We all know it happens, doom scrolling through an app when you should be in bed. Already midnight and I couldn’t stop myself from continuing to swipe away; passing through the live channels of anything interesting. Someone talking politics, the kid blabbering about nothing, someone just laying still and pretending to sleep. I stopped mid scroll on this one though.
A woman sat before me, her face taking up most of tbe screen. I’ll call it a face but it was clearly a mask. Pitch black eyes seemed to look through me and at me at the same time. Her mouth cracked open into an obscure grin.
None of this was what you usually expect to see, but nothing out of the realm of possibility. I stopped scrolling and watched.
She spoke to the audience in a strange robotic voice, almost as if it was edited, she talked and laughed, a borderline mechanical chirping, like the sound a person makes when you squeeze the air out of them mixed with a nail hitting the ground.
I couldn’t look away as her jaw opened and closed, almost like someone mimicking speech while still saying things perfectly clear.
She looked away from me, a strange calm went into my head as she continued to look away; even when her hand came into view, as dark as her eyes, and clawed. As if her body itself were made from shadow.
Suddenly her face snapped back towards me, and she let out a hiss like a cornered animal, as if my thoughts alone about her had upset her.
She continued to state directly into my eyes through the screen as her body twisted and warped, moving unnaturally, he altered voice now sounding as if she was speaking directly into my ears.
“Do I scare you?”
I don’t know why, but I answered. My fingers started to type as I focused on the letters, still feeling bed eyes bore into me.
I’d barely sent “just not what I expected to see tonight” when she erupted into a chorus of giggles
All around me I could hear it, but I couldn’t look away.
“What do you want to see?”
She asked, and I thought quietly for a moment, as she twitched and swayed. I noticed the number of viewers dropping drastically with each second.
“I really don’t know.”
I said aloud, and her Jaw lowered, maximizing the masks abnormal grin.
“It’s late. You should sleep”
She said, and I realized i had never typed an answer to her.
The viewers had dropped to one. Just me and her.
“I don’t think I can now”
I started to type; when she interrupted
“We can talk.”
My blood turned cold as I heard her voice echo the words more distorted a second time.
“No, you’re right I should try to sleep”
I started saying. If she really could hear me I didn’t want to piss her off.
The live ended as soon as I said it, but I could still hear her laugh, distant, as if it was playing in a car going down the road.
I laid down still on my bed, and set my phone face down on the nightstand.
The bedroom clock ticking softly, the time already 2 am. Had I really watched her twitch and giggle for 2 whole hours?
I don’t know how so much time had passed, but I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.
I saw her, in my dreams, walking along a dark road towards me, reaching towards me. “We can talk” she would say and I remained silent. She would get within a few feet of me, and the dream would start over. I don’t know how many times I saw this repeat that first night, but I know when I woke up, I was exhausted.
The day was normal, I went about my business until once again I was laying on my bed unable to sleep. This time my phone was already down and I closed my eyes, a familiar hiss woke me from my sleep to find her standing in my doorframe, her body once again twitching unnaturally. I blinked and she was gone. Checking the time, I could see it was midnight again.
I couldn’t help myself. I opened the app and instantly, there she was. Live, chattering, and laughing. I turned my phone off. I didn’t need another night of that.
When I closed my eyes, and started to sleep, once again I could see her
As if I remembered the entire live from the night prior, and was replaying it in my head. Quickly however I realized this wasn’t the case, she answered new questions, said things I hadn’t heard her say before.
This went on for three more nights, seeing her in my head, seeing her live in my head.
I stopped sleeping, and started seeing her in shadows. I’d hear her voice in the middle of the day
“Are you scared of me?”
She questioned
“Yes, please leave me alone”
I said aloud.
And for a night, she did. No dreams, no seeing her, no laugh.
I opened the app again tonight, she was live streaming again. She looked into my eyes.
“I missed you”
She said,
By 2 am I was the only one watching her wretched display of demented sounds and body movements.
My God why can’t I stop watching?
(Inspired by randomly finding 7awi8 live on tik tok)