“I’m calling the police!” I screamed, finally finding my voice. “Get the hell off my property!”
The figure didn’t run. They didn’t even flinch.
Instead, the person raised a hand and pressed a piece of paper against the glass. It was a printed sheet of white paper, folded in half. On the visible side, written in crude, thick black marker, was a single sentence:
Check your phone’s storage.
My stomach dropped into a abyss of pure terror. I took two steps backward, almost tripping over Buster’s water bowl.
Why would a trespasser tell me to check my phone? Was this a distraction? A hack?
With my hands shaking so badly I could barely type my passcode, I unlocked my phone, bypassed the security app, and opened the device settings. I tapped on Storage, then scrolled down to Local Video Files.
There was a folder labeled Security System – Auto-Archive.
I tapped it. Inside were thousands of short, ten-second clips automatically saved by the smart cameras over the past two years.
I sorted by date.
The top clip wasn’t from tonight at 2:30 AM.
It was dated Yesterday, 3:15 PM.
I tapped play. The video showed my bedroom. I was sitting at my desk, wearing headphones, typing away on my laptop, completely oblivious. The camera angle was low—shot from under my bed frame.
In the video, a pair of bare, dirty feet slowly slid out from beneath my bed dust ruffle, followed by the dark raincoat. The figure stood up quietly behind my desk chair, leaned down until their face was inches from the back of my neck, stayed there for twenty seconds just breathing, and then slipped quietly out the bedroom door.
My knees gave out. I hit the floor, dropping the flashlight, the heavy metal clattering against the tile.
I had been living with someone in my house. For days? Weeks? Months?
A sharp crack echoed from the back door as the sliding mechanism was violently forced off its track. The heavy door swung open, letting in a gush of cold night air and the smell of wet earth.
I looked up, petrified, as the dark-coated figure stepped out of the kitchen shadows and into the hall.
The figure slowly pulled down the hood.
It wasn’t a stranger.
It was me.
My own face stared back at me—gaunt, unwashed, with bloodshot eyes and a hollow, vacant expression.
The other me reached into their pocket, pulled out my house keys, and held them up, letting them jingle softly in the quiet night.
“I got tired of waiting in the crawlspace,” my voice said, smooth and flat. “Your turn to hide.”
