There's a very long backstory here - I'd start here and work your way backwards if I were you.

The Testing Department don't know that I'm writing this. I can say that with absolute certainty, because if they knew, I'd be dead. I've seen them kill enough people over the last week to know that they aren't hesitant to murder anyone who defies them.

A week ago, a note came down from upstairs, summoning me. It was a week earlier than they were supposed to call me back, but I had been waiting for it, thinking about nothing else since our first encounter. The door swung open as I reached it, indicating that they were far more prepared for me than I was for them.

The pale woman didn't talk about last time. If she was disappointed that I hadn't been ready at the first try, she didn't show it. She guided me into the same cubicle as last time, now inhabited by a woman around the same age as me.

I sat down and we were left to it. I've been reading over Holly and Rowan's posts on here, so I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew who I was dealing with.

"Naomi?" I hissed, once I was sure the pale woman was gone. The woman stiffened slightly, but didn't react other than this. "Naomi, is that you?". Her movements were almost imperceptible, but I saw the subtle dip of the head.

She didn't speak again for a while, clicking seemingly mindlessly on the computer. Then, someone's profile appeared. The words were, once again, written in some indecipherable code, but the picture was, once again, of someone in an ambulance uniform.

Naomi was quiet for a moment, before speaking.

"This is a test call," she said, her voice taking on that same weird, artificial quality. She paused for five seconds, and I found myself counting them instinctively. "Test call failed". She looked almost relieved as she sat back in her chair.

"Am I allowed to ask questions?" I asked, glancing around to check for the pale woman. Naomi nodded, distracted.

"Yes," she said plainly. "I will answer what I can".

"What the hell is going on, then?" I demanded, totally baffled. Naomi glanced at me but did not answer, her eyes telling me that she couldn't. "Okay... What does the Testing Department do, then?".

"We make test calls," Naomi said, as though it were obvious. "We test to see if people are ready".

"Ready for what?".

"Just ready. We don't need to know what for". Naomi's casual tone was infuriating. How could she be content with so few answers?

The pale woman was skulking by the entrance to the cubicle, but she skittered away when she caught me glancing in her direction. Naomi's gaze flickered there momentarily, then she dropped her voice.

"Look, I've got to be careful what I say," she hissed. "We don't all have the protection of being Candidate Alpha".

There was that name again. It was the first time I'd heard the words "Candidate Alpha" since my first visit, though naturally I'd thought of little else since.

"What is Candidate Alpha?" I asked in an undertone, desperate. "Am - am I Candidate Alpha?". Naomi didn't respond immediately.

"You are the most promising candidate," she finally said. "That's all we've been told. You were Candidate C, but now they call you Candidate Alpha".

"How am I the most promising if you're all working here already?" I asked, glancing around. Surely if I was the most "promising" - promising at what, I wasn't entirely sure - I'd have been the first to be working in the Testing Department?

"I can't explain that," Naomi said. She didn't elaborate on whether she didn't actually know, or just wasn't allowed to.

Another pop-up appeared on Naomi's screen -what appeared to be yet another profile of an ambulance worker. Strangely, this one seemed to be written in a mixture of English and that other language, and I picked out some words - including a familiar name.

"Wait - Hayley?" I said, my eyes scanning through the decipherable words of her profile. I picked out "resistant" and "unlikely". Naomi turned to look at me, her eyes narrowing.

"You can read that?" she asked. A strange look flashed across her face and she pressed a small button under her desk - a little bit like the panic buttons we used to have under our desks back when I worked at the solicitors' firm, just in case clients got aggressive.

Within seconds, the pale woman was back in the cubicle, her eyes wide.

'She can read the candidate's name,' Naomi said, jerking her head in my direction. The pale woman turned to look at me, raising an eyebrow. I hated the way she stared at me.

"I think it's time you make a test call, Candidate Alpha," she said, clicking her fingers at Naomi. Without a moment's hesitation, Naomi took her headset off and thrust it into my hands, before sliding a piece of paper along the desk. It was an incredibly basic script and flowchart. It said:

"THIS IS A TEST CALL". WAIT 5 SECONDS.

ANSWER?

YES = "TEST CALL PASSED. COMMENCING STAGE ONE".

NO = "TEST CALL FAILED".

That was it. No further details, no information about how to make the call or what to do afterwards. When I started working downstairs, I was given a massive lever arch folder full of instructions.

"Do I have to?" I asked, my mouth going dry. I saw a flicker of panic in Naomi's eyes, and I wondered if this was the wrong answer. Was I about to have a knife stabbed into my neck and die the same gruesome death as Oliver? The pale woman was unperturbed.

"I'll return in five minutes. You can tell me your decision then". Without another word, she swept out of the cubicle, leaving Naomi desperately scribbling a message in pencil on a scrap of paper. It was written in the same strange combinations of letters as the information on the screens, with the exception of a few words in English.

I tried to talk to her, to ask her questions, but she refused to talk. She appeared terrified now. Was she frightened for my life, or for hers?

A worrying thought occurred to me. If I refused to make the call, would Naomi be punished? I thought of Oliver again and shuddered. Little though I wanted to get involved in all of this, I couldn't be complicit in Naomi's demise too. I had to obey.

When the pale woman returned, I just nodded to confirm that I was ready. She watched eagerly as Naomi clicked a small green button on Hayley's profile on the screen, and I heard three long beeps in my ear.

The call connected and I heard a voice.

"Ambulance service, what's the address of the emergency?".

Naomi nudged the flowchart in front of me.

"This is a test call". The words escaped my mouth before I'd even thought about them. I didn't need the flowchart; it was like my brain knew exactly what I needed to say.

My voice didn't sound all robotic and cold, like Oliver's had. It just sounded like me.

At first, there was silence on the other end, and relief flooded through me. Hayley wasn't going to answer. Then:

"What the fuck... Rowan? Holly?".

"Test call passed. Commencing stage one". It was out of my mouth before I even had time to process what Hayley had just said; like I was on autopilot.

The call ended. Naomi maintained a neutral expression. The pale woman looked fascinated.

"Fascinating. Truly fascinating". She didn't elaborate on what was so fascinating, and by this point, I was so terrified that I couldn't even question it.

I was sent back to my department shortly afterwards. When I arrived in work the next day, I was sent straight up to the Testing Department. The same happened the next day, then the next. I don't bother going to my old department now. I just head straight upstairs. I sit down, I make test calls, I go home.

I worked on Christmas day. I've been so consumed with everything going on that I didn't even notice the day - not that I'd have had anyone to spend it with. The ambulance service is open on Christmas day, so the Testing Department is too, I suppose. Two people answered my test calls that day.

I can't work out if it's a regular occurrence or if my presence has caused some trouble, but the Testing Department has become increasingly animated since I moved there. I'm never privy to the conversations leading up to it, but I now recognise the sharp chhhink sound of a blade being drawn, the dull hiss as it slides into flesh, and the fading groans of another dissenting voice being silenced. It's happened seven or eight times over the last week. All I know is that I don't want it to happen to me, so I keep making the test calls.

Sorry. I've just re-read this message before I press "submit", and something occurred to me. I wrote about panic buttons earlier, and how I remember them from working for a solicitors' firm. The company downstairs sometimes takes calls for solicitors, but we've never had panic buttons.

Rowan worked for a solicitors' firm. I remember reading about that.

I remember working there. I remember Ivy and Theo. Oh God. Ivy.

It doesn't make sense; why do I remember them? I've never met them in my life. I don't have a partner and I've never had children and yet I remember my fiance and daughter and I miss them so much it hurts.

I'm so confused. What is happening to me?

I still have Hayley's message in my pocket now, having carried it around with me in the hope it'll magically make sense. Here's what it says:

znxr gur call fb fur yrgf lbh leave, gura arire return. lbh pnaabg pbzr onpx. lbh ner gurve strongest pnaqvqngr. lbh pna abg yrg gurz jva. You ner ubyyl unecre naq lbh arrq gb wake hc.

Please. If you're reading this, if you know who I am, if you can do anything - please help me.