This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/EmotionalString7170 on 2025-02-08 03:09:49+00:00.

I swear I just wanted to pick up a hobby.

After spending eight-hour shifts in a boring office, I needed something—anything—to break the monotony. I wasn’t a gym guy, but one night, while driving home, I passed by a small, 24-hour fitness center tucked between a laundromat and a small Vietnamese café.

It wasn’t fancy. The sign was barely lit, the glass doors were tainted by glue marks from old posters, and the inside smelled like stale sweat. But it was cheap—absurdly cheap. No contracts, no hidden fees. It felt like a good deal so I signed up on the spot.

That night, I went there at 10 PM after a late dinner with my friends. The only other person there was a man on the treadmill, jogging at a steady rhythm while watching a movie on his phone. The receptionist barely glanced at me as he gave me the locker key.

I changed into my gym clothes and started lifting 5 kilograms. Well, I wasn’t strong, but it felt good to do something different.

Then, halfway through my set, something caught my eye.

A shoe.

It was lying near the entrance to the locker room.

I looked around. The treadmill guy was still running, both shoes intact. The receptionist was at the front desk.

I turned back. The shoe was gone.

I rubbed my eyes. Maybe I was imagining things. The long shifts at work had left me exhausted, and I had barely eaten all day.

I pushed through the rest of my workout and headed to the locker room to grab my things.

And that’s when it happened.

At first, it was just a sound. The faint shuffle of fabric, like someone moving inside a locker.

I hesitated.

“Hey, man,” I called out, trying to sound casual, laughing a little. “You good?”

No response.

I took a few slow steps forward, suddenly I smell something damp and metallic. I reached for my locker, but as I did, I caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of the mirror.

A figure crouched by the farthest locker, its back hunched, head tilted slightly.

I froze.

The only other person working out in the gym was the guy on the treadmill. I knew it.

I turned my head slowly.

The treadmill guy was still running. Still facing his phone attached to the holder. Still moving at the exact same, unbroken rhythm.

So who the hell was in the locker room with me?

I slammed my locker shut and walked—not ran—to the exit.

As I stepped into the gym floor, I made the mistake of looking back.

The locker room door stood slightly ajar.

And from the darkness, a pair of eyes peered out.

I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed my bag, walked straight past the receptionist, and into the night.

I canceled my membership the next morning. The receptionist just smiled wryly and let me go, as if it wasn’t a big deal.

The whole thing bugged me.

Maybe I had imagined it. Maybe I was just tired. Or maybe it was a homeless guy who got the owner’s permission to sleep for the night—it was a cheap gym after all, not a fancy fitness centre with stuffs worth stealing.

That’s what I told myself.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had seen something I wasn’t supposed to.

That night, I looked up the gym’s name online. Found it, and I went straight to the reviews when there were like a hundred of them.

Most of the reviews were normal, praising the student-friendly membership fee and the 24-hour service.

“They offer no personal trainers, but if you come during lunchtime, this gym is packed with the other blokes that are happy to assist you.”

“I am an introvert and I LOVE [redacted] gym! It feels like a private gym after 9 PM. Mostly it was only me and that one runner guy on the treadmill LOL.”

“If you don’t mind the rusty dumbells, this place can turn you into Mr. Olympia for just a few bucks per month.”

I also found a number of one star reviews, mostly complained about broken machines and the smell. Classic.

Then, further deep down, almost obscured by other one-star reviews, I found something strange. A few mentioned feeling watched in the locker room.

“Something is off about this place. The first time I came here, I thought I saw someone inside the lockers. I turned around, and they were gone. Canceled my membership immediately.”

Another.

“I swear I felt someone standing behind me when I worked out. But when I turned around, there was never anyone there. Why would they build a gym on a haunted place?”

I felt a chill run down my spine.

I stopped scrolling and I closed my laptop shut.

But curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to search more about the location. After a moment of scrolling, I found a news article.

“A MAN FOUND DEAD IN ABANDONED BUILDING—CASE REMAINS UNSOLVED.”

I clicked on it, my pulse quickening.

The article was brief. The victim had been missing for weeks before his body was discovered in an abandoned structure on the outskirts of the city. The police found no suspects, no murder weapon. The case went cold.

Something gnawed at me.

The article didn’t specify where the abandoned building was. But something about the wording—“recently abandoned structure”—made me pause.

A stupid, paranoid thought wormed into my head.

I opened Google Maps and searched the gym’s address. The current view showed the building as it was now—just a regular, run-down gym I had visited the previous day.

Then I clicked on the historical images.

I traced it back a year.

Same gym.

Three years.

Same gym, but in a better condition. The facade was immaculate. The glass doors were much cleaner.

Five years.

The gym was not there.

Instead, I saw a different building.

An empty, decaying structure covered in graffiti, windows shattered, its front entrance blocked off with police tape.

I stared at the screen, my chest tightening.

The place where that man had been murdered was the exact same spot where the gym stood now.

And then I saw it.

In the old street view image, from a broken window on the second floor of the abandoned building, a pair of piercing eyes stared back at me—the same eyes I had seen peering from the locker room that night.

I don’t know what I saw in the locker room that night, and I don’t know who—or what—was hiding inside those lockers.

But I do know one thing.

I’ll never step foot in a random gym again.