Final Entry

I went to my coworker’s apartment this morning to retrieve my phone and make sure she was okay.

I knocked for nearly five minutes.

No answer.

At first I assumed she had gone to work early, but then I remembered the spare key she’d given me weeks ago for emergencies.

The same key that had somehow been sitting on my kitchen table when I woke up this morning.

I still don’t remember bringing it home.

That thought alone nearly made me turn around and leave.

But I unlocked the door anyway.

The apartment was silent.

Too silent.

Not empty in the normal sense—empty in that suffocating way abandoned places feel, like the air itself has been holding its breath for too long.

I called her name while stepping inside.

Nothing answered.

I found my phone exactly where I’d left it on the guest room nightstand beside the bed.

But when I picked it up, my stomach dropped.

The sleep recorder app was running.

It had recorded almost forty minutes of audio overnight.

I know for a fact I didn’t turn it on.

Not there.

Not last night.

My hands started shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone.

I searched the apartment after that.

Closets. Bathroom. Kitchen. Under the bed.

No sign of her anywhere.

No signs of a struggle either.

Everything looked normal.

That almost made it worse.

I locked the apartment behind me and drove home in complete silence.

Now I’m sitting at my kitchen table staring at the recording.

Part of me wants to delete it without listening.

But another part—the part that needs answers no matter how horrible they are—can’t let it go.

So I hit play.

At first there’s only static and the soft hum of a fan somewhere in the apartment.

Then my coworker speaks.

Her voice sounds groggy, half asleep.

“Liz?”

A long pause.

Then footsteps.

Not hers.

Heavy.

Slow.

The sound of bare feet crossing carpet.

Then her voice again, sharper this time.

“Who’s there?”

Silence.

And then a voice I recognize immediately.

My own.

“Don’t turn on the light.”

Every muscle in my body locked up hearing it.

Because I wasn’t there.

I couldn’t have been there.

The recording continues with slow movement around the room and shallow breathing close to the phone microphone.

Then my coworker whispers something so quietly I almost miss it.

“You brought them here…”

A deep growl answers from somewhere farther away in the apartment.

Not one I’ve heard before.

Lower.

Angrier.

And then the recording cuts off all at once.

No static.

No gradual silence.

Just sudden blackness.

Like something deliberately stopped it.

I’m not going to work today.

And neither is she.

Because she’s gone.

And deep down, I know this is my fault.

Whatever followed me… whatever attached itself to me… it found her because of me.

I keep replaying that recording in my head.

“You brought them here.”

She knew.

Or at least she understood something before the end.

It’s 3:14 p.m. now.

I lost time again.

Almost eight hours vanished without me noticing.

I don’t remember falling asleep.

I don’t even remember sitting down.

One minute I was standing in the kitchen trying to force myself to eat something, and the next I was staring at the microwave clock like I’d just woken from a dream.

I tried leaving the apartment again after that.

I needed to check her apartment one more time.

I needed to know if she came back.

But something is wrong with my front door.

Every time I open it, I don’t see the hallway outside anymore.

I see my living room.

At first I thought I was disoriented.

I opened the door three more times.

Same thing.

My couch.

My hallway lamp.

The same crooked picture frame near the kitchen.

It’s like the apartment folds back into itself.

Like there’s no outside anymore.

I’m trapped here.

And the worst part is… I don’t think they want me to leave.

About twenty minutes ago, I heard movement in my bedroom again.

Not hiding movement.

Careless movement.

Like whoever’s in here with me no longer cares if I hear them.

I haven’t checked.

I can’t.

The bedroom door is cracked open just enough for darkness to spill into the hallway.

Sometimes I think I see something move behind it.

Sometimes I hear breathing.

If someone finds these entries—

If anyone is reading this—

Do not download a sleep recording app.

And if you wake up at 3:12 a.m. and hear someone speaking beside your bed…

Pretend you’re still asleep.