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If you enjoyed this, I can pivot the story into a different genre: A mystery about a corrupted space station log. A whimsical tale of a forgotten memory regained. A noir detective story involving a missing photographer. Which direction
The screen was cracked, but the image was clear. It wasn't the hallway anymore. It was a photo of Julian’s bedroom, taken from the corner of his ceiling. In the bed, Julian lay asleep. Beside him, sitting on the edge of the mattress, was a figure with no face—just a smooth, blank surface where features should be.
He shut his laptop immediately. "It’s just an algorithm," he whispered to the empty room. "An AI-generated prank or a lingering virus." unnamed.jpg
Every time Julian tried to delete it, his computer would freeze. If he renamed it, it would revert back to "unnamed.jpg" by the next morning. It was a digital ghost, a stubborn glitch in his otherwise organized life. Eventually, he stopped trying to get rid of it and simply tucked it into a corner of his screen, hidden behind the trash bin icon.
Julian looked at the corner of his ceiling. There was no camera. He looked at the empty spot on his bed where the figure had been. The sheets were still pressed down, as if by a lingering weight. If you enjoyed this, I can pivot the
Julian felt a cold prickle at the base of his neck. He zoomed in. In the gap of the doorway, he could just make out the pale edge of a hand gripping the wood. It was thin, with elongated fingers that looked more like wax than flesh.
But that night, he dreamt of the hallway. He could smell the dust and the faint, sweet scent of rotting apples. He heard the floorboards groan under a weight that wasn't his own. When he woke up, drenched in sweat, he reached for his phone. Which direction The screen was cracked, but the
The image file "unnamed.jpg" had sat on Julian’s desktop for three years. He didn’t remember downloading it, and he certainly didn't remember taking it. It was a low-resolution shot of an empty hallway in an old house, bathed in a sickly, jaundiced light.
