Restocking the Abyss

Bob and the Mysterious Shelf

Bob worked the stockroom at the back of a TJ Maxx, or maybe it was a Walmart—it hardly mattered. His job was simple: unbox, sort, stock, repeat. It was his routine, his way of keeping the chaos in his head at bay. The shelves were his domain, and everyone knew not to mess with them. Not because Bob was mean, but because order mattered to him. In a world that didn’t make much sense, the backroom shelves could.

If anything was out of place, Bob would find it. And God help the poor soul who misfiled socks in the toy section.

The First Strange Thing: Shelf 7.5G

It started small—so small, Bob thought he might be losing it. He was doing his usual walkthrough when he saw something strange between shelves 7G and 7H: a new section, labeled 7.5G.

The shelf was exactly 2 feet by 2 feet, squeezed perfectly into a gap that wasn’t there the day before. Bob blinked. Everything else looked normal—same shelves, same layout. But this... this was new.

“Did someone re-label the shelves overnight?” he muttered, glancing around. But that was impossible. He knew this shelving system better than the veins in his own hands. Nothing was ever out of place. Yet here it was: 7.5G, perfectly labeled and aligned like it had always been there.

He checked the tags. They were identical to the store's standard labels—same font, same adhesive. But he hadn’t put this one up. And nobody else would dare rearrange his stock. That was his job. Bob had made sure everyone knew that.

His palms began to sweat. It was a small thing, just a shelf—but it was wrong. And if this was wrong, then maybe everything else could be wrong, too.

He knelt, ran his hand over the new shelf. The metal was cool, smooth, and slightly off. Like it had been sitting there for years—but how could that be? How could he have missed it before?

His first instinct was annoyance. "Who put this here?" he muttered. "This isn’t funny." Bob crouched down, ran his hand along the cool metal, and stared at the freshly printed label. It looked official.

He marched over to his boss, Trevor, who was mid-coffee. "Hey, Trevor? We’ve got a problem."

Trevor raised an eyebrow. "What kind of problem?"

"There’s a new shelf. 7.5G. Right between 7G and 7H."

Trevor slowly put down his coffee. "The hell you mean a new shelf?"

"Exactly what I said. It’s just... there. Like someone came in overnight and built it."

Trevor sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Alright, Bob. Show me."

They walked back together, Trevor grumbling about pranks and inventory errors the whole way. When they reached 7.5G, Trevor stopped dead. There it was, plain as day. Two feet by two feet of neatly installed shelving that neither of them had seen before.

"What the..." Trevor muttered, crouching down to inspect the label. He yanked on the metal frame, but it didn’t budge. It was bolted in like it had always been there.

Bob crossed his arms. "See? Told you."

Trevor stood, frowning. "Alright. Maybe night shift’s messing with us. I’ll check the cameras."

Trevor checked the cameras and there was nothing. No one was back there. No one was doing anything. So whoever did this knew where the cameras were, and they were racking it up to one hell of a prank.

That night, Bob did not have a good night's sleep.

Day Two: The Tape Measure Incident

Trevor stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at the new shelf labeled 7.5G like it had personally insulted him. "Okay, Bob. We’re figuring this out."

Bob nodded. "Yeah. This isn’t some Harry Potter nonsense. There’s no such thing as ghost shelves."

"Exactly," Trevor said, fishing a 25-foot tape measure from his pocket. "Shelves don’t just appear without adding space. The building isn’t getting any bigger, right?"

Bob gave him a grim nod. "Right. I already checked the blueprints this morning. The back wall hasn’t moved."

"Then either we’re going crazy, or night shift is pulling off some kind of Ocean’s Eleven-level prank."

They walked to Row 7, starting at 7G. Trevor hooked the tape measure onto the far-left end of the shelf. "Alright, smart guy. If someone’s adding shelves, the whole row’s gotta stretch. That’s physics." He gave the tape a sharp tug. "Here, hold the other end."

Bob caught the tape at the far right, standing at 7H. "Got it."

Trevor squinted, counting out the inches as he extended the tape. "Twelve feet. Right on the nose. That’s exactly what it’s supposed to be."

Bob frowned. "But... that’s what it was before 7.5G showed up."

"Yep." Trevor tugged the tape tight. "Which means either the shelf’s not real—" He rapped a knuckle against the metal, which made a satisfying clink in response—"or the universe is messing with us."

Bob shuffled his feet. "So, uh... what’s the reading now, boss?"

Trevor looked again. "Twelve feet." He scowled. "Same as always." He unhooked the tape and started over, this time measuring in small, precise increments from 7G to the new 7.5G section.

"Alright," Trevor muttered. "Two feet, right here." He made a mark on the label with a Sharpie. "Now, from here to 7H..."

He stretched the tape across the new section—and froze.

"...Twelve feet."

Bob stared. "Wait. What?"

Trevor yanked the tape back, re-measured the whole shelf again from end to end. "Still twelve feet." He glared at the tape like it had betrayed him. "How the hell is this possible? We just added two feet, and now it’s... still twelve?"

Bob scratched his head. "Maybe... maybe it compresses?"

"What, like a zip file?" Trevor snapped. "Bob, it’s a damn shelf, not Windows 95."

Bob shrugged. "Well, what’s your theory then, boss?"

"My theory is that I hate this tape measure, and we’re getting a new one." Trevor angrily rewound the tape with a snap. "We’re going to the front office. We’re getting the laser measurer, and we’re going to measure this thing again."

The Laser Incident

Thirty minutes later, Trevor stood with the store’s industrial-grade laser measurer, squinting at the little red dot as Bob lined it up at the other end.

"Okay," Trevor muttered, aiming it dead center on 7.5G. "Now let’s see what this little liar has to say."

He pressed the button, and the laser pinged back a reading.

12 feet.

Trevor stared at the result, slack-jawed. The exact same length as before.

"Boss?" Bob asked cautiously.

Trevor didn’t answer. He just stood there, laser measurer in one hand, tape measure in the other, trying not to lose his mind.

"Alright," Trevor finally said. "I give up. Reality’s broken. We’re all gonna die."

Bob crossed his arms. "So... what do we do now?"

Trevor tossed both the tape and the laser onto the shelf with a clatter. "What do we do? We go home, Bob. And when we come back tomorrow, if this thing is still here, we torch the whole building down to the ground."

The First Weird Object

Two days later, Bob found the first item on 7.5G.

It was a pair of socks. Bright green, with Santa Claus riding a T-Rex. Bob picked them up, squinting at the pattern. It wasn’t even Christmas. And worse, they had a “Jack Skellington” character wearing a purple Santa hat—something Bob knew didn’t exist.

He took the socks straight to Trevor. "Here. Look at this."

Trevor glanced up from his clipboard. "Socks? So what?"

"We don’t sell these. And they don’t exist online." Bob flipped the socks over in his hands. "I checked."

Trevor gave him a flat look. "Bob, I swear to God—"

"I’m serious! I’ve seen every Nightmare Before Christmas product on the planet. They don’t make these."

Trevor sighed, leaned in, and inspected the socks more closely. "Huh. Alright, fine. Night crew’s probably messing with us again." He tossed the socks back to Bob. "Just… toss them, yeah? Or, you know..." He winked. "Take ’em home."

Bob scowled. "I don’t think this is a prank."

Trevor shrugged. "Then it’s some bootleg crap from China. Happens all the time."

Let me just pull up the handbook. as driver went through the handbook. He looked down. and then looked up at Bob, but then looked back at the book. There's a form in the system for lost and found. Do me a favor. Take a picture of this. Go on the line to our website and fill out the form and yeah, that's going to ask who you want to send it to. Send it to me. And then I'm going to approve this form. I'm going to send it up and let them know that we found an item that doesn't exist and ask them what to do If this goes, I watch way too much sci-fi. Bob, if this goes where I think this is going to go, I want to make sure I have all my T's and I's crossed. What do you think?

Bob just didn't want this type of hassle. He liked coming into work, doing his job and then going home. This is something he didn't need But it was weird and neat, but it was still **** him off. And it was screwing up his inventory. So Bob wasn't happy. So sure, do paperwork. What do you want me to do with it when I'm done? He asked Trevor.

Trevor made a snarky little comment. Just put it back where you found it, but put it in a box now and put a label on it.

What Trevor didn't know was that one little comment. And yeah, Bob would do exactly what he said, but by leaving the object on the shelf overnight. there was nowhere else for any other objects to go. So that started just a little bit of a problem

The Shelves Start Acting Weird

By the third night, the situation escalated. More shelves appeared. Another 2x2 section labeled 9.3J popped up at the back of the warehouse. Odd items kept showing up: a wiffle bat that played Tina Turner’s voice every time it hit something (“Owwww!”), and a plush duck that glowed like a rave light when squeezed.

Bob tried to keep Trevor in the loop, but Trevor treated it like a joke. "Weird stuff happens, man," Trevor said. "Just roll with it."

But Bob couldn’t roll with it. The shelves didn’t make sense. He spent hours rearranging the new sections, trying to fit them into the existing system. But they always felt... wrong. And the items that showed up weren’t just junk—they were impossible.

Trevor finally agreed to stay overnight to catch whoever was pulling the prank. "This is getting ridiculous," he said. "Nobody builds shelves out of thin air."

Overnight with Trevor

That night, Bob and Trevor set up camp in the stockroom, watching the rows of shelves like hawks. Bob paced nervously, while Trevor snacked on chips and scrolled through his phone.

For hours, nothing happened. Just silence and the hum of the fluorescent lights. Around 3 AM, Trevor yawned and stood to stretch. "Alright, man. I think we’re just losing it. There’s no ghost shelves."

Then, just as Trevor turned his back—it happened.

A low hum filled the air. Bob froze. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw it: a new shelf, sliding into place at the end of Row 10. It moved smoothly, like it had always been there. And the second Trevor turned around, it stopped.

Trevor stared at the new shelf in disbelief. "...No way."

Bob’s heart raced. "Told you."

Trevor knelt and tapped the new label: 10.5K. He looked up at Bob, wide-eyed. "Okay. So... what the hell is happening?"

When Bob came back the next morning, Trevor was waiting in the stockroom, holding a second pair of the exact same green Santa socks with the T-Rex Bob had found the day before.

Trevor just handed the socks to Bob and said, fill out the form again. Put him with the other ones. I have no idea what's really going on here, but it's a pair of socks and a shelf for now. Go do your job. Go home at the end of the night, and I'm going to figure this out But what the heck? I've already put in one email to corporate and they think I'm lying to them. They think I'm on drugs. I'm actually going to be going to do a drug test in a couple of minutes, which I have no problem doing. But this is going to get weird, so make sure you have everything recorded properly. Do me a favor. Take pictures of the whole place. A video proved to everybody what it looks like today. So if this keeps getting weirder, we have some sort of evidence. That's what you're doing today. Keep the stockroom clean and start recording the place down. Make maps, whatever. However, you're going to just. I'll be back in a couple hours.

Bob just okay and did he's told but he was literally working inside something that was magical and scary all at the same time and he couldn't put his finger on it. This was bothering Bob permanently. mentally, psychologically, it was getting under his skin and he didn't like it, but to know that there was magic around him gave him this energy that he had never felt before, that it was just electric in the air. And he wanted more, but he was so scared of magical things popping up. Bob maybe had read one too many novels online and fanfics to not think something might jump out at him. So being paranoid on the spectrum and now. jumpy. Yeah. I understand why the corporate probably wanted to have everybody drug tested. What Bob didn't know is he'd probably be next.

more to come.