blood run cold. Uncle Tim had actually been dead for quite some time. So who the hell had been riding with me that night?

Time moved on mercilessly, creeping through the silent seconds until the long-awaited night finally arrived. The antique clock in the corner of the master bedroom chimed softly, announcing that it was exactly midnight. The mansion was completely silent, with nothing but the whisper of the night wind slipping through the windowpanes.

When I got home, the house was pitch black. Standing alone in the darkness, I sent Delilah a text. [One of my colleagues asked me to come over and watch the game. It's getting late, so I won't be coming home tonight.] Her reply came almost immediately. [Okay. But don't stay up too late. Your stomach's been acting up, so you have to get up and eat breakfast tomorrow morning.] There was none of her usual prying. I knew Delilah wouldn't be coming home that night, so I pulled out my suitcase and started packing.

"Happy New Month, Adeline." My name in his mouth sounds differently tonight, softer than it has any right to sound with an ocean of noise surrounding us. I turn back toward the sky. Another burst climbs above the water and fractures into a hundred falling embers, and somewhere between the color and the thunder, the date settles into place. December first. My breath catches in my throat. Tonight was the sixth event. The contract ends at midnight, and midnight is here, unfolding above us in gold and red while neither of us says a word about what comes after.

~VARG The heavy, structural shadows of the master wing had completely swallowed the remaining rays of the afternoon sun, burying my bedroom in a deep, absolute midnight. The wall clocks in the corridor were already striking past 10:00 PM, their silent digital interfaces the only reminder of the hours that had bled away.

But every light inside dimmed sharply for a split second before returning to normal. Several guests glanced upward uneasily. Then the elevator stopped moving. The gaming streamer frowned. “Uh… are we stuck?” Before anyone could answer, the overhead speaker crackled softly. [Midnight check-in begins in ten minutes.] The voice sounded distorted, wrong somehow. A second later, every phone inside the elevator buzzed simultaneously. Winona pulled hers out slowly. A new notification covered the screen. WELCOME TO MIDNIGHT HOTEL. FIRST RULE: DO NOT OPEN YOUR DOOR AFTER 12 A.M. NO MATTER WHO IS KNOCKING. Below the message was one final line. SURVIVE UNTIL MORNING.

It came four nights later. Not at two in the morning. At seven in the evening, which was its own kind of sophistication. Two in the morning was when defenses were lowest and the mind was loosest and sleep had already softened the edges of everything. Seven in the evening was dinner, lamplight, the ordinary texture of a day winding down. The moment when people stopped being vigilant because nothing significant happens at seven in the evening.

I want to be precise about this, midnight, which was the specific and particular time of a man who had been in the kitchen for two hours with a woman who told him about roses and honest light and a mother named Sophia, who had then sat alone at the kitchen counter on her side for twenty-three minutes after she went to bed, who had then gone to his study and had opened his laptop and had looked at it without seeing it for another twelve minutes before he picked up his phone. Midnight. Nate answered on the third ring. Not the second ring, which was his standard, the third, which meant he had been asleep or close enough to it that the first ring had been absorbed into something and the second h

The clock on the nightstand reads 11:58. Two minutes until midnight. The rose is on the floor. The ribbon is loose. Someone is watching. Someone is always watching. But now, we are watching back.

“And now that this entire funk is cleared, why don’t you and I go get something from the kitchen really fast?” Singto gave him a funny look and glanced at the clock near them. It was fifteen minutes until twelve in the morning and Harvey and Emmie were probably asleep by now. “Uhhh Krist, it’s almost midnight.” “Haven’t you ever heard of midnight snack?” Krist asked while leaning into Singto’s small body. “No…” This made Krist’s jaw drop dramatically as he placed a hand on his chest to show his disbelief. “What?!” Singto chuckled feeling amused to see Krist’s playful side.