The sky outside turned a bruised, ugly purple around three in the afternoon, but nobody on the fourth floor paid it much attention until the first heavy strike of thunder rattled the windowpanes.
Five minutes later, with a sharp *pop* and a long, descending whine, the overhead fluorescents died.
The entire office plunged into a dim, shadow-drenched gray. Monitored screens flickered, sputtered, and went dark in unison, accompanied by a collective groaning chorus from the remaining skeletal staff scattered across the cubicles.
"Well," a familiar voice echoed through the dim aisle, smooth and entirely unbothered. "There goes my high score in Minesweeper."
I leaned back in my chair, staring at the pitch-black monitor. "You were playing Minesweeper?"
"I was *dominating* Minesweeper," Reggie corrected, his footsteps soft against the carpet as he sauntered into my cubicle space. He was holding a heavy, industrial-sized emergency flashlight he’d clearly stolen from the supply closet, shining it directly upward under his chin like he was about to tell a ghost story around a campfire.
"Put that away, you creep," I laughed, squinting against the harsh beam.
"I am illuminating our grim reality," he intoned dramatically, before flipping the light downward so it cast a warm, ambient circle on the carpet between us. "The grid is down. The servers are dead. We are officially off the clock, neighbor."
Rain was pounding against the glass now, a deafening drumroll that isolated our little corner of the floor from the rest of the world. Across the office, a few people were already packing their bags to brave the stairs, but neither of us moved.
Reggie slid down against the carpeted wall of my cubicle, sitting cross-legged right next to my desk, his knees bumped up close. He set the flashlight on its end so it threw a soft column of light up toward the ceiling.
"So," he murmured, looking up at me through the shadows, his eyes catching the amber glow of the lantern. "No spreadsheets. No phone lines. No emails."
"It's almost eerie," I admitted, sitting on the floor across from him, resting my chin on my knees.
"It's a miracle," Reggie countered, a slow, crooked smile spreading across his face. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a worn, slightly crumpled deck of playing cards. "Now, the real question is: do you actually know how to play War, or am I going to have to let you win?"
I scoffed, reaching out to snatch the deck from his hands. "Prepare to lose your shirt, gnome."
He let out a low laugh, the thunder booming outside as the storm raged on, completely forgotten in the small, warm circle of light between us.