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The call didn’t come through the proper channels. It never did, for things like this. No report. No incident log. No one wanting their name attached to it. Just a message left where it would be found.

Aster. When you’re on shift.

No signature.

Didn’t need one.

The zoo at night had its own rhythm. Not silence – never silence. That was what people got wrong. It was quieter than the day, yes. Softer. But full. Breathing.

Animals shifted in their enclosures. Wings adjusted. Water moved where it wouldn’t quite settle. The low, constant awareness of things that didn’t sleep in same way that people did.

Aster walked his usual route first. Always. Routine wasn’t habit. It was calibration.

The lions were restless. Not unusual, with the weather turning.

The primates were loud. Arguing, or playing – it blurred, sometimes.

The reptiles were still. That was normal.

The message had been left near the service corridor behind the small mammal house. Folded once. No name. He didn’t open it straight away.

He already knew what it would say.

The meerkat enclosure was halfway down the row. Open-fronted behind glass, sand and stone arranged into something that tried to imitate a place much larger than it was. Heat lamps cast a false sun over burrows and raised mounds.

During the day, it was constant motion – digging, climbing, sentries standing upright and alert, tiny movements stacking into something that never quite stopped.

Now, it was wrong.

Aster stopped just outside the light. Watched. Didn’t step closer.

Not yet.

They weren’t frozen. That would have been easy. They moved. Ate. Shifted position in the sand. But all of it… on autopilot.

No sentry stood upright. No head snapped toward sound. No chain reaction of alertness passed through the group.

A handler had left the side door unlatched.

Not open.

Just not quite closed, that was the tell.

Someone had come in, seen something they didn’t understand, and chosen not to lock it behind them.

Chosen, in a small way, to pass the problem on.

Aster stepped inside.

The air was warm, dry, carrying that faint mineral scent of heated sand.

But the meerkats didn’t react to him. That was wrong. Even the calm ones noticed. Even the ones half-asleep registered presence.

These didn’t.

One of them climbed a low rock, paused, and stood upright out of habit rather than awareness. Its gaze didn’t fix on anything.

It just… held the position, then dropped back down again.

Aster crouched.

Not near them.

Near the edge of the enclosure.

Where the artificial environment met the structure.

Where something could sit.

He didn’t reach out. Didn’t touch. Just listened.

There it was.

Not a sound. Not quite. More like pressure. The absence of interruption. A weight that smoothed everything flat.

Aster closed his eyes – just for a second, just long enough to feel the shape of it.

It wasn’t inside the animals.

That would have been cleaner.

Cleaner meant removable.

This was something else.

He exhaled slowly, opened his eyes.

“You’re not hurting them,” he said.

Quiet. Not a question.

Nothing answered – not in words. But the pressure shifted.

Slightly.

Acknowledgement.

Aster nodded once.

He stayed there longer than he needed to. Long enough to be sure. Long enough to understand the edges of it.

It wasn’t feeding.

It wasn’t hunting.

It wasn’t even really present, in the way most things like this were.

Outside the enclosure, something moved.

A sound. Distant. A different part of the zoo.

Something louder.

Less controlled.

Aster stood and looked down at the meerkats again.

Still calm. Still wrong.

But alive.

Unharmed.

Untroubled.

He stepped back towards the door and paused.

“You behave,” he said. The pressure didn’t change, but it didn’t resist.

That was enough.

Aster pulled the door closed behind him. This time, he made sure it latched.

On his way back through the service corridor, he took the folded message from his pocket and read it properly, for the first time.

Something´s wrong with the meerkats.

He turned it over.

Blank.

Aster folded it again. Left it where he’d found it.

By the time his shift ended, the report would say nothing unusual had occurred.

Routine checks completed. All animals accounted for. No incidents.

In the morning, someone would notice how calm the enclosure was.

They’d write it up. Flag it. Pass it along.

And eventually…

If it became a problem…

It would come back to him.

Aster stepped out into the cold air just before dawn.

Paused.

Listened.

Somewhere deeper in the zoo, something shifted.

He didn’t move towards it. Not yet.

Instead, he turned slowly, looking back across the darkened paths, the enclosures, the quiet structures holding things in place.

One of them was calm. That was manageable.

Two would be a problem.

Aster reached into his coat pocket, feeling for nothing in particular.

Then he started counting.