📹 ARJUN
The voices have changed.
They're not just whispering anymore.
They're echoing.
Coming from the walls, yes—
but also the floors.
The bedframe.
My own chest.
Like I've become part of the recording now.
A speaker.
A broadcast.
---
Dr. Shah wheeled in a recorder this morning.
> "You're improving," he said, smiling the way people smile when they're afraid of what they've already committed to.
"We've got something that might help your memory."
He hit PLAY.
A faint clicking sound filled the room.
Static.
Then breathing.
Then my voice.
> "Don't trust the one behind the camera."
Dr. Shah paused it.
> "That was you, Arjun. Two years ago."
I shook my head.
> "That wasn't me. That was the thing pretending to be me."
He frowned.
> "You don't believe you said this?"
I looked him in the eye.
> "Doctor… I remember saying it. But I wasn't the one who said it."
He didn't respond.
But I saw it in his eyes.
He heard it too.
---
Later that night, a nurse came in to give me meds.
I asked her what time it was.
> "3:12," she said.
> "Then leave," I said, dead serious. "Now."
> "Why?"
> "Because at 3:13… the room starts remembering."
---
She laughed. Nervous.
Left anyway.
I lay back.
Closed my eyes.
And just like always—
the wall across from me opened.
Not physically.
Not in the way doors open.
More like a scene emerging from a paused tape.
Bleeding into view.
Replacing space with memory.
And on the other side—
Me.
But not quite.
Not breathing.
Not blinking.
Not waiting.
Just… watching.
With the camera in its hand.
And its mouth stitched shut with wires.
---
I screamed.
But no sound came.
Only the sound of the tape reversing.
---
🎥 DEV
He's been running for hours.
Or minutes.
Time loops in this place.
The security hallway has folded in on itself so many times he's stopped counting turns.
Every exit sign blinks the same way.
Every emergency map shows only one room:
> ROOM 63
And now, all the hallway TVs are playing his face.
But not real-time.
They show him from the past.
Each one slightly older.
More tired.
More hollow.
Until one screen finally shows his future.
Eyes gone.
Camera melted to his hand.
Mouth open in a scream with no throat.
---
He drops to his knees, panting.
His phone buzzes.
One notification:
> "LIVE STREAM ENDED."
Another:
> "Would you like to upload again?"
---
The lights flicker.
A voice hums overhead through the old intercom.
Not words. Just a sound.
A reversed lullaby.
A tape's final breath.
---
Dev opens a random door.
Finds a small room with a metal chair and a cracked mirror.
On the chair—
The tape.
The one labeled "ARJUN."
And next to it—
a note, handwritten in red marker:
> "Whoever holds the playback becomes the final cut."
---
He stares into the mirror.
But now—
his reflection is gone.
No mimicry.
No movement.
No proof he exists at all.
Only a dark room staring back.
And deep in that blackness, something shifts.
Lurks.
Smiles.
---
Dev steps backward.
Bumps into something warm.
Turns.
Arjun.
Or something wearing Arjun's face.
Eyes glazed.
Camera blinking red.
It raises the lens slowly.
Points it at Dev.
---
Dev whispers, "What are you?"
The Arjun-thing speaks without opening its mouth:
> "The memory you recorded when no one else remembered."
> "The voice behind the glass."
> "The final viewer."
---
Dev tries to run.
The hallway dissolves.
Walls flatten into reels of magnetic tape.
His footsteps echo over static.
The lights blink one word over and over again:
> UPLOAD COMPLETE.
---
📼 ARJUN (Later)
The nurse returns the next morning.
Room 63 is empty.
Only a tape sits on the bed.
Labeled: DEV
She hands it to Dr. Shah, confused.
He slides it into the same recorder.
Hits PLAY.
---
> [VIDEO STARTS — STATIC]
Dev is in the hallway.
Filming something.
> Then the footage tilts.
Drops.
Camera hits the floor.
> Someone picks it up.
Wipes the lens.
> It's Arjun.
But Arjun is still in Room 63.
Sitting.
Smiling.
Mouthing one silent word:
> "Again."