At 5 a.m., the pounding on my front door jolted me out of sleep. It wasn’t casual knocking—it was frantic, uneven, the kind that comes from someone who’s truly terrified. I stumbled downstairs, still half-asleep, and opened the door to find my neighbor, Mark Ellison, standing on my porch in sweatpants and a faded college hoodie. His face was pale, his hands trembling.

“Mark? What happened?”

He swallowed hard. “Nathan… don’t go to work today.” His voice cracked with urgency. “If you do… things will go very, very wrong.”

My mind raced, but I forced myself to stay calm. “What are you talking about? Did you hear something? See something?”

He shook his head quickly, eyes darting nervously down the street. “Just—promise me you won’t go. By noon… you’ll understand.”

Before I could ask another question, he backed away, nearly stumbling over his own feet, and hurried back to his house, slamming the door behind him.

I stood there in the cold morning air, confused and unsettled. Mark wasn’t a dramatic man. He was quiet, reliable, an accountant who lived alone and spent most weekends tending to his garden. I’d never once seen him shaken—much less terrified.

Still, I couldn’t justify missing an entire day of work based on a vague warning. I was a project manager at an engineering firm on the verge of a major contract. Skipping a day without explanation wasn’t an option.

But his words lingered.

I texted my boss saying I’d be working from home, just in case. Something about that look in Mark’s eyes told me this wasn’t trivial.

The morning crept by slowly. Coffee. Emails. Attempts at normalcy. But every time I glanced at the clock, my anxiety spiked.

11:15 a.m.
11:22 a.m.
11:29 a.m.

Then, at exactly 11:30, my phone rang.

The caller ID read: Hillside Police Department.

My stomach dropped.

I answered, voice tight. “This is Nathan.”

The officer on the other end sighed heavily. “Mr. Carter… we need to speak with you immediately. It’s about your workplace.”

I gripped the edge of my desk.

“What happened?”

The truth that followed was far worse than anything Mark had warned me about.

“Your office building was the target of a violent break-in,” the officer continued. “It began at 10:52 a.m. Several employees were inside at the time.”

My breath caught. “Is anyone hurt?”

A long pause. “There were injuries… and one fatality.”

The room around me blurred for a moment. I pressed my palm to my forehead. “Who?”

“We can’t disclose names yet. But we need you to come down to the station to answer questions. We were informed you were scheduled to be in the building today.”

I hung up mechanically and grabbed my jacket. Questions hammered through my mind: Why would anyone break into an engineering firm? Why had Mark warned me? And how did he know something would happen by noon?

When I arrived at the police station, Officer Rivera led me into a small interview room. She slid a photo across the table. “This is from the lobby camera at 10:56 a.m.”

The image showed a masked intruder entering through the service door—an entry rarely used except by staff. He walked with deliberate confidence, as if he knew the layout.

Rivera watched my reaction. “Mr. Carter, did you recognize the man? The walk? The body language?”

I shook my head. “No. But why would anyone target us?”

She leaned back. “We think it may be related to your firm’s transit infrastructure project. There were threats sent to the corporate inbox last month. Did you know about them?”

Threats? Our CEO had mentioned “online noise,” but nothing more. I assumed it was routine backlash.

Rivera continued, “The intruder bypassed security systems. That requires inside knowledge.”

My chest tightened. “Are you saying this was planned by someone from our company?”

“That’s one possibility.”

I felt sick.

Then Rivera added, “But this is where things get unusual. We received an anonymous call at 4:52 a.m.—eight minutes before your neighbor knocked on your door. The caller warned that ‘a major incident’ would occur.”

My heartbeat spiked. “Who made the call?”

“We traced it,” she said. “To a disposable phone purchased two days ago.”

She slid another photo across the table.

The timestamp showed 4:53 a.m., a street camera image near my neighborhood.

The person using the disposable phone was standing across from my house.

My breath froze.

The silhouette looked familiar.

Officer Rivera whispered, “We think your neighbor may know far more than he told you.”

When I left the police station, my mind was spinning. Mark wasn’t just nervous—he had been terrified. And now I knew why: he hadn’t warned me vaguely. He had tried to stop me from walking into a targeted attack.

But how did he know?

As I pulled into my driveway, I saw him standing on his porch, arms tightly folded, eyes fixed on me. Not avoiding me this time—waiting.

I walked over slowly. “Mark… we need to talk.”

He exhaled shakily. “I figured the police would call you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me exactly what was going to happen?”

“Because I didn’t know the details.” His hands trembled again. “I only knew someone was going after your company.”

I frowned. “How could you possibly know that?”

Mark hesitated, then opened his front door. “Come in. There’s something you need to see.”

His living room was cluttered with papers, coffee mugs, and half-assembled computer parts—not his usual organized self. He motioned toward a laptop on the table. On the screen was an email chain between Mark and an anonymous sender.

At the top: Internal whistleblower thread – urgent

Mark rubbed his eyes. “Three weeks ago, someone from your firm reached out to me. I don’t know who. They said I needed to warn you because the leadership wasn’t listening. They believed your project was compromised. Leaks. Security gaps. Threats being ignored.”

I blinked. “Why message you?”

“Because I used to work cybersecurity,” he said quietly. “Before I moved here, before I burned out. Someone must have known.”

He pulled up the last email, sent at 4:30 a.m.:

The attack is happening today. If Carter is there, he’ll be caught in it. You’re the only chance to warn him.

I felt a chill run through me. Someone inside our company feared for my safety enough to reach out to a stranger. Someone who knew I wasn’t being protected.

Mark whispered, “I didn’t know who to trust. Not even the police. All I could do was get you out of that building.”

I sat heavily on his couch. “One of our employees died today because none of us knew.”

He nodded, grief settling in his expression. “And whoever orchestrated this… they’re still out there.”

I looked at the email chain again—the panic, the urgency, the fear threaded through every message.

This wasn’t over.

Not even close.

And as the investigation grew, one question kept echoing in my mind:

If you were in my shoes, who would you suspect first—the insider who warned us, or the people who ignored the danger?