Speaker 1: When I first started working at the Lost Airline luggage warehouse,
I thought it would be the kind of job you
could do an autopilot, you know, sorting through suitcases, matching
tags and occasionally finding the weird stuff people left behind,
like that one time someone backed an entire taxidermid raccoon.
But after a few months, the novelty wore off and
it became just rose and rose of unclaimed baggage waiting
for someone who was never going to show up. The
place is massive, like a graveyard for forgotten lives. We
hold onto bags for ninety days. If no one claims them,
the contents are auctioned off and the cycle starts over.
My supervisor, Dale, once joked that every suitcase holds a secret,
but most of the time it's just dirty laundry and
charges for phones no one uses anymore. But then I
noticed something strange. A section of the warehouse I hadn't
paid much attention to before he was tugged in the
back past the rows of unclaimed baggage. The area was
marked with a faded sign that just said claimed. At
first I didn't think much of it. I figured they
were bags people had come to collect, But the weird
thing was they were all still there, perfectly stacked, perfectly clean,
no dust, no tags, no signs of wear, and they
didn't show up on the logs. One night, during inventory,
I asked Dale about it. What's the deal with the
claimed bags? I said, trying to sound casual. He didn't
even look up from his clipboard. Some things are better
left alone. He must then change the subject to tomorrow's
auction prep. That answer should have been enough for me
to let it go, but the bag stuck in my head,
something about how pristine they looked, like they didn't belong there,
or maybe belonged too much, like they'd always been there.
The thing about working late in a place like this
is that your mind starts to play tricks on you.
The warehouse is dead quiet after hours, except for the
hum of the overhead lights and the occasional creak of
the metal shelves. It's the kind of silence that makes
you jump at your own shadow. One night, I was
wrapping up some inventory when I heard it shuffling. Something
was moving in the far corner of the warehouse. My
first thought was a stray animal, maybe a raccoon that
snuck in somehow, or knowing Dale, it could have been
some dumb prank to spook the new guy. I grabbed
a flashlight and headed toward the sound. The shuffling stopped
as soon as I got close to the claim section.
There was nothing there, just the same neat rows of
pristine bags untouched. But when I looked closer, one of
the bags was out of place. It had been moved
to a different aisle. I was sure of it. I
called out, Dale, you're messing with me. No answer. I
stood there for a while, listening, but all I heard
was the hum of the light and my own heart beat.
Finally I choked it up to me being tired and
went back to my work. The next day, I didn't
stop thinking about that bag. It didn't make sense. No
one else had been in the warehouse that night, and
the logs didn't show anything unusual. Curiosity got the better
of me, and I decided to take a closer look.
I picked a bag at random, a sleek black duffel
with no tags or identifying marks. My hands were shaking
as I unzipped it, half expecting to find something gruesome
like those urban legends about body parts in lost luggage. Instead,
I found my childhood. The first thing I pulled out
was a tattered copy of The Hobbit, the exact same
edition my dad used to read me when I was little.
The corners were bent in the same way, like someone
a dog eared the pages. Then there was a faded
red jacket, my mom's jacket. I hadn't seen it in years,
but I recognized the frayed cuffs and the small ink
stain on the pocket. And then I saw the photo.
It was a picture of me as a teenager, standing
in front of what looked like a campfire. But the
people around me I didn't know any of them. They
were smiling, leaning in like we were all best friends,
but I couldn't place a single face. What really got me, though,
was the photo itself. It wasn't just old. It looked wrong.
The edges were warped, like the image had been stretched
too far, and the sky in the background was a
sickly shade of green. As ID the bag up and
shoved it back on the shelf, my heart pounding. Maybe
it was some kind of elaborate joke, maybe someone had
found my stuff online or dug through records to mess
with me. But deep down I knew better I should
have let it go. I should have zipped that bag
up and walked away for good. But when you see
pieces of your own life staring back at you things
you can't explain, you can't just ignore it. At least
I couldn't. The next night, I stayed late again. I
told myself I was finishing inventory, but really I couldn't
stop thinking about that bag. I needed to see if
what I found was still inside. Maybe I'd imagined it,
maybe someone was screwing with me. But when I opened it,
the contents had changed. It wasn't the book or jacket anymore.
This time there was a watch, my watch, the one
i'd lost three years ago on a camping trip. Next
To it was a folded up piece of paper, and
when I opened it, I nearly dropped it. It was
a note written in my handwriting You're almost there, keep looking,
but I didn't remember writing it. And then there was
the toy plane. It was identical to one I used
to have as a kid, right down to the chipped
wing and the faded blue paint. It couldn't have been coincidence,
it just couldn't. I zipped the bag back up, my
hand shaking and shoved it back in the shelf. For
the rest of the night, I tried to act normal,
but my head was spinning. What the hell was happening,
Who could have put those things in there? And why?
Day things got weirder. Dale was jumpy more than usual.
He barely looked at me when I clocked in, and
at one point I caught him on the phone. He
was pacing near the breakroom, muttering under his breath, but
I swear I heard him say another one's getting close.
When he noticed me, he hung up fast and walked off,
pretending like nothing had happened. Other people started noticing things too.
A couple of the guys joked about hearing whispers when
they passed the claim section. One of them, Chris, said
it sounded like someone was calling his name, but he
laughed it off. This place as creepy as hell at night, man,
he said, shaking his head. I'm not going near that
corner again. And then the dream started. The first one
wasn't bad, just strange. I was sitting at a dinner
table with a family that felt familiar, like I should
have known them, but I didn't. They were laughing, talking,
passing dishes around. It was warm, comfortable, But when I
woke up, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
I don't have a family like that. I never have.
Then exttreme was worse. I was standing in a church
wearing a tuxedo, holding someone's hand, a bride. I couldn't
see her face, but I knew, I knew I was
supposed to know her. My heart was raising, not from fear,
but from something else, like longing or regret. When I
woke up, I felt this crushing emptiness, like I'd lost
something I never even had. Every night there was something new,
a birthday. I'd never been to a road trip, I
never took a life that didn't belong to me, but
somehow felt like it did. It was like the bag
wasn't just holding objects, he was holding memories, pieces of
a life that I was starting to think might have
been mine, or could have been mine. I couldn't stop
thinking about it. I couldn't stop going back. It was
around midnight when I was finally alone, and I decided
to investigate anything that could tell me what was going on.
I only had enough access in the computers to check
data on the main luggage. We sorted. Dale was a
stand up guy, but not the smartest when it came
to technology, so getting into his account was easy. His
password was on a sticky note under the monitor. The
claim section wasn't in any of the official documentation. It
was like it didn't exist. The first thing I noticed
was how sparse the records were. There were no flight numbers,
no name of passengers, no airports of origin, just dates
and vague location tags. But then I scrolled further back
and my stomach dropped. The logs listed names, names of people,
former employees, frequent travelers, even a couple of warehouse delivery drivers.
Each name was flagged as unaccounted for missing. The timestamps
in the logs didn't make sense either. They showed dates weeks,
sometimes months after these people had supposedly vanished, like the
system was still tracking them even though they were gone.
I didn't sleep that night. Every sound in my apartment
made me jump, and every shadow felt like it was
creeping closer. By the next morning, I knew I couldn't
keep this to myself. I cornered Dale during lunch, catching
him off guard as he stood by the vending machines. Dale,
what's going on? Were the claimed bags? I asked, keeping
my voice low. His expression shifted instantly. It wasn't just fear,
it was resignation, like he'd been waiting for this. You've
been poking around too much, he muttered, glancing nervously toward
the security cameras. Why are their names tied to the bags?
People who went missing? What the hell is this place?
I demanded, dale side, his shoulders slumping. You weren't supposed
to dig this deep. Look those bags they're not normal.
They don't belong to any airline, any traveler. They belong
to people have been taken, taken by who? Not who? What?
He said, his voice dropping to a whisper. Those bags
are like anchors. They're tied to something else, somewhere else.
When you open one, you're inviting it in. It starts
pulling pieces of you, rewriting things. The more you interact,
the harder it is to stay here. Eventually, you just go.
I stared at him, trying to process what he was saying.
It sounded insane, but every strange thing I'd seen in
that warehouse suddenly felt like a puzzle snapping into place.
Why didn't you warn me, I asked, my voice shaking.
I tried, he said, but curiosity always wins. It's why
they keep sending people like us to work here, people
who need the job but won't be missed. If something happens. Now,
you're in too deep. Whatever's in those bags, it's noticed you.
That night, when I walked into the warehouse for my shift,
the first thing I saw was a new bag in
the claim section. It wasn't there before. It was smaller
than the others, almost like a carry on. My name
was printed on the tag. My froze, my stomach twisting into.
The bag was locked, but as I stood there, I
heard it a faint tapping from inside, like someone was
knocking to get out. I knew I was in over
my head, but by this point, the bag with my
name on it was all I could think about. It
wasn't just curiosity anymore. It felt like a compulsion, a
pull I couldn't ignore. That night, I waited until the
warehouse was empty and the cameras were angled away. My
hands were shaking when I broke it open. Inside there
was no clothing or trinkets, no personal items, just a shimmering,
mirror like surface. It was unnatural, almost liquid, but solid
at the same time. I leaned closer, and my reflection
stared back at me, except it wasn't quite right. My
face looked older, tired, The scar on my chin from
middle school wasn't there. Before I could process it, the
surface rippled and I felt myself being pulled forward. I
tried to step back, but my legs wouldn't move. The
world around me blurred, and suddenly I was somewhere else.
The warehouse was still there, but it wasn't the same.
The lights flickered erratically, casting a long, distorted shadows. The
air was thick, suffocating, and everything was silent, not the
kind of silence where you could hear and breathing, but
avoid like didn't exist. The aisles stretched endlessly in every direction,
and every bag in the claim section was there, stacked
high and moving ever so slightly on their own. Then
I saw him, another me. He stepped out from one
of the aisles, and I almost screamed. He looked just
like me, but older, maybe by ten twenty years. His
eyes were sunken, his skin pale and gaunt. He moved
like every step was painful. But there was something worse
than his appearance. It was the look on his face. Desperation.
You shouldn't have opened it, he said, his voice hoarse.
We clear, you need to leave now. What is this?
Who are you? I demanded, though my voice cracked halfway through.
I'm you, he said, his voice tinged with something close
to regret. Oh, I was, And if you don't leave,
you'll become me. I didn't understand, how could I? But
he kept talking, fast and frantic, like he was running
out of time. The bags aren't just lost luggage, they're markers.
If you open yours, you're bound to this place, this
other version of the warehouse. He'll lose everything, your life,
your memories. You'll become a part of it. I tried
to speak, but then I saw them, shadowy figures emerging
from the aisles, moving slowly but deliberately. Arms were vague
like smoke, trying to take shape, but I could see
the hints of faces, some anguished, some expressionless. They were
the ones who would open their bags, victims trapped here forever.
They'll take you if you stay, the other me said,
his voice trembling. Please don't let them take you. I
could barely breathe. The figures were getting closer, the void
like silence pressing down on me. The other me reached
into his own bag, his version of my bag, and
pulled out the mirror like surface. This here's your way out,
he said, use it, don't look back. I hesitated, my
mind raising, but then I saw the figures reach for him.
His face twisted in panic as he sh the mirror
towards me. Go, he screamed. I grabbed it and felt
the pull again, the same sensation as before, but reversed.
The distorted warehouse blurred around me, and suddenly I was
back in the real one, sprawled on the cold concrete
floor next to the bag. It was zipped shut like
I'd never touched it. The silence was gone, replaced by
the hum of the fluorescent light, but my hands wouldn't
stop shaking. I stared at the bag, half expecting it
to move, but it didn't. I scrambled to my feet
and ran, leaving everything behind. When I went back the
day after opening my bag, something felt half I walked
into the break room and my usual coffee mug, this
old chips aamic one with my initials, wasn't on the counter. Instead,
there was a sleek, brand new travel mug I'd never
seen before. Some one probably just moved it, I thought.
But then I opened my locker. The photos of my
niece and nephew that i'd taped inside, gone, my spare
hoodie gone. In their place were things I didn't recognize.
A set of khakis I didn't own, a pair of
sunglasses I'd never seen before. They weren't just random items.
They felt like placeholders, substitutes for my own life. When
I asked Dale about it, he gave me this blank look,
like he didn't even know who I was. You knew
here or something, he asked, scratching his head. The guy
who trained me, who signed off my first paycheck, was
now acting like I was a stranger. I thought maybe
he was screwing with me, But the way he looked
at me, confused, almost scared, it didn't feel like a joke.
The worst part was the claim section. My bag wasn't
there anymore. I combed through every aisle, every shelf, but
it was gone. Instead. There were new bags, ones I
didn't recognize, and I swear some of them were moving
ever so slightly, like they were breathing. I couldn't stay there.
The warehouse had changed, or maybe I had. Either way,
I left, I didn't even bother clocking out. I just
got in my car and drove, telling myself i'd never
go back. For a day or two, I thought I
was in the clear. I stayed in bed, ignored my phone,
and tried to convince myself that everything was fine. But
then the bag started showing up. The first time it
was in my car. I unlocked the drive to the
grocery store, and there it was, sitting on the passenger
seat like it had always been there. It wasn't the
same bag I'd opened in the warehouse, but it was
unmistakably one of those bags, pristine, untagged and humming faintly
with that same low static sound. I left my car
in the lot and walked home. Then one appeared outside
my apartment door, same type, same unnerving hum. I didn't tell.
I stepped over it, slamming my door and shoved a
chair under the handle. When I finally worked up the
nerve to peek through the people a few hours later,
it was gone, but they kept coming, and I walked
to the park. I saw one sitting on a bench,
perfectly placed as if waiting for me. Another was on
the side of the road, half hidden in the weeds,
but I knew it was meant for me. They're not
just bags anymore. The markers, warnings, reminders, and I can
feel them closing in. I thought quitting would end it.
I thought walking away from that damn warehouse would mean
I could finally sleep, that I could leave all this behind.
I was so wrong. But the bags, those claimed bags,
they don't leave you alone. After I left, I moved
back in with my parents for a while, the thought
of being alone in an apartment made my skin crawl.
Even now, I keep my blinds drawn and double check
the locks on every door, every window, not that it helps.
The paranoia is always there, like something just out of
sight waiting. The bags don't stop, or at least the
feeling of them doesn't. Sometimes, when the house is quiet
and I'm trying to fall asleep, I hear faint tapping.
It's soft, rhythmic, like someone drumming their fingers on the floor.
It always comes from places where something could hide, a
claoset under the bed, even the trunk of my car.
Once I'll sit up, heart pounding, and tell myself it's nothing.
But I don't go locking, not anymore. Every now and
then I dream about the warehouse. I see the rows
of bags stretching into infinity, amaze I can't escape from.
Sometimes I hear Dale's voice echoing through the aisles, warning
me to stay away. Other Times I see myself, not
me as I am now, but a different version of me,
one who stayed, one who opened all the bags, one
who never left, and he just smiles like he knows
something I don't. I've tried to piece it all together
to make sense of it, but there's no explanation that satisfies.
The claim section wasn't unclaimed luggage. It was something else,
a doorway, maybe a trap, or maybe just the cruel
joke the universe decided to play on me. I don't
want anyone else to go through what I did. If
you ever lose your luggage, pray it's days lost. Because
if you see your name on a bag, then isn't yours.
Don't open it, not even once. Being a single father
is sometimes like walking a tightrope over a pit of fire.
Every step feels like it could be painful, and no
matter how careful you are, you always get burned. My
life hasn't been great, far from it. A dead end
job at a local hardware store, overdue bills piling up
on the counter, and more sleepless nights than I could count.
But there was one bright spot in it all, my
son Danny. He was the kind of kid who would
smile his way through just about everything. He deserved, way
more than I could hope to give him. Yet he
never so much as complained, even when he had all
the reason to. He worked hard at school, did his
chores without grumbling, and always tried to cheer me up
when he saw me staring at the stack of envelopes
marked past due. It was just a week before Christmas.
When he came home from school, his face lit up
with that kind of pure joy only kids seemed to have.
He'd been going on about this toy for months, a
limited edition figure from Mackie's Fun Time Playhouse. Mackie's was alive,
a show in our small town with over the top mascots,
characters in bright, oversized costumes, and a line of toys
that drove the local kids insane with obsession. The one
Danny wanted, Mega Mackie de Luxe was the crown jewel
of the set. Dad, Dad, he said, practically bouncing with excitement.
Missus Higgins said, I'm getting an award at school for
doing so good on my tests. You remember what you said, right?
My heart sank. This was the best, worst case scenario
to get him to do well in school. I promised
to get him the toy he wanted if he did well.
Lately he had been struggling, so it was motivation to improve.
The catch is that it was the hot seasonal toy,
near impossible to get, especially this late in December. But
now here he was looking at me with those big
hopeful eyes, and I couldn't bear to let him down.
Of course, buddy, I said, feeling a hole open up
in my chest. I'll get it for you, just like
I promised. You earned it. Danny turned around and ran
off to tell his stuffed animals the good news. I
sat there staring at my hands, knowing I had no
idea how I was going to pull this off. The
toy wasn't just expensive, it was impossible to find. Every
store was sold out and resellers were charging hundreds on line.
I didn't even have enough in my account cover Grocees
for the week, let alone some overpriced hunk of plastic.
But I couldn't break my promise to Danny. He'd done
everything I'd asked of him, and then some I couldn't
let him think his hard work didn't matter. And that's
how I found myself parked outside the Maggie's warehouse at
three in the morning. I checked every retailer in a
realistic travelable radius, and a few I knew I couldn't
get too none in stock. I'd even entered phony sounding
raffles with no lock. It wasn't like I planned it
ever since I promised it to Danny. I'd driven by
the warehouse dozens of times on my way to work,
a massive, ugly building on the edge of town, surrounded
by chainling fences and flickering floodlights. Each time I'd gone past,
the security seemed lax, a single old man standing guard.
I didn't even have to cut the fence. Some one
else already had, probably teenagers looking for a thrill. They
must have been young, because instead of the broken fence
being pushed in, it was peeled outward, such an inefficient
way of breaking in. Slipping through the gap, I crept
toward the loading dock, my heart pounding so loud I
was sure it would wake the whole town up. The
warehouse smelled like stale plastic and motor oil, an industrial
smell that I had a bitter cling to it. The
air was cold, biting at my skin. As I tipped
tooed between the towering shelves. My heart beat thudded in
my ears, each step, feeling like he could set off
an alarm, even though the place was clearly unguarded. Then
I stumbled upon the mascot suits. They stood in a
line near the back, the oversized fabric woven heads cocked
slightly to one side, Mackie the Fox, Cheery the Bee,
and Giggles the Clown, three live sized suits. Their colors
faded under the small amount of illumination the moon provided.
I hurried past them, swallowing the dryness in my throat.
I wasn't there to cork at creepy costumes. I was
there for Danny. I finally found the toy aisle. Rows
of brightly colored boxes lined the shelves, all of them
holding smiling cartoonish mascots of Mackie's fun Time Playhouse. Inside,
Mackie was front and center on most of the packaging,
a red and orange anthropomorphic fox with a wide grin.
He wore a striped vest and a crooked top hat,
and on the middle shelves was a lineup of Mega
Mackie deluxes. The box was bigger than I'd expected. The
figure inside was detailed almost this sturbly so, with joints
that looked like they could move independently. It came with
a miniature version of Mackey's signature stage, complete with tiny
props and battery powered spotlights. The words the Ultimate Show
Fox was scrawled across the front in bold, glittery letters.
I grabbed it and clutched it to my chest and
I turned to leave, my heart pounding louder than my footsteps.
The warehouse was deathly silent, save for the occasional creak
of the building. As I approached the section where I'd
seen the mascot earlier, I froze one of them was gone.
This meant there were still people working here, moving around
stock and products. I would have to be attentive for
people working around. Mackie and Giggles were still there, standing stiff,
but cheery was missing. Then a faint shuffling sound, followed
by the clatter of something metal hitting the floor. I
tugged behind a shelf, clutching the toy to my chest
so hard I could hear the box crinkle slightly. The
sound grew louder, and my pulse thundered in my ears,
drowning out everything else. Please don't catch me, I repeated
that same sentence over and over again in my head.
I peeped through the gap between two boxes and I
saw movement in the dim light. My fear swelled to
a boil, and I bit my lip to keep myself
from making a sound. Then the figure stepped into view.
It was an old man, the security guy, tired, hunched
over and muttering to himself, was dragging a mop pocket
across the floor. He stopped near the aisle of costumes,
moving things around like he was organizing them. I slumped
against the back shelf, my chest heaving as relief flooded me.
It was just some guy doing his job. I stayed crouched,
watching the guards shuffle down the aisle. He didn't seem
in a hurry, and every scrape of the mop on
the floor fell like nails on a chalkboard. I needed
to get out. I was robbing the place, and the
longer I stayed still, the more that fact sunk into
my bones. I hugged the toy tighter and crept toward
the far end of the shelf, keeping my steps light
and slow. The guard mumbled something under his breath and
moved to another section of the warehouse. The sound of
his mop bucket squeaking on its wheels gave me enough
sound to slip past unnoticed. Finally I slipped through the
gap in the fence, my legs shaking with adrenaline as
I broke into a jog back to my car. The
ride home felt surreal, but for the first time in
a while, I wasn't consumed by the dread of bills
and bad decisions. The only thing I thought of was
Danny's face when he'd see the toy. After everything the
kid had done for me, his hard work and his
big hopeful eyes, he'd finally have something to smile about.
I didn't feel proud about what I'd done, not exactly
Stealing wasn't something I thought I'd ever do, but life
as a way of forcing your hand. I'd never been
able to provide for Danny with much, and I'd spent
too many sleepless night staring at the ceiling, wondering if
he resented me for it, but this finally felt like
a win. A stolen and guilty win, but a win nonetheless.
When I pulled into the driveway, the house was dark
except for the faint glow of the living room lamp
i'd left on. I stepped inside, careful not to make
too much noise, and place the toy on the kitchen counter.
The next morning, Danny would wake up to the best
surprise of his life. I could already hear his excited laughter,
imagining his face light up as he tore open the box.
Smiling to myself, I headed to bed. The exhaustion hit
me like a freight train, and before I knew it,
I was out cold. The following morning, I woke up
earlier than unusual, my body aching from the tension of
the night before, but a sense of calmness settled over me.
Today would be a great day. I shuffled into the kitchen,
planning to finally hand Danny his present, but it wasn't there.
My heart skipped a beat as I scanned the room,
a million thoughts rushing through my head. My eyes finally
landed on it. We were sitting on the dining table,
now perfectly centered I rubbed my eyes, trying to shake
off the curtains of sleep. I was tired from the
previous night, so I probably didn't even remember where i'd
put it. I shrugged it off and made my way
to Danny's room with a toy in hand. He was
already awake, sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes.
When he saw me standing in the doorway holding the toy,
his face lit up like I just handed him the world, Dad,
he shouted, throwing off the covers and scrambling to his feet.
Is that did you? I couldn't help but laugh. It's
all yours, buddy, you earned it. He tore the box
out of my hands, practically vibrating with excitement as he
examined it. Oh my gosh, it's the Mega mac He Deluxe.
This is the best day ever. Watching him was like
a bomb to my soul. The way he turned the
box over and over, reading every detail, the way he
hugged it like it was his most prized possession. I
felt like, for once I'd done something right. Thanks Dad,
Danny said, beaming up at me. You're the best. I
ruffled his hair, able to stand from the overwhelming emotion.
You're welcome son. Just don't forget this was because of
how hard you worked. I'm proud of you. For a
brief moment, the guilt melted away, replaced by something I
hadn't felt in a long time, happiness. Danny was happy,
and that was all that mattered. After Danny got his toy,
I went back to work, cycling through the motions of
stocking shelves and helping customers. The guilt of having stolen
something and the exhaustion that followed was a heavy combination,
but I kept telling myself it was worth it for
my son. By mid afternoon, I stepped outside for a
smoke break. The cold December air hit me as I
leaned against the brick wall of the hardware store, taking
a drag and letting the nicotine reset my mood. I
took a glance around the parking lot, thinking of what
I was going to make for dinner for Danny and I.
When I saw it. Across the lot, near the edge
of the street, stood Mackie the Fox. Memories of the
warehouse rushed back to me, but I cast it aside.
It was just someone in a costume, probably on their
way to a kid's Christmas party. The red and orange
suit looked identical to the one I'd seen in the warehouse,
down to the crooked top hat. But I guess it
made sense. I took another drag. My heart thudded unevenly
in my chest. Ah, I muttered to myself, blowing out
a stream of smoke. Mackie really was popular, and I
never really paid much attention to it prior. Even on
my drive to work, I noticed billboards with Mackie and
the crew posted everywhere, people wearing the merchandise and such.
It was no wonder Danny was infatuated with them. After
a few seconds, the person turned and walked away, disappearing
around the corner of the building. I shook my head
and forced the chuckle as I headed back into the
store to finish my shift. When I got home that night,
Danny was playing in his room with his new toy,
the lights of the battery powered spotlight flashing on and off,
filtering into the hallway. It was comforting a reminder of
why I had done what I did. The next morning,
I got ready to head to work, already slowly forgetting
the events that transpired over the last few days. The
morning traffic crawled under a sky smeared with dull clouds.
I tried to focus on the road, but everywhere I
looked there was Mackie and the Crew. Billboards, huge garish
signs twing over intersections. Mackie's grinning face loomed above the
city with his crooked top hat. One after another, the
billboards lined the streets like massive sentinels, each one more
obnoxiously colorful than the last. I wondered to myself how
I'd never noticed all of it. At the bus stop,
posters were plastered across the glass shelters showing Mackie and
his gang, cheery giggles, and a few others I did
not recognize, posing with exaggerated expressions, some kids waiting for
the bus wearing Mackie themed backpacks, their lunch boxes, sporting
the same gleaming smile. At a red light, I glanced
over to my right, out of habit and there he was,
some one wearing that same Mackey the Fox costume, standing
on the sidewalk no more than ten feet away, his
crooked top hat slightly tilted, his bright red and orange
costume clashing against the gray of the morning. It wasn't
moving or waving like a mascot at some promotion. He
was just standing there, facing me, staring. I felt my
grip on the steering wheel instinctively tighten. The light turned green,
and I snapped my gaze forward and pressed on the gas.
The car rolled forward, and for a moment, the tension
in my shoulders started to ease. I risked a glance
in the side mirror and I saw Mackie still unmoving.
Every part of him stayed still except for his head,
which kept tracking my car. I pressed harder on the gas,
the engine groaning as my car sped up. When I
looked in the rear view mirror again, he was gone.
For a long time, I drove in silence, thinking about
what I'd just seen. It had to be a coincidence,
some person in a costume again, an over zealous fan
trying to get a reaction out of people, and ordinarily
that would have eased my mind, But after what I did,
I couldn't help but linger on strange theories and conspiracies.
The rest of the day dragged on, but I eventually
managed to push the strange encounter out of my mind.
It was just some jerk messing with people and happened
to pick me. That's what I kept telling myself, repeating
it like a mantra to keep the unease at bay.
By the time my shift ended, the winter sun had
already dropped way below the horizon, casting the streets in
an early darkness. The air was sharp as I walked
to my car, my breath missing in front of me.
The lot was mostly empty, as it usually was, just
a few scattered cars under the flickers of the overhead lights.
I pulled out of the lot, heading down the narrow,
mostly abandoned back roads that showed a few minutes off
my drive home. The darkness pressed against the car window,
the street lights few and far between. About half way
through the drive, I saw something up ahead, something red
and orange, standing in the middle of the road. I
slowed the car, my stomach tightening as the shape came
into clear focus. It was Mackie. The costume was unmistakable,
but something was different. I couldn't pinpoint it at first,
but then I realized he wasn't standing still. Mackie's limbs
were twitching and spasming, jerking in sharp, jittery motions. His
head twitched violently to the side, snapping back upright A
moment later, his gaze wasn't fixed on me. It stared
off to the side of the road. It was like
watching a puppet with its strings tangled. A series of
unnatural jolts that made my joints hurt. My car slowed
to a crawl as I stared ahead. My mind scrambled
for an explanation, but nothing made sense. As I sat frozen,
Maggie's spasms momentarily stopped. He stood perfectly still now, Then,
in one horrifyingly fluid motion, he dropped to all fours
and snapped his head in my direction. The blood drained
from my entire body as it started moving toward me.
His body contorted unnaturally as he accelerated to a gallop.
I punched the gas pedal in protest, the tires screeching
as the car surged forward toward the thing. My mind screamed.
As I gripped the wheel, eyes locked ahead, I swerved
just past the thing, narrowly avoiding veering off road. I
stole a glass in the rear view mirror, and I
realized Mackie was still chasing me, his form illuminated by
the red glow of my tail lights. I checked her
head making sure I wasn't about to rear end someone
full speed. When I looked back again, he was gone.
I scanned the mirror as frantically as I could, but
the road behind me was empty. My hands trembled as
I forced myself to focus, breathing hard as I sped
toward the main road. I pulled into the parking lot
of a gas station, and as I did, I leaned
my head to rest against the steering wheel. My entire
body was shaking, my pulse hammering behind my eyes. This
was no human in a costume. Everything that I'd just
witnessed was anything but human. And that's when I realized
the security guard back at the warehouse hadn't seen me
that night. He hadn't been the reason I'd felt so
on edge, but Mackie and the others had. That must
have been why there was a costume missing when I
checked again. He'd been looking for me this entire time.
It knew I stole from him. I sat there in
the dim light of the gas station. No matter how
much I wanted to tell myself it wasn't real that
it was all in my head, I couldn't shake Mackie's
twisted form out of my head. The toy. He kept
some connection between those things and my son and I.
I had to get rid of it. When I got home,
the house was quiet, save for the soft hum of
the fridge in the kitchen and Danny's laughter as he
played in his room. I didn't know luck to know
he was playing with the toy I had stolen for him.
I hesitated as I thought about what I had to do.
Danny loved that toy more than anything. The joy in
his face when I gave it to him had been
the whole reason I did what I did, But I
couldn't let him be near it for another second. What
if it came for him the same way it had
come for me. Still knowing what had to be done
didn't make doing it any easier. After it got late,
I told him it was time to sleep. I waited
until I heard his laughter fade, replaced by the steady
silence as he drifted off to sleep. The house was
dark as I crept toward his room. The toy was
on the floor next to his bed, the faint glow
of its tiny spotlight reflecting off the walls. Danny's small
hand dangled off the edge of the mattress inches away
from it. I bent down, careful not to make a sound.
The plastic was cool and smooth under my fingers, and
as I picked it up for a moment, I froze.
Danny stirred in his sleep, mumbling something I couldn't make out.
My grip on the toy tightened, and I fought the
urge to put it back. I slipped out of his
room and made my way to the kitchen, where the
garbage bin sat just outside the back door. My breath
fogged in the cold night air as I stepped outside,
clutching the toy tightly. The bin loomed ahead of me,
and I felt a strange mix of relief and dread
as I approached. This was it. I was going to
get rid of it, finally, sever whatever connection it had
to us. Just as I raised the toy and tossed
it in, I froze. Mackie was standing at the edge
of the yard. I couldn't see him clearly, but he
was unmistakable, shades of his signature red and orange the
cartoon proportions of a fox. His silhouette was barely illuminated
by the pale light of the moon, but I could
see him clearly enough. My body locked up, panic surging
through me like an electric shock. He raised one arm
in slow motion towards me, almost like it was beckoning
me to move to him. But there was no chance
in hell that I would approach that thing. I turned
and bolted back inside, slamming the door shut behind me.
My heart was raising, my thoughts a jumbled mess. He
hadn't attacked me, hadn't chased me. Not this time. He
just stood there watching me. I leaned against the door,
trying to steady my breathing and trying not to wake
Danny up. The moment replayed in my head over and
over again. I hoped that by getting rid of the toy,
that would satiate whatever was happening. I locked every door
and window in the house and checked the perimeter. From
the safety of the house. Everything was clear. It wasn't easy,
but eventually I found sleep. The next morning, I woke
up to the sounds of Danny running around. He was
making little noises, and my heart broke. He must have
been looking for what he was calling his best friend,
which I had thrown away like garbage. I felt awful
and got up, preparing words to try to get him
through the heartbreak. But as I got closer, the noises
weren't of panic, but of fun. I stepped into the
kitchen area and Danny was sat ready for breakfast, swooshing
his toy around like it was flying Mackie. It was back,
no signs of marring from sitting in the trash all night.
I quickly wiped away my look of shock, knowing I'd
have no way to explain it. I made breakfast quietly
with my best forced smile. I sent him off to
school and resigned myself to my fate because I already
knew what would happen that day. Mackie everywhere, leering in
places that only I seemed to look if they doubt
that he was only after me. He was wiped away
after that day, but one constant had became clear, his
raised arm beckoning me, taunting me, or telling me something.
That night, as I thought about everything I'd seen, I
started to realize that Mackie might not have been pointing
at me. Maybe he was pointing at the toy I
was holding. What if he didn't want me, What if
he just wanted the toy back? Without giving myself time
to second guess. I snuck him down his room and
slowly lifted the toy. I grabbed the Kha keys and
headed out again. Mackie was nowhere to be found, but
I knew where he'd be waiting for me. The drive
to the warehouse was a blur, the dark roads rushing
past in a haze of fear and determination. When I
finally pulled into the lot, the building loomed ahead of me,
its shadows stretching across the cracked asphalt. I stepped out
of the car, gripping the toy so hard my knuckles ached.
The warehouse was just as silent and empty as it
had been that night, but now it felt menacing. Taking
a deep breath, I pushed through the gap in the
fence and made my way inside. This time, the cut
out in the fence was turned facing in. Intrusive thoughts
came in my head, thinking that this must have been
how Mackie got in and out, but I pushed them away,
focusing on what I was there to do. I entered
the warehouse and navigated my way around the labyrinth of shelves. Mackie, Cheery, Giggles,
all of them were back in their spots, standing just
the same as the first time i'd seen them. I
stepped forward, trembling as I stood in front of them.
For a moment, nothing happened, so I spoke up. I'm sorry,
I stammered, my voice shaking more than I was. I
didn't mean to I didn't think it would. I just
wanted to do something nice for my kid. The words
tumbled out of me. Clumsy and desperate. He's been doing
so well, you know. I just wanted to make him happy,
that's all. I wasn't trying to hurt anyone, I swear.
I lowered the toy, slowly, placing it on the cord
concrete floor in front of me. I shouldn't have taken it.
I know that now. I just I'm sorry. I just
I'm sorry. My voice cracked as I packed away, my
gaze locked on Maci's empty eyes. The silence was unbearable,
the stillness suffocating. I stood there for a moment longer,
waiting for something to happen. But the mascots didn't move,
they didn't need to. Their presence alone felt like judgment,
so I turned and left. I didn't get pursued by anything,
and I arrived home. Danny was fast asleep in his room,
his small body curled up under the covers. The sight
of his empty arms made my heart ache. He'd fallen
asleep holding that same toy every night since I'd given
it to him, and tomorrow he'd wake up to find
it gone. I stared at him for a moment, soaking
in the last of his blissful happiness before it would
be ripped away. He was such a good kid. He
deserved a father better than I. I'd taken his favorite
thing away to protect him, but there was no way
he would understand that. When I finally went to bed,
I couldn't sleep. I kept imagining Danny waking up searching
for his toy, his bright smile fading when he realized
it was gone. I kept telling myself I'd done the
right thing, that I kept him safe, but it still
felt like I'd failed him. At some point, I must
have drifted off, because I woke to the sound of
Danny screaming. I bolted upright, my heart racing as I
stumbled out of bed. Adrenaline was coursing through me, knowing
I could have been wrong about the whole situation. Was
he back thought of Mackie hurting my son swirled around
my head. I rushed to his room, ready for anything,
even the worst. Danny was sitting in the middle of
his bed, surrounded by boxes, a full set of Mackie's
fun Time Playhouse toys. Dad, How did you do this?
Danny's grin stretched ear to ear, his eyes sparkling with
pure joy. You got all of them for me. I blinked,
my brain, struggling to catch up. The toys hadn't been
here before. I knew that I'd taken the one toy
one we had and left it in the warehouse. But
Danny didn't notice my confusion. He yeld up one of
the figures fresh out of the box, giggled the clown,
and hugged it tightly. I can't believe it. You got
the whole set. You're the best, Dad. The only one
that wasn't boxed was Mackie. I opened my mouth to
say something, but the words didn't come. I wanted to
tell him the truth that I hadn't done this, but
the sheer happiness on his face stopped me. Instead, I
managed the weak smile. You deserve it, buddy, I said softly.
Danny beamed, grabbing another figure, unboxing it and setting up
an elaborate play scene on his bed. His laughter filled
the room, bright and unrestrained. I backed out of the room, quietly,
giving him space to enjoy his new treasures. Once the
door closed, I leaned against it, exhaling a shaky breath.
I'd left the one in the warehouse, apologized for stealing it,
and walked away. Somehow they ended up here in Danny's room,
as though. I shook my head, unwilling to finish the thought,
it didn't matter. Danny was happy, Maybe, just maybe things
were going to be okay. My wife, Laura has always
been my rock. She's the grounded one, the person who
keeps me when life gets messy. We've been married for
six years, and our life together has been, for the
most part normal, maybe even boring in the best way.
Steady jobs, a little house in the suburbs, and the
kind of routine you don't even think about because it
just works. That's why all of this is so hard
to wrap my head around. It's like I'm losing her,
or maybe I'm losing something about her, if that makes
any sense. It started small, little things I barely noticed
at first, like a couple of weeks ago, we were
sitting on the couch watching TV and I realized she
wasn't laughing at a joke I knew she'd normally find funny.
When I looked over, she was staring at the screen,
but her eyes weren't focused. She was somewhere else. I
nudged her and she blinked like I snapped her out
of a trance. She laughed it off, said she was
just tired. Another time, she forgot where she put her keys. Now,
I know that sounds like nothing. Who doesn't lose their keys,
But Laura never does. She's meticulous, the kind of person
who has a place for everything and everything in its place.
She even joked about how out of character it was. Yes,
I'm getting old, she said, with this weird little laugh
that didn't feel like her. There have been other moments, too,
like how she zones out during conversations, or how she
started hesitating when she speaks, like she's trying to figure
out what to say. At first, I thought she might
just be stressed. Work's been rough on both of us lately,
and everyone has off days. But it's opening more and
more and I can't shake the feeling that something's off.
I keep telling myself it's probably nothing. Couples go through phases, right,
people change a little over time. But the thing is,
this doesn't feel like a little change. It feels like
she's slipping away, like she's here but not here. And
I don't know what to do with that. At first,
I thought I was just being paranoid. Now I'm not
so sure. And the worst part, it's not just the
little things anymore. It's bigger, now, weirder, and it's starting
to scare me. It happened a few nights ago, and
I can't stop thinking about it. I haven't been able
to sleep since I woke up around two am. I
think you know that half awake state, were you not
totally sure what's real yet? At first I couldn't figure
out why I woke up. There wasn't any noise or anything.
But then I saw her, Laura. She was sitting on
the edge of the bed, completely still, facing me. It
took a second for my brain to catch up, but
when it did, I realized something was wrong. Her face
was blank, totally expressionless, Her eyes were wide open, and
she wasn't blinking, just staring at me, like she was
waiting for something. Laura, I mumbled, still half asleep, what
are you doing? She didn't answer right away. Then, in
this flat, monotone voice, one I've never heard from her before,
she said, I'm waiting for the real you. I honestly
didn't know how to respond. My first thought was that
she was sleep walking. She's never done it before, but hey,
there's the first time for everything, right, So I tried
to play it off. I even laughed a little, like, okay, creepy,
what does that mean. She didn't laugh, She didn't even move.
She just kept staring at me for a few seconds,
like she was deciding something. Then she stood up, turned round,
and walked out of the room without saying another word.
I sat there for a minute, trying to process what
just happened. I wanted to follow her, but something in
the way she looked at me, so cold, so unfamiliar,
made my skin crawl. Eventually I convinced myself it was
just a weird dream or some kind of sleepwalking thing.
In the morning, I brought it up over breakfast. I
tried to keep it casual, like, hey, do you remember
getting up last night? She just stared at me for
a second, like she was trying to figure out what
I was talking about. Then she smiled this small, tight
smile and said, nope, must have been dreaming. That was it.
No follow up, no questions, She just went back to
eating like nothing happened. I don't know, maybe she really
doesn't remember. But something about the way she brushed off
felt off forced, maybe like she was trying too hard
to act normal. I've been trying to convince myself it
wasn't a big deal, that it was just a one time,
weird thing. But the way she looked at me that night,
the way she said that keeps replaying in my head.
I'm waiting for the real you. What the hell is
that supposed to mean? A couple of nights before everything
really fell apart, I caught Laura doing something strange. I
woke up around midnight to use the bathroom and noticed
her side of the bed was empty. I didn't think
much of it at first, maybe she couldn't sleep and
went downstairs. But as I passed the guest room, I
saw the door was cracked open and the light was on.
I peeked inside, and there she was. She was sitting
cross legged on the floor, her back to me, her phone,
flashlight pointed to a small notebook in her lap. Her
hair was messy, like she'd been tugging at it, and
she was whispering to herself. Laura, I said, softly, trying
not to startler. She froze for a second, then turned
to look at me. Her face was completely blank, like
she wasn't even surprised to see me. What are you doing,
I asked. She didn't answer. She just snapped the notebook
shut and got up, walking past me without saying a word.
She didn't even bother turning off the light. I stood
there for a while, trying to figure out what I'd
just seen. Eventually I picked up the notebook she'd left
on the floor. It was old, one of those cheaps
spiral bound ones you pick up for a few books.
Most of the pages were blank, but the ones she'd
written on were covered in what looked like instructions, not
coherent ones though, things like ask questions, wait until he slips,
check the reflection again. It didn't make sense. I bought
the notebook back where I'd found it and went back
to bed, but I didn't sleep. I couldn't shake the
feeling that whatever she was writing about it wasn't meant
for me to see. Trying to let things pass didn't work.
Things didn't stop. If anything, it was getting worse. A
few days after she sat on the bed and said
that creepy stuff about waiting for the real me, laws
that did acting different, not in huge obvious ways, but
enough that I couldn't stop noticing it. She's been asking
these weird questions, stuff like do you ever feel like
you're not yourself? Or what if this isn't the life
you're supposed to have. She doesn't say it in a
joking way either. Her tone is serious, like she's actually
expecting me to give her some deep answer, And every
time I just stammer something like I don't know, I guess,
because what else am I supposed to say. She's been
staring at me too a lot. It's not like she's
zoning out anymore. It's deliberate. I'll catch your watching me
while I'm eating dinner, scrolling through my phone, or even
brushing my teeth. I asked her about at once, tried
to make a joke, like what do I have something
on my face? She just shrugged and said, I'm just
trying to see something. See what. The worst was a
couple of nights ago, I woke up again in the
middle of the night and Laura wasn't in bed. My
first thought was the bathroom, but when I rolled over
I saw her. She was standing in the corner of
the room, facing the wall. I'm not proud of this,
but I froze like every hare and my body stood
up at once and my mouth went dry. It was
the way she was standing, completely still, her shoulders just
slightly hunched, like she was listening for something. Laura, I
managed to finally croak out. She didn't move for a
few seconds, but then she whispered, not yet, you're not ready.
I can't even explain how that felt. My stomach dropped
and my heart started pounding so hard I thought it
was going to burst. I didn't know what to say.
I just stared at her, trying to make sense of
what was happening. Eventually, she turned around, walked back to bed,
and climbed in like nothing happened. She didn't even look
at me. I didn't sleep for the rest of the night.
The next day, I tried to bring it up casually
at first, just testing the waters, but the moment I
mentioned her getting up at night, she snapped. She told
me I was the one acting strange, always questioning her,
always looking like she's the problem. That's when I started
wondering if maybe it is me? Am I making this up? Am?
I just stressed out and reading too much into everything.
But then I checked her phone. I know, I know
that was scummy of me, but I couldn't stop myself,
and what I found I can't unsee it. Her history
was filled with things like how to identify a doppleganger,
signs of possession, and when someone isn't who they say
they are. I don't even know how to process that.
She's clearly convinced something's wrong with me. But now I'm
wondering if it's actually the other way around. What if
something's wrong with her? Oh God, I hate that I'm
even thinking this. What if something was wrong with the
both of us? I don't know. I just don't know anymore,
and it's starting to feel like I'm not going to
figure it out until it's too late. I thought it
couldn't get any worse. I thought maybe it would blow over,
that Laura just needed time, or maybe I needed to
stop overthinking everything. I was wrong, so so wrong. A
few nights ago, I woke up again. This time, Laura
wasn't sitting at the edge of the bed or standing
in the corner. She was right beside me, holding a
small mirror up to my face. At first, I didn't
even understand what I was looking at. The moonlight was
catching the mirror at an angle, and it took my
harvestly brain a few seconds to realize what was happening.
She was whispering something over and over. Why won't you
show yourself? Why won't you show yourself? My froze. I
don't know if you've ever felt true fear before, but
it's not like in the movies. It's cold and paralyzing,
and it makes you feel like you're outside your own body. Laura,
I said, my voice cracking, What are you doing? She
didn't look at me. She just kept holding the mirror,
her eyes locked on my reflection. Her whisper turned into
a low mutter, then into something more desperate. I reached
out and grabbed the mirror, yanking it away. What the
hell is going on? I demanded, and that's when she snapped.
You're not him, she screamed, her voice raw and trembling.
You're not the man. I married. He wasn't just anger,
who was something deeper, pure terror, like she was cornered
by something she couldn't understand. I tried to calm her down,
but she kept shaking, her head, backing away from me.
He talks to me, she said, her voice breaking. Every
night in my dreams. He looks like you, but he's
not you. He's trapped and he's begging me to help him.
He says you're the one keeping him there. AND just
stared at her, trying to process what she was saying.
None of it made sense, Laura, I said, trying to
keep my voice steady. You're just having nightmares, that's all.
This is stress, lack of sleep, It's messing with your head.
But she wouldn't listen. She pointed at me, her hands shaking,
and said, I can feel it. You're not him, You're
not right. I didn't know what to do. I didn't
know how to make her believe me. She left the
room that night, slamming the door behind her. I just
sat there, staring at the mirror in my hands, trying
to convince myself that this was all in her head,
that there was nothing wrong with me. But then doubt
started creeping in. What if she was right? What if
something really was wrong with me? I spent the rest
of the night searching for answers. I tore through the house,
looking for anything that might explain why she was acting
this way way. Finally, in the attic, I found an
old box of the things. Inside was a journal she
kept from the early years of our relationship. I know
I shouldn't have read it, but I was desperate. The
first few entries were normal, sweet, even little notes about
our dates, funny moments we shared. But as I kept reading,
things started to get strange. There were detailed descriptions of events.
I had no memory of a trip to the beach
where I apparently got sunburned so badly Laura had to
cover me in aloe, a dinner party with friends where
I supposedly made everyone laugh so hard they cried. I
don't remember any of it. And then there was one
entry that stopped me cold. Last night, I woke up
and saw him standing at the foot of the bed.
He looked like my husband, but something about him was wrong.
When he realized I was awake, he smiled at me,
but it wasn't his smile. It felt hollow, like he
was pretending to be human. I don't know what's happening.
I don't know what to believe anymore. But the worst
part when I read that entry, it felt familiar, like
I'd lived it before. But how could I How could
I forget something like that. I couldn't keep it to
myself anymore. I had to confront her. I thought, if
I just showed Laura of the journal, but you'd finally
talk this out, get everything out in the open, and
figure out what the hell was happening to us. It
didn't go the way I hoped. I found her in
the kitchen the next morning, just sitting at the table,
staring at a coffee, like she didn't even see it.
I put the journal down in front of her and said,
you need to explain this. She looked up at me,
then down at the journal, her face pale. For a second.
I thought she might deny everything, but then she flipped
through the pages like she knew exactly what she was
looking for. She stopped at one specific entry and slid
it toward me without saying a word. I picked it
up and started reading. Last night, I woke up and
saw him standing at the foot of the bed. He
looked like my husband, but something about him was wrong.
When he realized I was awake, he smiled at me,
but it wasn't his smile. It felt like he was
pretending to be human. I don't understand, I said, my
voice barely above a whisper. That's when I knew, Laura said,
her voice trembling. That's the night I realized you weren't you.
I tried to argue, to tell her this was crazy,
but she cut me off. You don't remember, do you,
she said, tears streaming down her face. Or maybe you
do and you just won't admit it. But I know
what I saw. That wasn't you. I reached out to her,
desperate to calm her down, to make her believe me,
but she recoiled so fast she knocked over a chair.
Don't touch me, she screamed, backing into the corner of
the room. I can't do this anymore. I don't know
what you are, but you're not him. Her words hit
me like a punch to the gut. I just stood there, frozen,
watching as she broke down in front of me. I
wanted to yell, to shake her, to make her understand
that I'm still me. But am I. After a few minutes,
she ran upstairs and slammed the door. I didn't follow her.
I couldn't. Instead, I sat at the table, staring at
the journal. The entry kept looping in my mind. He
looked like my husband, but something about him was wrong.
I don't know how long I sat there before I
got up and went to the bathroom. I don't even
know why I did it. Maybe I just needed to
see myself, to prove to myself that I hadn't changed.
I stood in front of the mirror, looking at my
reflection at first, and everything seemed normal, same face, same
tired eyes, same messy hair. But then I noticed it.
It was small, almost imperceptible, but there it was my smile.
It didn't look right. It felt too wide, like it
didn't quite belong to me. I'm still standing here, staring
at it, trying to convince myself it's just in my
head that it's just stress or exhaustion or something normal.
But the longer I look, the more certain I am.
She's right. It's not my smile. I've always been a
dog person. There's something about the way they're just there
for you, no judgment, no strings attached. That makes everything
a little easier to handle after my divorce. When I
moved into this house by myself, getting Max was the
first thing I did. He's a mutt mostly shepherd, maybe
some retriever in there, and he's been my rock ever since.
It's just the two of us out here. The house
is in a pretty quiet area, not completely remote, but
far enough from the city that the Knights feel still peaceful.
Usually there's a small yard out back with a fence,
and I've got camera is set up on the front
and back porch just for peace of mind. You know,
I've heard stories of coyotes in the area, and while
Max is a solid seventy pounds of muscle and fur,
I don't take the chances. We've got our routine down
early morning walks before I start work, evenings watching TV
while Max dozes at my feet, and late nights locking
up the house and double checking the doors before heading
to bed. It's the kind of dog who sticks close
to your side, always alert but never anxious, loyal as hell.
This house never felt lonely with him in it. Honestly,
I'd even say it's been kind of comforting. There's something
grounding about having a routine, a companion who's always there,
and a quiet space to call your own. But looking back,
I realize that quietness it wasn't just peace. It was
something else. It happened on a Tuesday night, and I
remember that because it was one of those nights when
nothing feels unusual. I was sitting on the couch, half
watching some mindless sitcom and Max sprawled out by my feet,
snoring softly. It was the kind of normal, uneventful evening
that I'd come to rely on. Then I heard it,
a faint scratching sound coming from the back door. At
first I barely noticed it. I figured here was the wind,
or maybe some branches brushing against the house. I've heard
stuff like that before, It's not exactly uncommon when you
live in a place like this. But then it came again, louder,
this time, scratch scratch. I muted the TV and tilted
my head listening. Max didn't react, which shut him in
my first clue that something was off. Usually his quick
to bark at anything near the house, but he was
completely out, snoring like nothing was happening. Still, the sound
was hard to ignore now, scratch scratch, followed by what
sounded like whimpering. I told myself it was probably a
stray dog. We've had a few wonder through the neighborhood before,
and the fence usually keeps them out. But something about
it made my stomach twist. Finally I got up to check.
I peeped through the blinds, and that's when I saw
him Max. He was standing outside, pouring at the door,
his ears pinned back and his tail wagging no like
it was desperate to come in. My first thought was
that I must have left the door open earlier and
somehow he got out, but that didn't make sense. The
door was locked. I knew it was locked, and besides,
Max wasn't supposed to be outside. Because Max was still inside,
I turned back to the living room and there he was,
lying on the rug, exactly where I'd left him. He
wasn't asleep anymore, though, He lifted his head and was
looking right at me, his ears twitching. At the sound
of the scratching, I froze, my mind racing trying to
process what I was seeing. I looked back at the door.
The Max outside was still there, pouring and whining softly,
his eyes wide and pleading, and the Max inside was
staring at me, tilting his head like he was confused
by my reaction. It didn't make sense. None of it
made sense. My first instinct was to open the door
to let the outside Max in and figure it out later.
But as I reached for the lock, something stopped me.
The way he moved it was subtle, but it was wrong.
His pouring was mechanical, like it was imitating the motion
rather than doing it naturally. And the whimpering it sounded
off too, even like someone had recorded a dog whining
and was playing it back on a loop. My chest
tightened as I stepped back, my hand hovering over the lock.
I didn't let him in. Instead, I locked the dead
bolt and pulled the blind shut, trying to shake the
feeling crawling up my spine. I told myself it was astray,
that it just looked like Max, even though I couldn't
explain how it was such a perfect copy Max. The
one inside, got up and pat it over to me,
nouzzling my hand like he always did when I was upset.
I knelt down and hugged him, burying my face in
his fur, telling myself it was fine, It had to
be fine, but that scratching didn't stop, and neither did
the whimpering. It started at the back door, just like before,
scratch scratch, Then it moved to the windows, first in
the kitchen, then the living room. Each time I thought
it was over, i'd hear it again, faint but deliberate.
I checked the cameras, hoping for some kind of explanation. Nothing.
No sign of the dog or anything near the house.
It was like the sound wasn't even real, but I
knew I was hearing it. I wasn't imagining it. Max,
the one inside, wasn't acting like himself either. He stood
by the back door, his ears pinned back, his body stiff.
His growl was low and quiet, almost like he didn't
want to make too much noise. I've never seen him
like that before, not even when he heard coyotes in
the distance. At one point, I tried to get him
to follow me to the kitchen to check things out,
but he wouldn't budge. He just stood there, rooted to
the spot, his eyes locked on something I couldn't see.
Come on, Max, I whispered, my voice trembling, but he
didn't move. His fur was standing on end, his tail
took so far between his legs. It looked like he
wasn't there. Whatever he was sensing it was enough to
completely spook him. By now, I was starting to notice
things about the outside dog. Subtle things, but enough to
make my skin crawl. His movements weren't quite right, too stiff,
too calculated. The way it scratched at the door wasn't frantic,
like you'd expect from a dog that wanted to come inside.
It was methodical. And the whimpering I couldn't shake the
feeling that it wasn't real. I tried to ignore it.
I locked all the doors, shut the blinds, and left
the lights on. But ignoring it didn't help. A couple
of nights later, I woke up to find Max sitting
in the hallway staring at the front door. He wasn't
barking or growling. He wasn't even moving. He was just
sitting there, stiff as a statue, staring at the door
like it might open at any second. Max I whispered,
but he didn't even turn his head. His ears twitched,
But that was it. I wanted to tell myself. He
was just being protective. Maybe he'd heard something and this
was his way of keeping an eye on things, But
deep down I didn't believe that there was something about
the way he sat there, so tense, so quiet, that
made my chest tighten, like he was waiting for something
to come inside. I've thought about checking the door, just
to prove to myself that nothing was there, but every
time I got close, my legs felt like lead. I
couldn't bring myself to look through the people or pull
back the blinds. I didn't want to see what was waiting.
I kept telling myself I was overreacting, that this was
all in my head. But every time I looked at Max,
his stiff body, his wide, unblinking eyes, I knew I
wasn't imagining it. Something was out there, and whatever it was,
it wasn't leaving. That's when things went from unsettling to
completely impossible. The scratching hadn't stopped, but now it wasn't
just the back door or the windows. It was everywhere.
I'd hear it on the front porch, on the fenced
in patio when nothing should be able to get in,
and once and my bedroom window, let me say that again,
my bedroom window on the second floor. I don't know
how it got up there. I don't even want to
think about how it got up there. But when I
pulled back the curtain, there it was the same dog,
the one that looked just like Max, staring in at
me with those wide, pleading eyes. I slammed the curtain
shut and didn't sleep that night. But the worse came
A few nights later. I was sitting in the living
room trying to drown out the scratching, with the TV
turned up louder than usual. Max inside, Max was curled
up under the coffee table, trembling. I've never seen him
like that before. His whole body was shaking, his ears
pinned back, and no matter how much I called for him,
he wouldn't come out. Then I heard it. At first,
I thought it was just the wind, but the longer
I listened, the clearer it got. It was a voice.
It wasn't loud, just faint enough that I couldn't quite
make out the words at first, but as it grew louder,
my stomach dropped. It wasn't speaking to me. It was
calling Max's name. Max. The way it said his name
made my skin crawl. It wasn't like a normal person
calling for a dog. The tone was off, stretched out
like it was trying too hard to sound human. Max,
Come here, Max, I froze. I didn't know what to do.
I wanted to grab Max and hide in my room,
but when I looked at him, he was still trembling
under the table, refusing to move. The voice kept calling Max.
I couldn't take it anymore. My chest felt tight, and
every nerve in my body was screaming at me to
stay inside, to ignore it. But I had to know,
I had to see. I went to the back door
and threw it open. There was nothing there, no dog,
no voice, no sign of anything at all, just the quiet,
empty yards stretching out in the moonlight. I turned to
go back inside, my heart still pounding, but as I
stepped through the doorway, the door slammed shut behind me
with a force that shook the whole house. I nearly
jumped out of my skin. I spun around, trying to
convince myself it was just the wind, even though there
hadn't been so much as a breeze all night. That's
when I decided to check the cameras again. I needed proof,
some kind of explanation for what I found. I don't
even know how to describe it. In the footage, I
watched myself open the back door. There was nothing there,
just me standing alone in the doorway, looking out into
the yard. But when I replayed the clip, something changed.
In the second play back, the dog was there, the
one that looked like Max. It was standing at the
edge of the yard, staring directly at the camera. Its
eyes weren't bleeding anymore. They were dark, almost empty. I
played the footage a third time, hoping to catch something
I'd missed. This time, the dog wasn't at the edge
of the yard anymore. It was closer and its eyes,
its eyes were looking right at me. I shut the
laptop and locked every door and window in the house.
I didn't know what was happening. I don't know what
it wants, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it's
not just watching me, it's waiting. I thought I was
finally starting to get a handle on it. The scratching
had stopped over a couple of nights, and Max seemed
to calm down a little. I even managed to s
without the lights on for the first time in days.
But that peace didn't last. It was late around two
am when I heard it again. At first, I thought
he was coming from the back door, the same faint
scratching and whimpering I'd been hearing for weeks. I sat
up in bed, trying to shake off the grogginess. But
something was different this time. The sound wasn't coming from outside.
It was inside the house. The whimpering echoed faintly, like
it was moving through the walls, growing louder and closer
with each second. My heart started racing as I reached
for the lamp, fumbling to turn it on. Max. I
called out, my voice shaking. There was no response. I
swung my legs over the side of the bed and
grabbed the flashlight i'd started keeping on my nightstand. When
I looked toward Max's bed, I froze. It was empty.
His collar was lying on the floor, right in the
middle of the bed where he should have been. The
whimpering grew louder, almost frantic. Now Mike, who was coming
from multiple places at once, then cutting through it. I
heard something else, A voice, not faint or distant like before,
but clear and deliberate. And this time it wasn't calling
for Max. It was calling for me. Hello. I stammered,
my voice barely above a whisper. The voice called my
name again, dragging it out, each syllable dripping with something
I can only describe as wrong. I don't know what
possessed me to start searching the house, but I couldn't
just sit there. I grabbed the flashlight and crept into
the hallway, my pulse pounding in my ears. Max I
called again, even though I knew he wouldn't answer. The
whimpering echoed from the kitchen, then the living room, then
the stairs, bouncing around like the house itself was alive.
I finally made my way to the living room, gripping
the flashlights so hard my knuckles ached. That's when I
saw them Max, both of him. They were standing side
by side in the middle of the room, perfectly still
staring at me. At first, I thought my mind was
playing tricks on me. I blinked, hoping one of them
would disappear, but they didn't. Two identical dogs, each one
a perfect copy of the other, Max, I whispered, taking
a shaky step forward. Neither of them moved. I shine
the flashlight on them, desperate to see something, anything that
would tell me which one was real. But they were
exactly the same, down to the fur on their paws
and the tilt of their heads. Then one of them growled.
It wasn't a normal growl, though it was low and guitoral,
deeper than anything a dog should be able to make.
The sound rumble through the room, vibrating in my chest.
Its eyes flickered, catching the light in a way that
wasn't natural. They didn't glow, they shimmered like something beneath
the surface was trying to push through. I stumbled back,
my breath catching in my throat the other Max, the
real Max, I hoped, cowered, his ears flat against his head,
whimpering softly. Stay back, I choked out, pointing the flashlight
at the growling one. It tilted its head, the growl
fading into a sound that almost almost sounded like a laugh.
It was low and deep, almost vibrating through the room.
I felt it in my bones. The sound didn't stop,
It just kept building, growling louder and louder, like it
was daring me to move. I stepped back, trying to
keep my dist My legs felt like jelly, barely able
to hold me up. Max I whispered, but I wasn't
even sure which one I was talking to. The growling
Max took a step forward, its head tilting ever so slightly,
almost like it was mocking me. The other max, My
Max led out a soft, pitiful whimper, his whole body
pressing into the floor like he was trying to disappear.
I panicked. I ran to the nearest room, the guest bedroom,
and slammed the door shut, throwing my weight against it.
My hands fumbled for the lock, and when I finally
clicked it into place, I grabbed a chair and wedged
it under the knob. It was a match, but it
was all I had. Then I just sat there. I
don't know how long I stayed in that room, clutching
the chair like it was a life line, my breath
coming in shallow gasps. Hours. Maybe the growling eventually stopped,
but I couldn't bring myself to leave. Every time I
thought about opening the door, I imagined what might be waiting
on the other side. Eventually, exhaustion took over and I
must have dozed off. When I woke up, it was morning.
The house was quiet. I waited a while longer, listening
for any sound, any sign of movement. When I finally
worked up the courage to open the door, my legs
felt like lead. The living room was empty Max, both
of them were gone. At first, I tried to convince
myself it was a nightmare, some kind of stress induced hallucination,
but the evidence was there. Law marks gouged into the
walls and the furniture, deep enough to leave splinters on
the floor. I didn't know what to think. Part of
me wanted to burn the house down and never look back,
but I couldn't bring myself to leave. It was my home.
Max had been my home, and now he was gone.
For a few days, I tried to act like things
were normal, like I could just move on, But the
house was too quiet, too empty. The silence weighed on
me in a way it hadn't before. So I did
what any dog person would do. I adopted another dog.
I couldn't live without the companionship, especially after what happened.
Being alone was not an option for me. Her name's Bella,
a sweet little lab mix who wouldn't hurt to fly.
She's been with me for a few weeks now, and
for the most part, things have been fine. She sleeps
in Macks's old bed, and I like to think he'd
have liked her. But last night something happened. I was
sitting on the couch. Bella called up at my feet
when I heard it, a faint scratching sound. He was
coming from the back door. My froze, my whole body
going cold. Bellisi has perked up, and she let out
a low, confused wine, staring at the door like she
was waiting for something. I haven't checked it yet. I
don't think I can. But I know one thing for sure.
It's not done with me. I'm not really the adventuress type.
I've always been more of a homebody, someone who's perfectly
content staying in, cooking something simple and watching reruns of
shows I've already seen a hundred times. My apartment isn't
much to look at, but it suits me. It's a
little rundown, sure, but there's a kind of charm to
it now. Our hallways flickering overheadline and those thin walls
where you can hear every muffled conversation or late night
TV show your neighbors are watching. I'm not exactly buddy
buddy with my neighbors, but I know them in that
distant city living way. There's the single mom whose kid
likes to stomp around the retired couple in three b
who sit by the lobby window every morning, and the
guy across the hall who blasts music way too late
at night. It's predictable, even comforting in its own way.
I like knowing the building isn't completely silent. My routine
is pretty simple. I work from home, cook for myself,
and scroll through social media when I feel like I
need to pretend I'm still connected to other people. It's
not the most exciting life, but it's mine, and I've
never felt the need for more. The background noise of
the building, the harm of activity, faint voices, footsteps in
the hallway reminds me I'm not completely alone, even if
I keep to myself most of the time. That's why
I noticed it right away when things started feeling off.
It started a couple of nights ago. I was lying
on the couch scrolling through my phone like usual. I
wasn't paying much attention to anything in particular, just the
endless doom scrolling we all do. We were too tired
to sleep, but not tired enough to do anything productive.
Then the lights flickered. It wasn't unusual for the power
to hiccup in this old building. It happened a dozen
times before, usually during a storm or when someone was
messing with the breaker panel in the basement, but this
time was different. This time, the lights didn't come back on.
I sat there for a second, waiting for everything to reset,
but the apartment stayed dark. I grabbed my phone and
turned on the flashlight, shining it around the room. I
first thought was that maybe it was just my unit,
so I got up to check the breaker box, but
when I looked out my window, the entire street was
blacked out. The whole building was silent. No footsteps, no voices,
no faint hum of TVs or music, just this heavy,
oppressive quiet that made my skin crawl. I told myself
it was nothing, that it was probably just the temporary
outage like before, but for some reason, I couldn't shake
the feeling that something was wrong. You think a power
outage and an apartment complex would cause some kind of commotion,
people talking in the halls, fumbling for flashlights, maybe complaining
loudly about the inconvenience. But there was nothing. No murmurs,
no doors creaking open, no footsteps, just this oppressive, heavy
silence that felt like it was pressing down on me.
I showed my flashlight down the hallway, expecting to see
someone poking their head out, but the entire floor was empty.
That's when I started to feel uneasy. It wasn't just
a lack of noise, it was the way the silence
felt alive, like it was waiting for something. I went
to the window at the end of the hall and
looked out. The entire block was blacked out. Street lights, buildings,
even the distant glow of the city. Everything was gone.
But here's the thing that didn't make sense. A few
apartments in my building still had faint lights on. Not
normal lights, more like a soft glow, almost like candlelight.
But called her somehow, I decided to knock on a
few doors, just to see if anyone else was around.
I started with my neighbor across the hall. Nothing, no sound,
no shuffling, no muffled who's there, Just dead silence. I
tried the woman's doore, the single mom still nothing. It
was around then that the unease started creeping into panic.
I went back to my apartment and grabbed my phone
to text a friend. That's when I noticed I had
no signal, no Wi Fi, no data, nothing. I couldn't
even get a text to send. I told mysel of
it was just because of the power outage, but the
isolation was starting to get to me. After a while,
I went back to the window to check the street,
and that's when I saw them. People leaving the building.
At least I think there were people. They weren't running
or shouting like you'd expect during an emergency. They were
moving fast, but eerily quiet. Some of them were dragging suitcases,
others just clutched bags or backpacks, like they'd left in
a hurry. They didn't stop to talk to each other.
No one even looked back at the building. I watched
them disappear into the darkness, one by one until the
street was empty again. I thought about leaving too, but
where would I go. The entire neighborhood was blacked out,
and the idea of staf into that darkness with no
clue where I was going felt worse than staying put.
I locked my door, sat on the couch and told
myself I'd just wait until morning. But even then I
couldn't shake the feeling that staying might have been the
worst decision I could have made. The hours dragged on,
and the silence in the buildings started to mess with
my head. I don't mean the kind of quiet where
you can still hear the occasional home of the city outside,
sirens in the distance, cars passing, people talking. I mean
real silence, heavy, unnatural. I kept telling myself it was
normal during a blackout, but it wasn't. Even in the
dead of night, there's always some kind of noise, but
now nothing. It was like the entire world had just stopped.
At first, I tried to distract myself, scrawling through my
phone even though I had no signal, pacing the room,
anything to keep my mind occupied. But then the noises started.
It was subtle at first, faint tapping sounds like someone
lightly drumming their fingers against the wall. I ignored it,
thinking it was just the old building settling or the
barely maintained pipes, but it didn't stop. The tapping moved,
shifting from one side of the apartment to another, as
if it were circling me. Then there was the creaking.
It came from above, like someone was walking around the
floor above mine, except I'm on the top floor. I
grabbed my phone lashlight and opened my door to check
the hallway it was empty, just like before. I stood
there for a while listening, but the air felt off,
thicker somehow, like it was pressing in on me. I
shut the door and locked it, trying to push the
unease down. But the worst sound came later. I was
lying on the couch, trying to convince myself I was
overreacting when I heard it, the faint sound of a
child giggling. It was soft, barely there, but it made
my skin crawl. It didn't make sense. There were no
kids in this building, at least none that young. And
it wasn't just the sound, it was the way it
echoed like. It wasn't coming from the hall, but from everywhere.
I grabbed my laptop. The building security cameras still worked
even though the power was out, so I thought maybe
i'd catch something on the footage. At first, everything looked normal,
just empty hallways and the lobby. But the longer I watched,
the more I noticed something was wrong. The movements of
the people leaving earlier. They weren't smooth, they were jerky,
like old film footage, missing frames. And then there were
the shadows. I didn't notice them at first, but in
a few frames I saw faint figures standing in the
corners of the hallways, completely motionless. Their faces were blurred
or obscured, like the camera couldn't quite focus on them.
I sat there, staring at the screen, trying to rationalize
what I was seeing. Maybe it was a glitch, or
maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. But the
longer I stared, the more certain I was that something
wasn't right. And then came the knocking. It was faint,
barely more than a tap, but it sent my heart raising.
I froze, listening as it grew louder, more deliberate. I
grabbed my flashlight and crept to the door, every step
making the air feel heavier. Hello, I called out, my voice, shaking.
The knocking stopped. I peered through the people, half expecting
to see one of my neighbors, finally breaking the silence,
but there was no one there. The hallway was empty,
except it didn't feel empty. The shadows in the corners
looked dark, arker, longer. The air outside felt different, heavier,
like it was waiting for something. I backed away from
the door and locked every bolt, every chain, and then
I sat down in the corner of my apartment with
my flashlight clutched in my hand. I told myself it
was all in my head, but deep down I knew
something was wrong. By the time daylight rolled around, I
was barely holding it together. Every noise, every shadow, every
second of silence felt like it was pressing down on me.
I thought maybe if I saw the building in the daylight,
it would snap me back to reality, make me realize
this was all just in my head. With my flashlight
in hand and my phone still useless stuffed in my pocket,
I decided to explore the building. Daylight streaming through the
windows made me feel a little braver, like I wasn't
completely alone. I started knocking on doors again, hoping someone, anyone,
would answer. This time. Most of the apartments were completely silent,
but a few they weren't empty, not in the way
I expected. The first one I walked into was unsettling,
but not in an obvious way. It looked normal at
first glance, a couch, a coffee table, a stack of magazines,
but then I noticed the plate of food sitting on
the table, half eaten, like someone had just stepped out
for a moment. The TV rummer was on the couch,
angered like it had fallen from someone's hand. The next
apartment was worse. The forrcet in the bathroom was running
and the sink was nearly overflowing. There was a mug
of coffee on the kid encounter, steam still curling up
from it. But the air in the room was ice cold,
like no one had been there for hours. It was
like everyone had just disappeared. By the time I made
it to the lobby, I was shaking. I hadn't seen
a single person, not even through a window. But that
wasn't the worst part. The message board. It was covered
in notes, hastily written scraps of paper, some in handwriting
I recognized from my neighbors. Leave now it's coming, don't stay,
get out before dark, over and over the same desperate warnings.
I stood there staring at the notes for what felt
like forever, my mind racing who wrote them when, and
why hadn't I noticed them before. Despite everything, I started
to feel a weird sense of relief. The building itself
looked fine, untouched by whatever nightmare I thought I'd been
living through. The sunlight streaming through the lobby windows almost
felt reassuring, like the world outside was still normal. I
decided it was time to leave. Enough was enough. I
grabbed my back back from my apartment, through in a
few essentials, and headed straight for the front doors. For
the first time in hours, I felt like I was
making the right choice. I was getting out of here,
leaving this nightmare behind. But when I pushed the doors open,
the relief vanished in an instant. Instead of stepping out
into the street, I found myself stare going back at
the wall of the lobby. I blinked, frozen in place,
trying to make sense of it. I turned around, expecting
to see the doors behind me, but I was back
in the lobby, exactly where i'd started. I tried again,
running this time, but no matter how fast I moved
or how hard I pushed, I couldn't get outside. Every
exit led me back to the same spot, the middle
of the lobby, staring at that message board with its
endless warnings. The light from the windows didn't feel reassuring anymore.
It felt wrong, artificial, like it was part of the trap,
and I realized I wasn't going anywhere. This building wasn't
going to let me leave. I think that when I
finally lost it, when I realized there was no way out.
I tried every door, every single one, the fire escape.
It led me right back to the hallway, like the
stairs had twisted around on themselves. The basement, I ended
up standing in the same lobby I just left, staring
at the damn message board. I even tried the windows,
but they wouldn't budge. It was like they weren't real,
just painted on illusions meant to keep me trapped. And
then the buildings started changing. The hallways stretched longer than
they should have, twisting into impossible angles. The staircases looped endlessly,
taking me in circles no matter how far I climbed
or how fast I ran. One door opened into a
room I'd never seen before, someone else's apartment, pristine and untouched,
with sunlights streaming through the windows. For a second, I
thought I finally found an exit, But when I stepped inside,
I ended up back in my apartment, the door slamming
shot behind me. The noises didn't help. They were everywhere now.
The whispers started first, low, indistinct voices muttering just out
of earshot. Then came the footsteps, slow and deliberate, echoing
from somewhere above or below. I couldn't tell at one
point I heard laughter. It wasn't loud or obvious, just
this faint, airy giggle that made my stomach twist. And
then I saw it. I was standing at the end
of the hallway, catching my breath when I noticed something
out of the corner of my eye, a figure, tall,
dark and completely still, standing at the far end of
the corridor. My froze, my flashlight trembling in my hand.
It didn't move, it didn't even seem to breathe, but
I swear it was looking at me. I blinked, and
it was gone that When I bolted back to my apartment,
I locked the door, shoved the couch against it, and
piled every piece of furniture I could find in front
of it. My heart was pounding so loud I thought
he might give out. I told myself I'd waited out
until morning, but deep down I knew that wasn't going
to help. The tappings started again, louder this time. At
first I thought it was coming from the door, but
then I realized it was all around me, behind the walls,
under the floorboard, above the ceiling. It surrounded me, closing in.
I grabbed my flashlight and turned in circles, trying to
pinpoint where the sound was coming from. And that's when
the light started flickering. For just a moment, the beam
hid the wall faces, dozens of them pressed against the plaster,
their features distorted like they were trying to push through.
Their eyes were empty, their mouths moving silently forming words
I couldn't hear. The flashlight cut out, plunging the room
into darkness. I backed into a corner, my breath coming
in short, ragged gasps, and all I could think was
I'm not alone in here. The tapping escalated into pounding,
shaking the walls so hard I thought they were going
to cave in. The floor beneath me felt unstable, like
it was tilting, pulling me downward. It wasn't just the
building anymore. It felt like the whole room was alive,
trying to swallow me whole. The air was freezing, now,
so cold that my breath came out invisible puffs, even
though I knew that made no sense. My ears were ringing,
my hands shaking, but I needed to do something. I
grabbed my laptop, hoping, praying that maybe the security cameras
would show me something I could use to make sense
of this nightmare. When I opened the feed, my stomach dropped.
The hallways were no longer empty. They were filled with
shadowy figures, standing perfectly still. There had to be dozens
of them, all facing my door. The camera quality wasn't great,
but even through the grainy footage, I could tell there
was something wrong with them. Their shapes didn't look human.
My hands hovered over the keyboard as I tried to
convince myself it was a glitch, some weird reflection or artifact.
But then the figures moved, not naturally, not like a
person would. They moved frame by frame, jerky and unnatural,
each step bringing them closer to the camera. The pounding
on the walls stopped abruptly. I froze, staring at the screen,
waiting for something to happen. My apartment was dead silent now,
no whispers, no footsteps, no creaking floorboards, just the suffocating
stillness that made my skin crawl. That's when I noticed
the shadows and the feed. They weren't just moving, they
were convey urging slowly, deliberately. They turned toward the camera,
as if they knew I was watching. I slammed the laptop,
shut my heart raising. I stood there, trembling, and turned
toward the door. I don't know why. I think part
of me hoped i'd see something normal outside. Maybe someone
had come to help, or maybe I was imagining all
of it. I peered through the peep hole. All I
saw was darkness. It wasn't just the hallway lights being out.
It was wrong, the kind of darkness that doesn't feel empty,
that presses against you, like it's waiting to consume you.
And then I felt it, a breath on the back
of my neck. I spun around, clutching my flashlight, but
before I could even turn it on, I heard the
whisper you stayed, now, you're one of us. It wasn't loud,
it wasn't even threatening. It was calm, almost welcoming, which
made it so much worse. The light flickered back on
for a brief moment, and I swear, just for a second,
I saw them, faces blurry and distorted, standing all around me, watching, waiting,
and then everything went dark again. When the power came
back on, it was like nothing had happened. The light
stopped flickering, the hum of the refrigerator kicked back in,
and the apartment felt normal. I sat in the middle
of my living room, surrounded by overturned furniture and the
mess I'd made while barricading myself in. The silence wasn't
heavy anymore. It felt lighter, almost peaceful, like the building
was trying to convince me that everything was fine, and
for a while, I let myself believe it. Over the
next few days, things settled down. I started putting my
apartment back together, trying to convince myself that it had
been some kind of stress induced hallucination or a nightmare
I hadn't fully woken up from. But I couldn't settle.
I packed up and drove away the roads, feeling like
a ghost town until I hit civilization again. People seeing
real people made my heart skip. I checked into a
motel and settled in, hoping to regain some sense of
normal see but then the little thing started. The first
time I noticed it was in the mirror. I was
brushing my teeth, staring at my reflection like usual, But
when I turned to grab a towel, I could have
sworn my reflection stayed still for a fraction of a second,
longer than it should have. It was subtle, so subtle,
I convinced myself. I imagined it, but it kept happening. Sometimes
I'd hear myself muttering under my breath, only to realize
I hadn't said anything. Other times, when I walked through
the apartment, I felt this strange heaviness in the air,
like someone was standing just behind me, watching. And then
the note came. It was slipped under my door, sealed
in an envelope with no return address. At first, I
thought it might have made a mistake, junk mail or
a neighbor's letter delivered to the wrong place. But when
I opened it, my stomach dropped. The handwriting was mine.
It's not the building, it's you. You brought it with you.
I tore through the apartment, searching for any explanation, anything
that could make sense of what was happening. When I
got to my suitcase, the one i'd unpacked weeks ago,
I found something I didn't recognize, a key. It was
old and tarnished, the kind of metal that feels unnaturally
cold when you touch it, and I knew, deep in
my gut exactly what it was, the key to my
old apartment. I didn't pack it. I don't know how
it got there. That night. The tapping started again, soft
at first, but it grew louder, more insistent, like it
was demanding my attention. The key sat at my nightstand,
vibrating faintly. I grabbed it and threw it out of
the window in a panic, desperate to get it away
from me. But when I turned back to my bed,
the key was there again, sitting in the exact same spot.
I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I couldn't even think straight.
I looked out the window and saw the other motel
guests looking wary. They had started getting the same symptoms
I had. I could tell by the way they were
looking around for something that seemingly wasn't there. I didn't
have a clue on how to get rid of it.
But if the note was true and I had truly
brought it with me, the only thing I knew for
sure was that I couldn't stay there anymore. It wasn't
going to let me go, so I did the only
thing I could think of. I went back. The drive
to my old apartment complex was a blur. The key
was clutched in my hand the entire time, cold and heavy,
like it was pulling me back. When I got there,
the building looked exactly the same, dark, quiet, empty. The
lights flickered as I stepped inside, just like they had before.
The message board in the lobby was still there, covered
in those desperate notes, but this time there was a
new one. It was written in my handwriting, welcome back.
The air grew as I climbed the stairs, my footsteps
echoing down the empty halls. I could feel something watching me,
the weight of unseen eyes pressing down on me with
every step. When I reached my old apartment, the door
was already open. Inside everything was exactly as I'd left it,
except for the walls. Black smudges were spreading across the plaster,
twisting and branching out like veins. They pulsed faintly, as
though something was alive beneath them. And then I heard it,
a voice from the shadows, calm and welcoming, Welcome back.
We've been waiting. I shouldn't have gone back, I know that,
but I didn't have a choice, couldn't bring this to
more of the population, and the building it never really
let me leave. It wasn't just the building, though, it
was me. I stayed. I let them in, and now
I'll never leave again. I've been feeling kind of off lately.
Work has been insane. In most days, I'm too trained
to do anything but go straight home and collapse in
front of the TV. My routine has been the same
for months. Walk out of work zone, out with my headphones,
hope no one tries to talk to me, and drive home.
It's not exciting, but it works, or at least it did.
A few nights ago, I decided to mix things up.
Traffic was bad, the rain was coming down in sheets,
and I was tired of staring at the same depressing
route home. I figured I'd try a short cut, a
fast way through the maze of downtown streets. The areas
a mess of half finished renovations and old, crumbling buildings,
but I thought I knew it well enough to find
my way. That's when I remembered the mall. I used
to go there as a kid. Back then, it was
huge and crowded, full of life. There was a carousel
in the food court, bright neon signs everywhere, and this
old candy shop my mum used to bribe me with
when I threw tantrums. But as the years went by,
the place started to die stores closed and the crowds disappeared.
Last I heard, most of it was abandoned, except for
a few discount shops hanging on by a thread. I
was already running late, and the idea of cutting through
the mall popped into my head, like it was meant
to be. I figured, why not, even if it's mostly empty,
it's probably faster than walking around the block in the rain,
and hey, maybe I'll get a little nostalgia kick while
I was at it. The entrance I found was one
of those side doors, the kind that janitor's or delivery
workers used. It wasn't marked, just a plain metal door
tucked into an alcove, but it opened without much effort,
no log chain, no rusted over handle, just a gentle push,
and I was in. The hallway was dimly lit and
the fluorescent lights above buzzed faintly, flickering every few seconds.
The air was stale, like it hadn't been disturbed in
a while, and there was this faint smell of mildew
that hit me right away, but I shrugged it off.
It's an old building, what did I expect? At first,
it felt kind of cool, like I was stepping into
a time capsule. The floors were that odd school white
tile with black accents, scoffed and cracked in places, and
the walls were covered in faded advertisements for stores that
probably hadn't existed in years. There was a quiet home
in the background. Fans are something, maybe, but no voices,
no footsteps, just stillness. Something that hit me was the silence.
Not the kind of quiet you'd expect in an abandoned building,
This was something heavier. The air felt dense, like the
building itself was holding its breath. The faint hum of
the wherescent lights above was the only sound, and even
that felt like it was straining to break the stillness.
Most of the stores were exactly what I expected, boarded
up or empty shells, their faded signage barely clinging to
the walls. A few windows still had displays, but they
were like time capsules, mannequins and dated outfits, old movie
posters advertising long forgotten blockbusters, and saiale banners with slogans
that felt weirdly optimistic for a place like this. I
remember feeling a little uneasy, but I kept telling myself
it was just the vibe of an old, abandoned mall.
That's what happens when a place gets left behind. It
felt like a ghost of what it used to be,
but that was normal right still. I picked up my pace,
hoping to get to the other side quickly. I just
wanted to be out in the fresh air again. That's
when I noticed something strange. The layout didn't feel right.
I mean, it had been years since I'd been there,
so I figured my memory might be a little off.
But the hallways seemed wrong, longer than they should have been.
The way they twisted and turned didn't make sense, like
the angles was slightly off. I'd walk for what felt
like minutes, only to turn a corner and find myself
back at the same stretch of empty store fronts. Then
I reached the food court, or at least what was
left of it. It was completely empty save for one
table sitting dead center, just one. There was a single
chair pulled out slightly, like someone had been sitting there
and left in a hurry. On the table was a
styrofoam cup, and I swear I could see steam rising
from it. That's when I felt it, that first real
twinge of fear. You know, that cold rush you get
when your body sinses something is off before your brain
catches up. I stood there for a long moment, staring
at that cop, trying to tell myself it was nothing.
Maybe it was an old trickle of heat from a vent.
Or maybe someone was here, just a maintenance worker or
any person cutting through like me. I even called out, hello,
anyone here nothing. I should have turned back then, I
should have taken my chances in the rain, but I
convinced myself it was fine, just an empty building. People
leave weird things behind all the time, right, so I
kept going. I turned the corner where the exits should
have been, and it wasn't there. No double glass doors,
no faded thank you for shopping sign, just another hallway
stretching deeper into the mall. That's when it hit me.
I wasn't getting out of here anytime soon. I can't
even tell you when it went from a little weird
to full blown terrifying, but it happened fast. The hallways
started to feel uncanny, like I know how ridiculous this sounds,
but they weren't just hallways anymore. They stretched longer than
they should have, and every time I thought to recognize
the turn, it either led some I completely knew, or
looped me right back to where I started. I tried
to stay calm. Old buildings are confusing, right, but the
more I walked, the more it felt like the place
was shifting around me. Then I started noticing the details
the mannequins in the storefronts. I swear they weren't in
the same positions when I looked back. I told myself
I was imagining it, but I'm not that imaginative. One
minute they'd be posed normally, like you'd expect, arms out
wearing clothes from decades ago, and the next one would
have its head tilted toward me, or its hand would
be raised like it was pointing. And the walls got
the walls. Some of the advertisements looked normal from a distance,
but when I got closer, the faces on them were
all wrong. They were blurry, almost smudged, like someone had
rubbed out the features. But I could still make out
just enough to know they were faces. And the worst part,
I thought I recognized one of them. It looked a
little like me, distorted, warped. I pulled my phone out,
hoping I could get my bearings with GPS, or at
least checked the time, but that was useless too, no signal,
no Wi Fi, just the spinning loading wheel that wouldn't
go away, and their time. It was all over the place.
One second it said four forty seven p m. The
next they jumped to eleven thirteen. Then it reset entirely,
flashing the zeros like it just turned on for the
first time. I tried rechasing my steps, back tracking the
way I came, but nothing lined up. The food caught
gone the hallway with a styrophooning cop Now it led
to a dead end with a boarded up store front.
I was sure I hadn't seen before. I kept walking, though,
because what else could I do. But the deeper I went,
the stranger it got. Some of the hallways were so
long my phone flashlight couldn't reach the end. The beam
just disappeared into the darkness, like the mall was swallowing
the light. The whispers started soon after that, faint at first,
like someone just out of earshot, but they were definitely there.
I couldn't make out what they were saying, just this
low murmur, almost like the hum of the fluorescent lights,
but alive. Every now and then i'd hear a word
or two. I think I'd heard my name once, but
I might have imagined it. I hope I imagined it.
And then the footsteps, God, the footsteps. I thought I
was alone in there, knew I was alone, But suddenly
I could hear them, just a soft, rhythmic tap tap
tap behind me. I thought it was an echo of
my own steps, so I stopped walking. They didn't. I
whipped around, shining my flashlight down the hallway, but there
was nothing there, just empty space. The sound stopped, too,
like whoever or whatever was making it knew I was listening.
I waited, holding my breath, and after a minute I
turned back around. The second I started walking again, the
footsteps started up too. They were faster, louder, like something
was closing the distance between us. I didn't look back again.
I just started running. I don't think I've ever felt
as relieved as I did when I saw that exit sign.
After what felt like hours of wondering, corridors stretching endlessly,
mannikins shifting when I wasn't looking, whispers that I couldn't place,
I thought I was done for. But then there it was,
the bright red glow of an exit sign above a
heavy steel door at the end of the hallway. It
stood out like a lifeline in all that darkness, a
promise that I wasn't trapped after all. I don't remember
how fast I moved. One second I was standing there, staring,
and the next I was sprinting toward it, the sound
of my footsteps echoing like gunshots in the empty space.
My heart was hammering, but it wasn't from fear this time.
It was relief. I was getting out. The door was heavy,
but it opened without much effort. The moment it swung open,
I felt a rush of fresh air hit my face.
It smelled like rain, clean and normal. I stepped outside
and found myself on a street, one I didn't recognize,
but looked like any other part of the city. I
saw cars, headlights slicing through the twilight, people walking along
the sidewalks, some carrying umbrellas or shopping bags. It was
just life, real, tangible, normal life. I actually laughed. I
know that sounds, but I did. I laughed out loud,
the shaky, almost delirious laugh. All the fear, all the
weirdness in that mall. I'd let her get to me,
and now here I was standing in the middle of
a busy street, like nothing had happened. I even muttered
to myself, you really need to get a grip. But
then I noticed something. At first I couldn't put my
finger on it. I was too busy calming down, trying
to process everything. But as I watched the people in
the street, I realized they weren't moving right. There was
this stiffness to them, like their bodies were following a
script but didn't quite know how to stick to it.
One woman in a red coat walked past me, her
arms swinging in a loop, the same ex motion over
and over. The man across the street adjusted his hat,
then did it again and again, as if stuck in
a glitch. And the cars they were completely silent. No engines,
no honking, nothing but the faint hum of the city,
like a white noise machine trying to imitate what it
thought as streets would sound like. I felt my stomach drop,
my relief evaporated, replaced by a cold, sinking dread. Slowly,
I turned around, hoping, praying to see something normal behind me,
but what I saw was worse. The mall was still there.
It wasn't the same door I'd come out of, though
this one was different, taller, darker, with warped glass that
seemed to shimmer in the light. It was like the
building had followed me, refusing to let me go. The
laughter i'd felt earlier it was gone. All I could
think was I didn't escape. I never left. I don't
know why I went back inside. Maybe it was panic,
maybe it was desperation, or maybe it was because the
mall wouldn't let me leave no matter what I did.
But as soon as I stepped through the door, I
knew I'd made a mistake. The air was colder, sharper,
My breath fogged up, and the faint smell of mildew
hit me like a punch. The layout was different again.
The hallways were narrower, the walls closer, and I swear
I could feel them pressing in like they were a
lot even watching me. Every step I took made the
floor creak under my weight, like the building was groaning.
Unhappy I was back. The mannequins were worse now. They
were everywhere, lining the windows, slumped in the corners. Their
heads were gone, just smooth necks bent at our angles
as if they were staring, even though they had no eyes.
Some of them still had their hands outstretched, frozen in strange,
almost pleading gestures. I tried not to look at them,
but I couldn't help it. Every time I glanced away,
I could have sworn they'd moved closer. They weren't whispers anymore.
The soft murmurs had deepened into something gutural and low,
almost like growling, but still just quiet enough to make
me question if I was really hearing it. It sounded
like a crowd, all speaking at once in a language
I didn't understand. The echoes bounced off the walls, filling
the air with this constant, oppressive noise that made it
impossible to think straight. Then I noticed the signs. Storefronts
that had once been empty now had glowing signs, but
they weren't advertising anything normal. Some just had my name
in bold, flickering letters. Others had phrases that made my
stomach churn, like we've been waiting for you. One sign
simply read don't run. I didn't know what to do.
I kept walking, my legs moving on autopilot while my
brain screamed at me to get out, but there was
no getting out. I rounded a corner and froze. It
was the food caught again at least I think it
was the same peeling tiles, the same dim lighting. But
now the table with a styoprom cup wasn't off to
the side. It was in the dead center of the room,
like it had been waiting for me. The steam was
still there, curling up from the liquid inside, but now
the chair was pulled out and facing me. Sitting in
the chair was a mannekin. It wasn't like the others.
Its plastic skin was cracked, and its hand, smooth, artificial
and horribly human, was wrapped around the cup. Its head
was tilted, almost like it was looking right at me,
even though it didn't have a face. I don't know
how long I stood there staring at it, but eventually
my legs gave out. I slid to the floor, pressing
my back against the wall as my chest heaved with
shallow breaths. That's when I felt it, the wall behind me.
It wasn't solid, It was soft, warm, and it was moving, pulsing,
like I was leaning against something alive. I shot up
so fast I nearly fell over. My hands flew to
the wall, touching it like I needed proof that it
wasn't what I thought it was. But it was It
was pulsing beneath my fingers, steady and rhythmic, like a heartbeat.
I panicked. I completely lost it. I don't even remember
making the decision to run, but suddenly my legs were moving,
carrying me blindly through the endless corridors. I wasn't trying
to think any more. I couldn't. The walls pulsed, the
whispers chased me, and the lights flickered and stuttering, seize
reducing bursts. The shadows on the walls weren't staying still anymore.
They twisted and moved, stretching into shapes that didn't make sense.
I screamed for help. I don't know who I thought
would hear me, but I screamed until my throat felt raw.
The sound barely seemed to carry it, just fell flat,
like the air was swallowing it. I turned corners without thinking,
sprinting past store fronts that all looked the same. The
light above me flickered so violently I could barely see.
But up ahead there was something else, an exit, a
glowing green sign above a heavy steel door. It was
different from the others, no warped glass, no sense of
wrongness about it. It looked real. It felt real, but
so had the last exit. I hesitated, torn between staying
where I was and taking my chances with the door.
That's when I heard it behind me, the shuffle of footsteps,
long murmurs, just on the edge of hearing. Something was coming,
and it was getting closer. I didn't think. I just
ran for the door and threw it open. For a second,
I thought I'd made it. I felt the rush of air,
the promise of open space. But then I looked around.
I was back in the food court. At first, it
seemed empty again, just like before. But as my eyes
adjusted to the dim light, I realized I wasn't alone.
The tables were full. Dozens of people, or what looked
like people, were sitting perfectly still, facing each other. No
one spoke, no one moved, and none of them had faces.
Their heads were smooth and blank, featureless ovals of flesh
colored nothingness. They all sat stiffly, their hands resting neatly
on the tables. My eyes darted to the center of
the room, and there it was again, the table with
the styophoam cop the steam still curling lazily into the air.
The mannekin was gone. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.
The figures didn't react first, but then one by one
they began to turn slowly, methodically. They all turned to
face me in unison. I stumbled backwards, my legs shaking
so badly I almost fell. My back hit the wall,
and I realized there was nowhere to go. The figures
just kept staring at whatever the faceless equivalent of staring was.
I don't know how long I stood there, frozen, but
eventually I heard it again, the whispers, only this time
they weren't coming from the walls. They were coming from
the figures, dozens of them, all speaking at once in overlapping,
distorted murmurs, like they were trying to form words but couldn't.
And then one of them stood up. I couldn't move.
The figures rose from their seats one by one, their
movements stiff and unnatural, like someone was pulling them up
with invisible strings. They didn't speak, just that horrible, overlapping,
whispering sound coming from all of them. It filled the air,
pressing down on me until I thought my chest might
cave in. They surrounded me, slowly, forming a tight circle,
their faceless heads tilted as if studying me. My heart
was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears,
but my legs wouldn't respond. I was trapped. One of
them stepped closer, its movements jerky but deliberate. It reached
out and I wanted to scream, to shove it away,
to do something, but I couldn't. Its hand was cold
when it touched my face, like metal left out in
the winter. The moment his fingers brushed my skin, a
jolt shot through me. Everything went black. When I woke up,
I wasn't standing any more. I was sitting at a table,
the table, the one in the center of the food court.
A styropham cup of steaming liquid was in front of me,
just like it had been before. For a moment, I
thought I imagined everything. Maybe I'd passed out. Maybe it
was awesome kind of nightmare brought on by stress or dehydration.
I looked down, ready to grab the cup and shake
myself back to reality. But the hands resting on the
table weren't mine. There were smooth, plastic and joined at
the knuckles like a mannequin's. I tried to move them,
and they obeyed, but it didn't feel right, like there
was a disconnect between the command and the action. My
breath caught in my throat, and I looked around the
food court. The figures were back at the tables, sitting
still and silent, just like before. None of them moved,
but I could feel their attention on me. My mind raised,
trying to understand, to process what had happened, but all
I could feel was the crushing weight of realization I
was one of them. Now. I don't know how long
I sat there, staring at my hands and the cup
in front of me. Time doesn't seem to work the
same way here. I don't even know if I'm alive
and the way I was before. But I can still think,
I can still feel, and I can still remember what
I was. I'm a biologist. For the past four months,
I've been part of an international research team stationed in
one of the most isolated parts of the Arctic. The
mission was simple enough, study ancient is layers to reconstruct
historical climate patterns. Important work, sure, but not the kind
of thing you expect to haunt you. Our team had
ten people geologists, glaciologists, biologists like me, and technicians to
keep everything running. We were equipped with state of the
art drilling rigs, spectrometers, and thermal imaging systems. The station
itself was a preef obstructure perched the miles of endless
white tundra. Outside. The air could freeze your skin in seconds,
and the wind howled like it wanted to tear the
building apart. Inside it was the constant noise, the harm
of the machinery, the chatter of colms, and when the
ice shifted beneath us, a low resonant groaning that rattled
through the floors. Despite all the tech, the work wasn't glamorous.
My job was to analyze any organic material we pulled
from the ice cores, ancient pollen, microrobial remnants, that sort
of thing. Most days were just cataloging and running semples
under the microscope while the rest of the team drilled.
The monotony of it all weighed us. Sleep was broken
into short shifts, and the lack of sunlight messed with
our circadian rhythms. People started snapping at each other over
little things, whose turn it was to cook, why someone
didn't clean up their workstation. It was subtle at first,
but you could feel the tension simmering one of the geologists,
doctor Harris, was particularly on edge. He kept saying the
ice felt wrong. He'd run his hand along the drill course,
muttering about how dense it was, or how it didn't
fracture the way it should. Most of us brushed it
off of stress. After all, you don't get to pick
who you're stuck with on these expeditions, and Harris was
the type to find something to complain about. But then
a few days ago something changed. We've been drilling deeper
than we ever had before, almost two kilometers into the
ice sheet. The core samples from that depth were pristine,
layered with tiny air bubbles, trapped for tens of thousands
of years. It was a gold mine for climate data.
And then the drill hit something. I remember the way
everyone froze when the rig operator called it out. At
that depth, there shouldn't have been anything but ice, but
the drill head had stopped cold. The team pulled the
core up cautiously, and when we saw what was embedded
in it, even Harris went quiet. It was a massive
block of ice, denser than anything we'd encountered. Inside it
was something dark, a shape just barely visible. It wasn't
clear enough to identify, but it was large, much larger
than any organic material with expected. My first thought was
that we'd hit a tree, maybe a fragment of ancient
forest preserved in the ice. Harris, though, was pale as
a sheet. This doesn't belong here, he said, We shouldn't
dig it out. Of course, we didn't listen. Curiosity outweighs
common sense in our field more often than that. That's
why we were out here in the first place. We
extracted the ice block with surgical precision, using the station's
gantry crane to lift it from the drill site and
transport it to the lab. The thing was massive, roughly
the size of a sunken trunk, and impossibly dense. Harris
argued again, springing in inside, but the rest of us
were too intrigued. This was at once in a lifetime
find something buried beneath two tu kilometers of ice. Shouldn't exist,
let alone pulse faintly in the cold. In the lab,
we used controlled thermal plates to slowly melt the outer
layers of ice, keeping the temperature just above freezing, to
preserve whatever was inside. The work took ours, and we
all rotated shifts, logging every detail meticulously, and the ice
thin enough to see through. The shape became clearer a heart.
I can't describe the unease that hit me when I
first realized what I was looking at. It wasn't a
human heart. It was too large, about the size of
a basketball, and the surface was rough and blackened like
charred wood. But it was unmistakably organic, with thick vein
like structures webbing across it, and the strangest part, it
was beating slowly, faintly, but undeniably alive. Dr Walker was
the first to speak, what the hell are we looking at?
No one answered. Harris muttered under his breath and left
the room. The rest of us hovered around the observation table,
staring in stun silence as the heart pulsed in slow,
deliberate rhythms. We ran every test you could think of.
Thermal imaging showed no heat signature. It was as cold
as the eyes that had been trapped in. Scans with
the spectrometer revealed no identifiable cellular structure, nothing remotely resembling DNA.
It didn't even register as organic matter by conventional standards,
and yet the rhythmic contradictions continued steady and unyielding, like
a clock ticking down to something. Walker wanted to escalate.
This could redefine biology, she said, pacing the room. We're
looking at something older than humanity itself, may be older
than life as we know it. Harris, on the other hand,
was livid. He stormed back into the lab, at one
point slamming his hand on the table. You're not listening,
he shouted. This isn't a discovery, it's a warning. We
shouldn't be poking at it. No one took him seriously,
myself included. I told myself he was cracking under the pressure.
Four months of isolation can mess with any one's head,
but part of me couldn't shake the feeling that he
might be right. That night, after the others had gone
to bed, they stayed behind in the lab, staring at
the thing in its containment chamber. The heartbeat was faint,
but it had a strange resonance to it, almost like
it was echoing through the room. I thought I was
imagining it, but when I left to get some air
in the main corridor, I could still hear it, faint
and rhythmic, like it was coming from the walls. I
didn't sleep much that night. Every time I closed my eyes,
I heard it, the steady, unrelenting thud of something ancient
and alive, something that shouldn't exist. The next step was
to transfer the heart into a customed containment chamber. The
lab had an isolation tank we usually used for volatile samples,
complete with temperature controls, reinforced glass, and a heap of
filtration system. It wasn't designed for something alive or whatever
this thing was, but it would have to do. As
we worked, I couldn't shake the feeling that it was
watching us. It didn't have eyes, thank god, but every
time I glanced at it, the beat seemed intentional, like
it was aware of us. That's impossible, of course, just
my mind playing tricks. At least that's what I kept
telling myself. We ran every test imaginable. Harris protested, but
Walker overruled him. Samples were taken and analyzed, thin slices
of tissue, microfluid tests, even a spectroscopic scan to identify
its chemical makeup. The results made no sense. One sample
showed isotropic signatures consistent with ancient biological material, something preserved
for millions of years. Another indicated who was practically new
no more than a few weeks old. Harris refused to
even lock at the results. You're asking the wrong questions,
he muttered, pacing the room like a caged animal. You're
trying to explain something that doesn't belong here. I wanted
to argue, but I couldn't ignore what was happening around us.
The station's equipment started acting up. Our spectrometers gave inconsistent readings,
the cry of freezeor alarm went off without reason, and
the atmospheric monitors kept resetting to zero. The worst was
the temperature by the heaters being cranked at their macs.
The lab was freezing and frost started forming on the windows.
We checked for leaks, recalibrated everything, but nothing worked. Then
came the dreams. It started with Walker. She mentioned one
morning that she had a nightmare about a vast, pulsating
shadow beneath the ice. The next day, Harris admitted he
dreamt the same thing. By the third night, even I
couldn't sleep without seeing it, this infinite, breathing darkness that
felt like it was pulling me under, and I brushed
it off a stress. That's what scientists do, right, rationalize
control the narrative, but Harris was losing it. He outright
refused to go near the heart anymore. You need to
destroy it, he hissed that walker during one of our meetings.
This isn't science, it's something else, something else, She shot back,
you'll being ridiculous, am I look around you? You think
it's a coincidence the station's falling apart, that we're all
having the same damn dream. No one answered him, but
the room felt heavier after that. One night, I stayed
late in the lab reviewing footage from the containment chamber.
The camera we set up had been recording non stop
since the heart was transferred. At first, it was just
more of the same, slow, steady beats, a faint shimmer
of condensation on the glass. But as I skipped through
the time stamps, something caught my eye. The thudding sound.
It wasn't random. I cross referenced the audio with environmental
data from the station. Every time someone entered the room,
the heart's beat became stronger, faster. It wasn't just alive,
It was reacting to us. I sat back, staring at
the screen as the realization sank in. The thing wasn't
just pulsing it was waiting. The breaking point came when
doctor Walker finally decided enough was enough. We're scientists, she said,
her voice strained but resolute. But we're also human, and
we have limits. This thing is beyond them. It was
the first time anyone openly acknowledged the dread we'd all
been feeling. Even Harris, who had been spiraling into paranoia
for days, nodded in grim agreement. For the first time,
we all seemed united in a singular purpose to win this.
The plan was straightforward. We'd use the station's high temperature furnace,
normally reserved for incinerating biohazardous waste, to destroy the heart completely.
The furnace could reach temperatures upwards of fifteen hundred degrees celsius,
enough to obliterate organic material to ash. Nothing would survive that,
not even this monstrosity. The preparation was meticulous. Walker insisted
on strict protocol, and for once no one questioned her.
We wore our full protective gear, thermal gloves, lab coats,
and goggles, despite the bitter cords still permeating the station.
The heart was carefully transferred into a reinforced steel container,
then wheeled to the furnace room on a trolley. Harris
kept his distance, his eyes darting nervously to the chamber's
glass windows, as if expecting the heart to leap out
at him. I focused on the equipment, double checking the
furnace's settings and ensuring the fail safes were active. It
was a model I was familiar with, a robust, industrial
grade incinerator designed for extreme reliability. The digital display glowed
faintly in the dim light, and I felt a small,
fleeting sense of control. We had this. As the heart
was placed into the furnace, I couldn't help but notice
how it seemed still. The pulsing had stopped entirely, almost
as if it knew what was coming. My rational mind
told me it was just coincidence, a mechanical process, nothing more,
but a small irrational part of me wondered if it
was holding its breath. Walker closed the furnace door with
a finality, then echoed in the silent room. She turned
to me, nodding once start it. I pressed the button
and the machine roared to life. Flames burst within the chamber,
visible through the small observation window. The heart was engulfed
in an instant, Its dark unnatural mass consumed by the fire.
It felt like I had lifted my head out of water.
The oppressive thudding sound vanished, the sudden silence felt deafening.
Harris let out a shaky laugh, a sound that teetered
between relief and hysteria. HiT's over, he muttered, It's finally over.
Even I felt a glimmer of hope. The tension that
had gripped the station for so long seemed to lift,
replaced by a tentative sense of calm. We stayed there
for what felt like ours, watching the furnace's temperature hold steady,
ensuring nothing remained but ash. As the flames tied down,
the furnace's senses confirmed total incineration. Walker turned to the
team with a weary smile. It's done. Let's get some rest.
For the first time in days, I believed her. I
woke to the sound of something crashing so loudly that
it felt like the entire station had collapsed. The air
was freezing, colder than it had any right to be indoors,
and I could see my breath hanging in the dim
emergency lighting. My heart pounded as I grabbed my flashlight
and threw on my coat, ignoring the trembling in my hands.
The noise had come from the lab. I ran, slipping
slightly on the icy patches forming on the floor. By
the time I reached the lab door, I already knew
something was terribly wrong. The air felt thicker, heavier, and
there was a faint rhythmic sound coming from inside, the
sound I hadn't heard since we destroyed the Heart. Thud, thud, thud.
The lab was in ruins. The containment chamber, which we'd
used the study of the Heart, was shattered, fixed, the
walls bent outwards, as if something inside had pushed its
way out. Equipment lay strewn across the floor, Monitors blinking
erratically in the center of the room, sitting in a
pool of what I could only hope wasn't blood. Was
the heart. It was vibrant, now, an unnatural crimson that
almost glowed in the dim light. It pulsed steadily, stronger
than before, the sound so loud I could feel it
reverberating in my chest. My breath caught in my throat
as I stepped closer, my flashlight trembling in my grip.
This isn't possible, I whispered, my mind, scrambled for answers.
Could it have been a hallucination, a sheared delusion. Had
we somehow failed to destroy it? But no, there were
the ashes still inside the furnace. Yes, undeniable proof of
what we'd done. And yet here it was the sound
of glass shattering behind me made me spin around. Harris
stood there, wild eyed, clutching a piece of broken equipment
in one hand. We should have left it alone, he hissed.
You all had to push, didn't you. You had to know, Harris.
Calm down, I said, my voice shaking. We don't know
what's happening. We'll figure it out, figure it out. He laughed,
a harsh, grating laugh. You don't get it. It's not
just the heart. It's connected to something, something alive. I
opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off,
stepping closer, his face inches from mine. You felt it,
haven't you? The dreams, the it's not just in our heads,
it's broadcasting calling. His words hit me like a punch
to the gut. The dreams. I knew exactly what he
was talking about, The endless void, the sense of something
massive shifting just out of sight, beneath the eyes. I
wanted to believe it was stress, my brain playing tricks
on me. But the way Harris looked at me, desperate
and unhinged, made me wonder if it wasn't something more. Harris,
I said, carefully, you're not making sense. What are you saying?
He pointed a shaking finger at the heart. That thing
isn't just an organ, it's a beacon. It's waking something up.
I called chill, ran down my spine. I glanced at
the heart. It's steady thudding, now, feeling more like a
countdown than a pulse. The air grew colder, and the
lights flickered ominously. Harris snapped. He grabbed a metal stool
and hurled it across the room, smashing a monitor in
a shower of sparks. We're doomed, he screamed. We're nothing
but ants digging into a mountain, and now it knows
we're here. Stop. I shouted, trying to grab him, but
he shoved me away. He picked up another piece of
equipment and began smashing it against the lab bench. The
noise was deafening, echoing through the room and mixing with
the relentless thud of the heart. Harris get a grip
Walker's voice rang out as she burst into the lab,
her face pale but resolute. We need to focus, we
can fix this. Froze, staring at her like she'd just
spoken in another language. Then he dropped the broken equipment,
his shoulders sagging. It's too late, he whispered, it's already awake.
The lights flickered again, and the rhythmic thudding grew louder,
almost deafening. This time. It wasn't just the heart, it
was coming from beneath our feet. The station had never
felt so hostile. The air was so cold it heard
to breathe, and frost crepted it from the walls like
a living thing. My breath fogged in the weak emergency
lighting as the temperature plummeted far below what our heaters
could handle. The lights flickered in and out, casting the
lap in a strobel like chaos. Every few seconds. The
ice beneath us groaned like a wounded animal, and through
it all the heart beat faster, louder, sinking perfectly with
the tremors beneath our feet. Doctor Walker's voice cut through
the chaos, barking orders, We're not running. We contain it again. Now,
no Harris shouted, backing toward the door, his eyes wild.
You're insane. He's too late. If we stay, we're dead.
I hesitated, caught between them. Walker's confidence was resolute, almost comforting,
but Harris, Harris looked like he'd already seen the end.
His fear was infectious. I wanted the bolt to run
as far as I could, but some part of me
couldn't let go the questions. The impossibility of the heart
hid a dug into my mind, and I couldn't leave
without understanding. I'm with Walker, I said, forcing the words
through the lump in my throat. Harris shot me a
look of pure disbelief before turning and bolting into the hallway.
Walker grabbed my arm. Let's move, she said, pulling me
toward the containment chamber. We seal it. That's the only way.
The heart lay in the center of the lab, pulsating
like a drum beat that vibrated through my bones. Walker
and I worked quickly, moving in a mechanical rhythm born
of pure adrenaline. We pushed the shattered remnants of the
containment chamber out of the way and hauled out a
secondary unit. The smaller, less robust chamber meant for biological samples.
It wasn't ideal, but it was all we had temperature
regulation first, Walker said, her voice trembling but steady. I
nodded and grabbed the control panel, fumbling with the calibration dials.
The unit hummed to life, and I felt a flicker
of hope. Maybe we could fix this, maybe it wasn't
too late. But then the ice screamed. There's no other
word for it. A high pitched, bone deep sound echoed
through the station as the floor beneath us cracked violently.
I staggered, nearly lose my grip on the containment panel.
Walker cursed and grabbed the edge of the bench for support.
The heart's rhythm changed. It was an erratic or panicked.
It was intentional, calculated. Each beat seemed to match the
tremors beneath us, growing louder faster. I glanced at Walker,
and for the first time, I saw fear in her eyes.
We need to hurry, she said, her voice. Tight shadows
danced on the walls, flickering unnaturally in the failing light.
They moved like smoke, twisting and shifting into shapes I
couldn't comprehend for a moment, I swore one of them
looked at me, though it had no eyes, no face.
Just avoid that radiated malice. We've got it, Walker shouted.
As we locked the chamber seals. The heart was contained again,
its pulsations muffled but still deafening. Relief washed over me
for a split second, but then the lab floor heaved, violently,
throwing us to the ground. The figia opened without warning.
A jagged, gaping more split the lab in two, swallowing
equipment and debris into an impossibly dark for The containment
chamber teetered on the edge, the hearts beat echoing louder
and faster, like a countdown, and then it fell. Everything
went still. The heart sound disappeared, leaving a silence so
profound it felt like a vacuum. I thought it was over.
I thought we'd stopped it. But then the noise began.
It wasn't a heartbeat, it wasn't anything I could truly describe.
A low, resonant sound rumbled from the depths of the fisire,
shaking the walls and vibrating in my chest. It wasn't
just a noise. It was a presence, something enormous, something
alive was down there, stirring in the darkness. Walker and
I lock dies. She didn't say anything, she didn't have to.
We both knew the heart wasn't the thing, It was
just a piece of it. The station felt like it
was being ripped apart. Every step sent shock waves through
my body as the ice beneath us heaved and groaned.
Walker and I scrambled out of the lab. The containment
chamber and the heart long gone swallowed into the abyss.
The fusure stretched through the main hallway, now fracturing the
floor and walls, as if the station itself was being consumed.
We found Harris in the control room, frantically packing a
bag with whatever supplies he could grab. His wild eyes
locked on mine as he hissed, I told you, I
told you. We never should have touched it. There was
no time to argue. Walker grabbed the Emergence he satellite
beacon from the wall, while I snagged a handheld radio,
though I knew it was useless in the storm outside,
we bolted for the airlock, barely managing to pull on
our cold weathered gear before stepping into the howling blizzard.
The wind hit like a freight train stinging every exposed
inch of skin and reducing visibility to a few feet.
The station was a fading silhouette behind us, its lights
flickering like a dying signal. We trudged forward, relying on
muscle memory to navigate towards the secondary outpost a few
kilometers away. That's when the ground shook again. Different this time,
it wasn't the random shuddering of ice under strain. It
was rhythmic, deliberate. I risked a glance back, and through
the swirling snow, I saw something moving. It was massive, indescribable.
The ice itself seemed to ripple and bulge, as if
something enormous was swimming beneath it, displacing the frozen landscape
with each movement. I froze, my breath catching in my throat,
but Walker yanked me forward. Keep moving, she shouted over
the wind. We stumbled into the outpost hours later, half
frozen and barely coherent, Harris collapsed against the wall, muttering
incoherently about shadows and whispers. Walker and I managed to
activate the backup generator and send a distress signal. Then
we waited. Rescue didn't come for three days. By the
time the team arrived, the storm had passed, leaving the
Arctic wasteland eerily quiet. When we tried to lead them
back to the station, we found nothing. The sight where
it had stood was now a featureless expanse of ice,
as though the building itself had been raised. There was
no debris, no signs of the feesure, just smooth, undisturbed snow,
stretching endlessly in every direction. Back at base camp, I
filed my report. I included everything the heart, the containment chamber,
the tremors, and the impossible creature beneath the ice. Aven
uploaded the fragmented video logs from the station, though they
were distorted and beyond recognition. The official response came weeks later.
My account was dismissed as stress induced delusions brought on
by isolation and environmental conditions. Harris quit the project entirely,
retreating to his family in the South. Walker stayed on,
but she wouldn't speak to me after the debrief. I
could see the guilt in her eyes. She blamed herself,
though I knew none of us could have known what
we were waking up. As for me, I thought I
could move on, But I was wrong. The dreams started
a month later. At first they were just fragments, dark
shapes beneath the ice, the sound of faint thudding in
the distance. Then they became more vivid. I was back
in the lab, staring at the heart as it pulsed
stronger and faster, the shadows on the walls growing darker, deeper.
The worst part is the sound, that rhythmic thudding. It's
with me all the time now. Sometimes I hear it
in my apartment, soft but insistent, like it's calling to me.
I don't know what we awaken beneath the ice. I
don't know if it's still there or if it's already spreading.
But I do know one thing. We were never meant
to find it, and it's not done yet.