Chapter 1235: Story 1235: They Watch You Sleep
Mara had learned to sleep with one eye open.
You had to, in Black Hollow Orphanage—the derelict mansion that once cared for war orphans, now barely holding back the rot of ti. The survivors had turned it into a makeshift shelter, claiming its thick stone walls could keep the infected out. But Mara knew better.
It wasn’t the outside she feared. It was what lived inside.
Each night, when the candles burned low and the group slipped into restless sleep, the whispers would start. Not from mouths. From the walls. From the vents. From under the floorboards.
And always, the sa phrase:
“We see you.”
Tonight, she pretended again. Curled in her sleeping bag between the decaying bunk beds, she kept her breath slow, shallow, like a child faking sleep to avoid a nightmare.
Only this ti, the nightmare wasn’t waiting.
It was watching.
The dormitory door creaked open.
Her heart pounded.
Soone—or sothing—stepped inside. She heard no footsteps. Just the hiss of breath. Then ca the click of an old cara shutter. A flash. Brief. Blinding. Followed by silence.
She forced her eyes shut.
Another flash.
Then another.
Each ti it went off, she could see the silhouette of sothing tall. Wrong-shaped. Like a man with a crooked neck and fingers too long to be real. Sothing that twitched when it moved.
Flash.
It was closer.
Flash.
Closer still.
She finally cracked an eye open.
Empty room.
No monster. No cara. Just dust hanging in the air and the faint sll of vinegar and rot.
Until she looked at the walls.
Photographs.
New ones. Still damp with chemicals. Hundreds of them. Taped to every surface.
She got up and moved to the nearest one, hands trembling.
They were all of her.
Sleeping.
Different positions, different nights. Taken from just inches away. Her mouth slightly open. Her eyes twitching beneath the lids. So had tistamps—ones she recognized.
She had felt the presence. She’d just never known it watched her every single night.
Then she saw the most recent photo—pinned to the side of her own bunk.
It was from this night.
She stared at the picture of herself, lying in the exact position she’d just been in minutes before.
In the background of the photo was sothing she hadn’t expected.
Not the monster.
But another survivor.
Harvey.
Sleeping.
With the sa photos hanging over his bed.
And behind him, barely visible, a faint reflection in a cracked mirror—
A tall, eyeless man with a stitched mouth and bleeding sockets, holding the cara like a proud artist.
Mara turned.
Harvey’s bed was now empty.
But fresh film strips hung above it, still curling from the heat.
The final one showed Mara… wide awake… turning around.
Exactly as she was now.
She dropped the photo.
From the hallway, sothing whispered:
“Sleep now. We’re ready for your close-up.”
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