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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/AdSquare9617 on 2024-11-29 23:19:06+00:00.

This is a burner account.

To start, I work for a decently sized multidiscipline engineering company in the uk, I’m actually a student on a placement year so I get a salary and I’m treated like a regular employee, just with more help needed sometimes. For the most part I get on with the work I’m given, make tea and coffee runs for my coworkers, and get shown off to clients when they come to see our progress. 

I’ve only been here a few months so I’m still getting used to it. The day this all began, I was told I could sit-in on a meeting with a higher up from an influential organisation. They wanted me to help show him around after the meeting too; I was nervous but keen to make a good impression, you know?

Towards the end of the tour, the coworker that had been helping me buggered off for an important phone call, promising to be back soon and leaving me alone with the guy.

We were in an area of the building I didn’t know very well; we walked in awkward silence until someone who seemed to recognise us both (I’m not great with faces so I assumed he was a coworker) showed us to a nearby breakroom and asked if the higher-up wanted a cup of tea, asking me to make it.

The higher-up said something about sugar, and not having his usual stevia sachets on him. The other guy said we actually had some in a different room and he’d get one if I boiled the kettle. I was pretty drained by then but kept up the polite conversation as I made the cups, and thanked the other guy as he appeared again to throw me a single sachet.

Stevia is like a sugar substitute my mum used to be crazy for, though I always thought it tasted awful.

It was odd, I didn’t even know we had some in the offices, it’s not exactly common. Even stranger, I noticed a slight misalignment of the sachets’ ends, probably a manufacturing error, so I thought nothing of it and served the tea for us both.

Minutes later, he was seizing.

Gasping for air, clawing at his throat, eyes bulging. I was terrified, frozen for a moment.

I ran to the door and shouted for help, tearing through the hall until I found someone. The rest happened quickly. 

Shouting. 

CPR. 

Sirens. 

He was covered when they took him into the ambulance. I don’t think he was breathing.

I spent a while sitting in reception with a blanket over me, different voices asking if I was alright, saying it was probably a stroke, not to worry, he was an older gentleman, etc.

I’ve seen a stroke before, that was scary enough on its own, but something about what happened felt wrong. He didn’t slur his words, and it happened so suddenly. Well, I thought, surely the doctors would know if it was something else, I had enough to worry about.

I headed back to my computer to get my stuff and leave for the day, ready to call my parents and have a good cry about it all, but on the way out I was pulled aside by the same unfamiliar guy from earlier. He sounded serious so I followed him to a room on his instruction.

It was dark, he gestured to sit down, the door closed. A light flickered on directly into my eyes.

Exclaiming my discomfort, I politely asked what was going on, and told him I needed to leave or I’d get a parking ticket. I heard shuffling and became aware that there were others, I couldn’t make out their faces, or how many. They asked what the last thing the higher-up ate or drank was. I answered tea, the cup I’d made for him, actually. 

I was starting to get nervous, I’d already had a shit day, some coworkers playing detective was the last thing I needed. Maybe they were with the police? Or just joking? I had no idea what was about to happen. I should have forced my way out but then again, I was outnumbered.

They asked some innocuous questions about the meeting and me showing the guy around, I recounted everything. After a while they paused, and put a tablet on the table in front of me.

It was security footage of me giving him the tea, just as I’d described, but how did they have access to it so soon after the incident? Then they voiced my worst fears.

“His drink was contaminated by cyanide, and the only one who handled that drink was you.” 

I sat in silence for a moment, then came to my senses. I asked how they’d even know that, I said this wasn’t a funny joke, but I had a sinking feeling when they didn’t answer.

They placed some large photographs on the table. They were of me, in what looked like a lab. I’d never been there, I said so, and that these photos must be fake. Still silence.

As my mind was racing, it hit me. We had drunk the same cup of tea, same water, teabags, milk, the only difference in our cups was that I had a packet of sugar and he, oh god, he’d had the stevia sachet I was given.

Given to me by the person who brought me in here. Actually what the fuck was going on, I barely held myself together. Then someone with gloved hands produced a small glass bottle and placed it on the table, it had warning symbols on it and a white powder inside.

“It has your fingerprints”

“It can’t. I’ve never touched that, I don’t recognise it. Or those photos, look I don’t understand what’s happening. This is all fake, it has to be.”

“Well, even if it is, imagine if this evidence was sent to the police. It would be quite the drawn out process to dispute. You might even go to prison, and that would be a shame.”

So they weren’t with the police, that much was clear. Cyanide? The symptoms lined up. It really didn’t seem like they were joking. Fuck, the seriousness of it started to dawn on me, they were framing me for murder. Panic set in, I’m sure they saw it in my face. I sat speechless and almost hyperventilating until someone spoke.

“It’s alright.”

The shift in tone unbalanced me. Suddenly it was soft, dulcet.

“We’ll agree to never speak of this if you don’t, how about that? No need to look so worried.”

I didn’t reply, I had no idea how to. I heard the door open and saw the light from the hallway. I stood up hesitantly and looked around. Couldn’t make out faces still, but as I moved to leave, the guy who brought me here followed behind. He said nothing, but put his finger to his lips in a ‘shh’ motion, and closed the door.

In retrospect, I should have driven straight to the police station, but instead I just drove home. I’m not a decisive person at the best of times. I just laid in bed and ran everything back over and over. The following few days played out like normal, maybe it was stupid of me but I tried to forget about it.

I sort of convinced myself it must have been a stress based delusion, misinterpretation of events, anything else that made sense. I felt like I was falling in the dark, with no idea when I’d hit the ground. Perhaps if I just ignored what happened it would all go away. 

That Friday, it must have been just past 5pm, I was saving my work and looking through my emails when one of my coworkers tapped me on the shoulder.

“Hey, I think someone from your university is here to check on you” and pointed me to a hallway that leads to some other offices and staircases.

I asked if she was sure and she said yes. I was immediately suspicious, people from my uni do have to check on me sometimes, but that happens online. The office was clearing out by then and that coworker disappeared too. I went to the door of the hallway and poked my head through.

There were people from the other offices going down the stairs on the far side, I took a few steps in and craned my head when the door next to me flew open, startling me, so much so that I didn’t quite realise I was looking at the same guy from before.

“Do you want to come inside quickly?” he said, holding the door open to the small meeting room.

He spoke casually, cheerfully even. He was smiling, and close enough to me that I felt a jolt of terror upon recognition. “Come on, it won’t take a minute.”

I couldn’t help but feel like if I’d shouted at the other people, and somehow I was wrong about everything, I’d be so mortally embarrassed. I know that sounds dumb but I get so paranoid sometimes and it felt like I was losing it. He took my shoulder and guided me inside, I just let him.

I stood by a chair but refused to sit, mustering the courage to ask to leave, to hurl an insult, or interrogate him about what happened on the day I saw that man die. He leaned against the door, seeming calm. 

“You’ve heard about the trip to the conference on Monday, I imagine?”

Not what I expected, I had heard of it but I wasn’t going as far as I knew. I said nothing.

“Okay, well you’ve been added to the trip at the last minute, you’ll be emailed the details soon. There’s a… person of interest who will be attending. We’d like you to talk to her.”

“Who’s we?” 

I must have snapped back, because I remember him looking a bit surprised. I had a makeshift plan to stay quiet until he let me go, but I failed at the first hurdle.

“Uh, the managers and people organising the trip? We want to make sure you get the most out of your time here, networking is important.”

He said it like I was stupid for asking, and momentarily what he said made sense. However as he went to sit down and gesture for me to also, I saw a shadow across the frosted glass pane in the door. Someone else was blocking us in. 

He went on to give me details of the trip, and gave me a profile of the lady I was supposed to talk to. She was an established member of the industry, and in her presentation would be covering the topic of increasing the outreach of en…

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