This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/diana_avri on 2024-10-09 05:07:04+00:00.

It started on a Wednesday. I remember that because nothing ever happens on a Wednesday. I was at work, sitting in my cubicle, scrolling through emails, when I felt it: a sharp tug in my mind, like something had clicked out of place. It wasn’t much—just a fleeting sensation—but it was enough to make me stop mid-scroll. I blinked, shook my head, and kept going. It was nothing, probably stress.

But on my way home that evening, the world felt different.

It wasn’t obvious at first. The bus ride was the same, with the same people. The woman in the red coat, the old man with his briefcase, the kid with headphones too big for his head. They were always there. Except, today, they weren’t quite right. The woman in the red coat kept glancing at me, her eyes darting away every time I caught her looking. The old man gripped his briefcase tighter than usual, his knuckles pale. And the kid? He wasn’t listening to music.

I could hear the static leaking from his headphones. Just static. No rhythm, no melody. Just white noise.

When I got off the bus, I felt eyes on me. That prickling sensation that makes you glance over your shoulder to see if anyone’s following. But no one was there. Everyone was moving the same as usual, filing off the bus, walking down the street. But it was like their steps were too… deliberate. Too synchronized.

When I got to my apartment building, I practically ran inside, feeling a sense of unease gnawing at my chest. My neighbor, Jenny, was standing in the hallway, fumbling with her keys. She smiled at me, but something was wrong with her smile. It looked forced, like her mouth was too tight, too strained, like she wasn’t sure how to move her face anymore.

“Long day?” she asked, in that casual, neighborly way. But her voice was flat. Hollow, almost. Like she didn’t actually care about the answer.

“Yeah,” I muttered, fumbling with my own keys. “You?”

She blinked at me, too slowly. “Same as always.”

I went inside, closed the door, and stood there for a long time, my back pressed against the wood, listening. Her footsteps didn’t move. She stayed in the hallway for far longer than she should have, just standing there. I could hear her breathing.

When I checked the peephole, she was gone.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t that I felt watched—although that was part of it—it was more that everything around me felt wrong. The silence was too thick, too dense. I could hear the faintest hum, like the world itself was vibrating beneath my feet, waiting for something.

I stared at the ceiling until my eyes burned, until I finally drifted into a restless sleep. And when I woke up the next morning, everything was the same. But also not.

People were acting normal. Or at least, they were trying to. But as I walked to work, the cracks started showing. A man in a suit stood perfectly still at the corner, waiting for the light to change. But when I looked closer, I realized his eyes weren’t blinking. He was staring straight ahead, unblinking, motionless. Not even breathing.

A woman with a stroller passed by, and I swear to God, the baby wasn’t moving. Just laying there, its eyes wide open, staring straight up, mouth slightly open in a frozen expression.

At work, things were worse. My coworkers, people I’d known for years, were acting off. They’d smile too long, their mouths twitching at the corners. They’d laugh at things that weren’t funny. And sometimes, in the middle of a conversation, they’d stop, just stop, and stare at me like they were waiting for something.

At lunch, I asked my friend Mark if he’d noticed anything strange.

“Strange?” he said, stabbing at his salad with his fork, his movements too mechanical. “Like what?”

“I don’t know… people. They’re acting weird.”

Mark gave me a look, but his face didn’t seem right. His eyes were too wide, his mouth stretching unnaturally. “You’re just tired, man. Maybe you need a break.”

Maybe I did. But as we talked, I couldn’t stop staring at his hands. They didn’t stop moving, even when he wasn’t talking. They twitched, flexed, tapped the table. Like they had a mind of their own. I looked around the cafeteria, and suddenly, I noticed it. Everyone’s hands were moving. Twisting, tapping, fidgeting. But their faces stayed perfectly still.

I left work early that day, telling myself it was just in my head, but deep down, I knew something was happening. The world wasn’t the same anymore. People weren’t the same. And the worst part? I could feel it starting in me too.

That evening, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at my reflection. My face looked the same, but I didn’t feel like me. My smile didn’t look right. I tried to smile, tried to make it normal, but the corners of my mouth stretched too wide, too tight, like I wasn’t in control of it anymore.

My hands were shaking. And not just from fear. They wouldn’t stop twitching, jerking in tiny, uncontrollable movements.

By the time I got to bed, my whole body felt wrong. My skin felt too tight, like it was stretching over bones that weren’t mine. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to calm myself down, but the hum was louder now. I could feel it, like a low, vibrating pulse under the mattress, in the walls, under my skin.

I closed my eyes, but it didn’t help. The darkness behind my eyelids was alive, shifting and pulsing, full of shadows that shouldn’t have been there. And just as I was drifting off, I heard it.

A knock.

It was faint, but unmistakable. A slow, deliberate knock at my bedroom door.

I sat up, heart racing, listening. Another knock, and then a voice.

“Let us in.”

It was my neighbor, Jenny. But her voice was wrong, just like her smile had been. Flat, hollow, like a recording.

Another knock. “Let us in.”

I didn’t move. I couldn’t.

Then, more voices joined hers. Mark. The old man from the bus. The woman with the stroller. Their voices, all layered together, echoing through the door.

“Let us in.”

I pressed myself back against the headboard, trying not to breathe, trying not to make a sound, but the knocking grew louder, more insistent.

Then, the door handle began to turn, slowly, deliberately. My heart hammered in my chest. The knob twisted with a soft click, but the door didn’t open.

I didn’t breathe.

“Let us in,” Jenny’s voice whispered again, but this time, it was joined by others. Mark’s voice, the woman from the bus, the baby’s laughter. They all murmured in unison, voices layering over each other until it became a low, rhythmic chant.

I pressed myself tighter against the headboard, feeling my skin crawl, every fiber of my body telling me to run. But I couldn’t move. I just stared at the door, watching the handle twist back and forth, like someone was playing with it.

Then came the scratching.

Soft at first, like fingernails dragging across wood. Then louder, more desperate. Scratches, scrapes, until it sounded like claws raking the door from the other side. My throat tightened. My hands began to shake. I wanted to scream, but my voice caught in my chest. All I could do was press my hands against my ears, trying to block it out, but the sound—the voices, the scratching—was inside my head.

“Let us in.”

My reflection flickered in the mirror across the room. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now, I couldn’t look away. The dim light cast strange shadows on my face, and for a moment, it didn’t even look like me.

The scratching stopped.

The door didn’t open, but the air felt different now—heavier, thicker, like I was underwater. I glanced at the mirror again. My reflection stared back, but something wasn’t right.

My smile was wrong. I wasn’t smiling, but the reflection was. It stretched unnaturally across my face, too wide, pulling at the corners of my mouth.

I blinked, and the smile vanished, but the feeling stayed. The door handle clicked back into place, and everything went silent.

I don’t know what’s real anymore. I don’t know if it’s them, or if it’s me. But every time I look in the mirror, I can see it. The twitching. The smile that doesn’t fit. The way my hands won’t stop moving.

I think I’m becoming one of them.

And I don’t know how to stop it.