I’ve decided to install some cameras around, to be safe. If anything peculiar happened, I wanted to have a friend check them out. Or, at least, tell me I was being crazy.
I set them up the next day, after the incident I posted earlier.
After that, I kept minding my own business. I was terrified, and I know what you guys would say. ‘Why would you still stay there? Why were you so calm?’ Well, there was this odd feeling I had. Something was definitely off, but somehow I was able to go through that, and be ok.
Almost as if you’re walking on a tight rope, and you know that it is dangerous, but you don’t want to hesitate or stop, or even slow down, because you somehow feel that the less you think about it and go on, the safer you are. From falling. Although, in my case, I didn’t exactly know what my fate would be.
It was Thursday. I had just come home from my job (I also teach creative writing at a university.). It is important that I write down my routine that day.
I unlocked the door, got inside, locked it back. Took my coat off and hung it up. Took my shoes off, put my keys on a table. Went upstairs. Changed, washed my hands, came back down to cook dinner.
Chopped, stirred, turned the oven on, set the table. Worked my way around the stove, sat down and ate my dinner, washed the dishes, so on. Then went upstairs, bathroom, sent some texts.
Went back downstairs and turned on the TV.
After a while, I began dosing off. I could not keep up with whatever fight was going on on the show, and my mind began lazily sweeping away, until a dream made its way in, mixed with reality. I fell asleep.
I awoke, and was greeted by silence - no eerie sounds, no movement.
Silence… weird. Hadn’t I left the TV on?
Oh, okay.
I reached my hand out for the remote, which wasn’t in the usual spot. The whole room was silent, so the thing was either very still, or it had left.
I needed to call my friend and ask them to come over, so that I could have them check the cameras.
The house remained silent for a while, until I heard his car in the driveway. Good. I let him in and asked him if he’d noticed anything unusual around.
‘Not really.’
Opened up my laptop and had him access the footage.
‘Okaaaay, let’s see. So we’re looking into today, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ll just download the last 12 hours. That should be enough. Or the last 6?’
‘Just do twelve.’
‘Fine.’
I heard the keyboard clacking for a bit, then we waited until he said ‘There it is.’
‘Hm hm, fast forward, nothing unusual, house empty… Here you are, coming home from work… You’re taking your coat off, shoes, keys, went upstairs… nothing there. Faaast forward. Here you are again. Back down… opened the fridge…….’
He fell silent for a while. At first, I figured he wasn’t seeing anything, so he got tired of narrating what I was doing. I even thought the thing might not even show on camera. I didn’t need another person to think I was crazy. But then, the silence had gone on for too long.
‘So? What do you see?’
‘Are you fucking with me or what?’
‘What?’
I heard him sigh. ‘Look, I’m really not in the mood, so please tell me if you’re fucking with me.’
‘What did you see?’
‘Let’s just go to my car. I’ll take your laptop with us, and phone, and keys, and I’ll download some more footage. And you’re spending the night with me.’
‘Why?’ My stomach dropped.
‘I’ll tell you. I will. Let’s just go.’
His voice was shaking a bit, and I knew he was trying to be calm, but his movements were too rushed, too unhinged, he was freaking out. I put my coat on, took my wallet and keys and we left.
We got inside the car, but he immediately turned the engine on and hit the gas, without saying a word.
‘What did you see? Just tell me, stop freaking me out.’
‘I’m really sorry for you and what you had to go through. That is some paranormal activity shit.’
‘What did you see?’
‘Okay. Uhm.’ he cleared his voice. ‘So… you’d opened the fridge, took out some stuff, then started preparing dinner. I saw some movement upstairs, like, in the corner of the screen. Then… uh, this… Fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain. It was a thing… it was so fucking creepy… looked like you a bit, but not really, cause it had longer arms and legs and a very bony face, wearing some clothes… I assume yours?’
‘So was it human?’
‘No… I don’t think so… its arms bent so weirdly and it was taller than you, and it walked… fuck, what the fuck… it walked so strange, and acted so strange, and it had this hair, thin and falling off… and the face…’
‘Face?’
‘Yeah, its eyes were really big. That was without a doubt the scariest shit I’ve ever seen… and fixated on you the whole time.’
‘What was it doing?’
‘This is gonna sound crazy, but I think it was mimicking you. It literally watched you non-stop, and the shit that freaks me out the most is that it was in front of you the whole time. While you cut the vegetables. While you ate. While you were watching TV. Studying you, poorly mimicking what you were doing… Then you fell asleep.’
‘Yeah?’
‘It watched you the whole time. Took its bony finger and, at some point, pressed the off button on the remote. Its face literally sat like 2 inches from yours for a while. It just stared… until you woke up… then walked… I don’t know if I can call it walked… upstairs.’
After he finished talking, we sat in silence for a while. I didn’t know what to say. He parked his car and we went up to his apartment, then sat down to download the rest of the footage.
‘For fuck’s sake, Will, I swear to God, it’s been watching you non-stop… Like, I’ve downloaded the footage since the cameras were set up, so that’s two months ago, and it’s here… all the time. Sometimes it climbs up to the corner of your wall, on the ceiling, and watches, other times it… shadows you…’
I felt sick. All this time, when I thought I was alone…
‘And that isn’t even the weirdest thing. Two months ago, it didn’t have hair. I think the hair is not its own.’
‘What?’
‘I think… it got it from somewhere. I think it’s picking at your hair while you sleep. It’s trying to become human. To become you.’
I was about to throw up.
‘Even in the movements… when you’re not there, it takes your things, tries them out, it looks fucking terrifying. It is literally learning, studying you…’
I knew, for some reason, and I didn’t even need proof… I just knew it had come from the stairs, climbed up from whatever portal had been there, and I knew it was trying to lure me down there. So it could take my place. So it could become… me.
I explained everything to my friend. There was nothing I could do, except get the fuck out. I didn’t know how to close the portal, and I needed my friend’s help if I wanted to try. I was trying to evaluate my risks, my options, when my friend said something that made my blood run cold.
‘Look, if you don’t go through that portal stuff, it will probably just kill you and take your place. I think the next time you return homeit will have figured that out.’