Speaker 1: It started on the third floor of an old apartment
building I just moved into. The place was cheap, like
what's the catch?
Speaker 2: Cheap?
Speaker 1: But I was broken, desperate, and appealing wallpaper didn't scare
me nearly as much as student loans. First night, I
lit up to celebrate a new highbrid Caleb gave me
called dejau blue blueberry forward, heavy in the brain with
slow rolling body buzz. He told me, smoke this and
watch who shows up. I thought he meant hunger or paranoia,
but it was something else entirely.
Speaker 3: I took a long hit by the crack kitchen.
Speaker 1: Window and exhaled into the moonlight. That's when I heard it,
three slow knocks at my front door. No one knew
I lived here. When I opened a door, he was
just standing there, tall, pale, wearing a faded brown coat,
his face off like it was built from memories that
didn't quite match.
Speaker 3: He smiled tight and unblinking.
Speaker 2: Evening He said, just wanted to see if you remember me.
Speaker 1: I blinked, Do do I know you? Or have we
met before? I asked, brain swimming and smoking confusion. His
smile twitched wider.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Then he turned and walked down the hall, disappearing into
the stairwell without another word. The next night, I smoked again,
same strain, same window, three knocks.
Speaker 3: I froze. This time I didn't open the door. Instead,
I peered through the people.
Speaker 1: Nothing there. I exhaled and turned around. He was standing
in my kitchen, same coat, same crooked grin. He tilted
his head.
Speaker 2: Do I know you or have we met before?
Speaker 3: My skin crawled. No, you're not supposed to be here.
He stepped closer.
Speaker 2: But you invited me in every time you smoked that strain,
and you opened the door wider.
Speaker 1: I tried to back away, but my legs didn't move,
like I was watching some one else's dream from inside
their skull.
Speaker 3: Then I blinked. He was gone. I tried to stop.
Speaker 1: Next morning, I flushed the rest of daj out, blew
down the toilet, got rid of the lighter, but the
apartment still smelled like it, like the smoke had soaked
into the walls. When I closed my eyes, I heard
the knock. When I tried to sleep, I dreamt of
his face, stitched.
Speaker 3: From old memories.
Speaker 1: One day I woke up and found a joint perfectly
rolled on my night stand, lit burning slowly calling me.
I caved, smoked it down to the filter. Everything melted,
Walls shifted, windows blinked. My own reflection looked disappointed. Then
three knocks, not at the door inside my head.
Speaker 3: I turned.
Speaker 1: He was there again, closer than ever. His skin rippled,
and for a moment I saw my own face underneath.
Speaker 2: You don't remember me yet, he asked, I was you
long ago the first time you smoked it?
Speaker 1: He reached out, touched my chest, and then he said,
welcome back. After that, night time stopped behaving correctly. Morning
would come without warning, light bleeding to the blinds like
an accusation, and I'd be sitting in a chair I
don't remember pulling out ashes piled high and an astray.
I didn't own no joint in my hand, but my
lungs they burned like I'd been smoking all night. The
mirror in the bathroom stopped reflecting me properly. Sometimes my
eyes blinked a half a second too late. Sometimes the
mouth smiled when I didn't. Once I leaned close.
Speaker 3: And whispered, are you there?
Speaker 1: The reflection answered softly, yes. I tried leaving the apartment.
The hallway stretched longer than it should have doors, repeating numbers,
shifting three C, becoming three B, then three C again.
The exit sign flickered, spelling remember instead of exit. A
neighbor passed me, an older woman with hollow cheeks and
shaking hands.
Speaker 3: She avoided my eyes.
Speaker 1: You smoked the blue stuff, right, she muttered as she
shuffled by.
Speaker 3: I grabbed her sleeve. What happens here? She swallowed.
Speaker 1: You don't leave, you get replaced. Before I could ask more,
she knocked on the door that looked exactly like mine.
Speaker 3: Three times. The door opened from the inside.
Speaker 1: She screamed as the smoke swallowed her. The door closed
and the hallway shortened again. I needed answers, so I
called Kleb. He didn't remember giving me the strain, not
this time.
Speaker 4: What are you talking about, he said, Gage all blue,
nah Man, that was a limited one years ago. Pulled
it after people started claiming weird shit, memory loss, disassociation,
seeing doubles.
Speaker 3: My stomach twisted. Who grew it? There was a pause.
Speaker 4: No one knows cut your showed up like it been everywhere.
Speaker 1: Before he could say more, the line filled with static
through it. I heard knocking, Caleb screamed.
Speaker 2: Once er.
Speaker 1: I found a hidden behind the radiator a notebook swollen
with age and smoke stingers. Inside were names, dozens of them,
all written in different hands, all ending with the same sentence,
Do I know you?
Speaker 3: Or have we met before? The last page was.
Speaker 1: Blank, except for my name already written below it. Fresh
ink slowly bled into the paper.
Speaker 3: Forming new words. You're late that night. I didn't smoke.
I didn't need to. The apartment exhaled for me.
Speaker 1: Smoke pored on the vents, the sockets, the cracks in
the walls. The door knocked itself, three slow raps, echoing
from everywhere at once.
Speaker 3: He stepped out of my shadow.
Speaker 1: No coat now, no disguise, just me, older, thinner eyes,
burning out by repetition.
Speaker 2: I was the first tenant, he said, and the last.
The strain doesn't trap people, It traps versions.
Speaker 1: He leaned in close, breath freaking of blueberries and ash.
Speaker 2: Every time someone smokes it here, they don't see me,
They see who they're going to become.
Speaker 1: I tried to scream instead, I spoke his words. My
body moved without asking. He stepped backwards into me, like
slipping into a jacket. The room steadied, The panic faded
when it was over. I stood alone by the window,
smoke curling lazily around my head. Somewhere deep inside me.
Someone knocked. I smiled, tight and unblinking. The next tenant
arrived the following evening, young, nervous, broke. I watched them
light up at the crack kitchen window, eyes wide with relief.
The smoke turned blue. I knocked on the door three times.
When they opened it, I smiled and asked a question
that felt older than language. Do I know you or
have we met before? The building is still cheap, still
smells like blueberries, and regret still available. If you ever
need somewhere to disappear, or somewhere that already knows you,
just light up.
Speaker 3: I'll be waiting