EPISODE 10
THE THING USING HIS VOICE
The sound upstairs moved too fast.
Heavy footsteps slammed across the ceiling above Elias’ head.
Left.
Right.
Then directly overhead.
Darkness filled the house completely.
Elias stood frozen beside the table, unable to breathe.
The book remained open in front of him.
Its pages turning slowly on their own.
Somewhere upstairs
Something stopped moving.
Silence returned instantly.
Too instantly.
As though whatever had been running was now listening.
Elias reached for his phone with shaking hands.
No signal.
The screen flickered once before displaying a single notification.
UNKNOWN DEVICE CONNECTED.
His stomach tightened.
Then another message appeared beneath it.
ACCESS GRANTED.
The lights flashed violently.
For one brief second, the living room became something else.
The walls looked older.
Rotten.
Black water stains covered the ceiling.
The windows were gone completely.
And standing silently around the room
People.
Or shapes pretending to be people.
Tall dark figures with blurred faces.
Watching him.
The lights died again.
Normal room.
Empty.
Elias stumbled backward in panic.
The pressure inside his skull returned stronger than before.
A whisper crawled through his mind again.
THE CORRIDOR IS LEAKING.
Upstairs
A door slowly creaked open.
Elias looked toward the staircase.
At the top of the stairs stood a figure.
Motionless.
Human-shaped.
Its face hidden in darkness.
Then it spoke softly.
Using his voice.
You left me there.
Elias felt ice spread through his chest.
The figure tilted its head unnaturally.
Not like a person.
Like something studying how humans move.
You were not supposed to wake up, it whispered.
The hallway lights flickered again.
For a split second, Elias finally saw its face.
His own face.
But wrong.
Its eyes were completely black.
Its smile stretched too wide.
And parts of its skin shifted slightly, unable to hold the shape perfectly.
The lights died again instantly.
The figure vanished.
Elias backed away from the staircase in terror.
No . . .
A loud bang exploded upstairs.
Then another.
Doors slamming open one by one.
Fast.
Violent.
The entire second floor shook.
The book’s pages suddenly stopped turning.
New words slowly burned themselves into the paper.
THE COPY REMEMBERS YOU.
Elias stared at the sentence.
Then another line appeared beneath it.
IT FOLLOWED YOU THROUGH THE CORRIDOR.
Something moved behind him.
Fast.
Elias turned violently
But saw only darkness inside the kitchen doorway.
Then
His mother’s voice echoed softly from the hallway.
Elias? Too soft. Too perfect.
Not real.
He remembered the shadow moving differently earlier.
DO NOT TRUST THE COPIES.
The warning from the book returned instantly.
His breathing became uneven.
The voice came again.
Closer this time.
Elias… please…
A figure slowly stepped into the hallway darkness.
His mother.
Or something shaped like her.
Her face looked almost normal.
But her smile appeared a second too late.
Like an expression loading incorrectly.
Elias backed away slowly.
What are you? he whispered.
The figure stopped moving.
For several seconds, it simply stared at him.
Then every light inside the house flashed white.
And Elias saw the truth.
Not one copy.
Dozens.
They stood silently throughout the house.
In the kitchen.
The hallway.
The stairs.
Every single one wearing familiar faces.
His mother.
His father.
Himself.
All smiling.
Watching.
Waiting.
The lights went out again.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Then all the copies spoke together in the exact same voice.
Which one of us is real?
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