THE RECORDING
1433 Words
The scream tore itself from Emberly’s throat before she even processed what she was seeing. She scrambled backward on the floor, feet slipping on the hardwood, adrenaline burning through every vein.
The silhouette outside the window didn’t move.
It stood completely still, as though carved from the night itself—tall, angular, with shoulders too broad and posture too unnatural to be anyone she knew. Rainwater still clung to the glass, catching faint streaks of amber from the city lights. Each droplet distorted the figure, giving it a wavering, monstrous outline.
“Stop…” she whispered, breath trembling. “Please… please just go…”
But the silhouette didn’t go.
Instead, it lifted its head.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Emberly choked back another cry, hands shaking violently as she reached for her phone, fingers fumbling. She pointed it toward the window, trying to capture video—proof, anything she could show someone, anyone.
The phone camera focused.
The lens adjusted.
And then—
The window was empty.
The silhouette was gone.
Her phone slipped from her hand and clattered onto the floor.
“No… no, no, no—” Emberly pressed her palms into her eyes, rocking forward. “I saw him. I saw him. I know I—”
Her chest tightened, breath hitching.
She forced herself to crawl to the window. Her shaking fingers pushed the curtain aside. She looked down at the alley below
Empty.
Silent.
Only the faint hum of a distant generator and the dripping of rain gutters.
No footprints.
No shadows fleeing into the night.
Nothing.
The kind of nothing that made her doubt her entire reality.
Her phone buzzed behind her.
Her skin crawled.
She turned.
One new message.
Did you like the view?
Her throat closed.
Her pulse became a drumbeat in her ears.
Emberly:
What do you want from me??
The reply came instantly.
Almost amused.
I want you to remember.
Her stomach knotted painfully.
Remember what?
She typed with trembling fingers:
Remember what??
This time, there was no text
Instead, an audio file appeared on her screen.
A three-second recording.
Titled:
“Under_Your_Bed_01”
Her blood ran cold.
Her fingers didn’t want to move, but her body acted without permission—pure terror guiding her as she pressed play.
Static crackled for a second.
Then—
Breathing.
Slow.
Shallow.
Way too close.
Then a whisper, so faint she almost missed it.
“Emberly…”
She dropped the phone as though it had burned her.
“No…” she whispered, shaking her head violently. “This isn’t happening, it isn’t—”
But she’d heard it.
Her name.
In her room.
Under her bed.
She staggered backward until she hit the opposite wall. Tears burned down her face—not silent ones, but sharp, gasping tears that clawed their way out of her.
She grabbed her jacket with shaking hands and bolted out of the bedroom. She didn’t turn off the lights, didn’t care if the door slammed behind her. She ran out into the hallway of the apartment building, not stopping until she reached the stairwell.
Her breath was ragged.
Her vision blurred with panic.
She descended all three flights without looking back, terrified that if she did, the figure would be right there—leaning over the railing, watching.
---
The Street
The storm had softened into a drizzle, the city glowing with wet neon reflections. Cars hissed across puddles, their headlights slicing through mist. Emberly ran out into the street, barely avoiding a cyclist who cursed at her as he swerved.
She didn’t care.
She couldn’t stay in that apartment another second.
She didn’t slow down for two blocks, three blocks, until her lungs were burning and her legs shook. She finally stumbled behind a closed convenience store, collapsing against the wall.
“Think…” she gasped. “Think, Emberly, think…”
Her chest heaved as she forced herself to breathe.
Someone was stalking her.
Someone was inside her apartment.
Someone knew her.
Someone wanted her to “remember.”
But remember what?
What part of her life was missing?
Her past felt like a locked room.
Dark, sealed, guarded.
And now… someone was trying to break the door open.
She wiped her face with trembling hands.
Her phone buzzed again.
She almost didn’t look.
But part of her knew she had to.
When she saw the message, she nearly dropped the phone.
Stop running. You know that never ends well.
Her stomach twisted.
Before she could type a response, another message came through.
A car is coming.
“What…?” she breathed.
A sound grew behind her—loud, too loud.
Tires skidding.
Engine roaring.
She turned just in time to see headlights rounding the corner—bright, blinding, aimed straight at her.
“NO—!”
She dove out of the way, hitting the pavement hard as the car missed her by inches, slamming into a stack of metal dumpsters with a deafening crash.
Steel crumpled.
Glass shattered.
Alarms erupted in the distance.
Emberly crawled backward, breath shaking violently.
The car door was open.
No driver inside.
Her entire body trembled.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no—”
Her phone buzzed.
Next time, don’t ignore me.
She stared at the screen, horrified.
He hadn’t sent a threat.
He had sent a warning.
He saved her from being hit.
Her hand shook so hard she could barely hold the phone.
Emberly:
WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO REMEMBER??
WHO ARE YOU???
This time, the reply was different.
A photo.
At first she didn’t understand what she was looking at—just a blurry image of a dimly lit hallway. Then she recognized the faded wallpaper. The uneven corner. The narrow doorway.
Her childhood home.
Her stomach dropped.
No.
No one knew where she grew up except her—and she had told no one.
Another photo came through.
This one clearer.
Her childhood bedroom.
Except something was different.
The closet door was open.
And inside the darkness, barely visible, was the outline of a tall figure.
Then another message appeared beneath the photos.
It started with him, Emberly.
Her breath hitched.
And it will end with me.
Emberly stared at the words, hands trembling violently.
Her entire world tilted, her sanity slipping like water through her fingers.
It started with him…
Him.
The man in the corner.
The figure in her apartment.
The shadow from her childhood.
She had seen him before.
Not recently.
Not months ago.
Years ago.
And suddenly, painfully, like ripping stitches out of a wound she didn’t know was still open—
A memory surfaced.
A memory she had buried so deep she didn’t recognize it at first.
A small, trembling voice.
Her own.
“Mom… there’s someone in my room.”
Her mother’s tired reply:
“There’s no one there, Emberly. Go to sleep."
But there was someone.
A man.
Tall.
Standing in the corner.
Watching her.
Night after night.
Her heartbeat turned to ice.
She had forgotten him.
Someone had made her forget him.
And now—
Now he was back.
She typed with shaking fingers:
Emberly:
Who is he???
Her phone buzzed.
Your first nightmare.
Her blood froze.
Another message arrived.
And your last mistake.
The alley suddenly felt too narrow, too dark. Emberly backed away, heart pounding hard enough to hurt.
A car passed at the end of the street.
A door slammed in the distance.
A dog barked somewhere far away.
Every sound felt like a threat.
Her phone buzzed one last time.
Go back to your apartment.
There’s something you need to see.
She stared at the screen, horrified.
“No…” she whispered. “I’m not going back there. I’m not—”
The final message arrived.
If you don’t go back, someone else will. You know who.
Her breath caught.
Elias.
Her neighbor.
The only person who had ever been kind to her in that building.
The only one who sometimes checked on her if she screamed during the night.
Her hands clenched around the phone.
The stalker wasn’t threatening her this time.
He was threatening someone else.
Someone innocent.
Her decision was no longer a choice.
It was a trap.
A trap she had to walk into.
Her legs trembled as she stood.
The rain stopped.
The city felt too quiet.
She turned toward her building and took a shaky step forward.
Then another.
Into the night.
Into the dark.
Into the truth waiting inside her walls.
She didn’t look back.
Because whatever waited for her in that apartment—
—was finally done waiting.
- Writer
