Life doesn't always compute - Chapter One: The File That Shouldn’t Exist

The first thing that unsettled me wasn’t what I saw—it was where I saw it.

I was cleaning out my old desktop computer, the kind that groans when you turn it on and hums like it’s whispering secrets to itself. It had been boxed in my basement for years, untouched since I moved into the house. I only plugged it in because I needed an old tax document, something from a decade ago. I expected corrupted files, maybe a few lost photos, nothing more.

What I didn’t expect was a folder named “RECOVERED—DO NOT OPEN.”

I don’t remember creating it. The timestamp said it was last modified three years ago—during a period when I was living alone, unemployed, and struggling with insomnia so severe that entire weeks blurred together. That detail alone made my skin prickle. I clicked the folder.

Inside was a single file.

watchme.avi

The file size was enormous, far larger than any home video I could recall recording. I hovered over it, suddenly aware of the silence in the house. The furnace kicked on, making me flinch. I laughed at myself, told myself it was probably nothing—a corrupted video, maybe a prank file from an old program.

I double-clicked.

The video opened to darkness. No sound. Just black.

I was about to close it when a shape emerged—dim, grainy, like footage recorded in near-total darkness. A room slowly came into focus. My room.

Not similar. Identical.

The same bookshelf. The same crack in the ceiling. Even the faint water stain near the corner that I’d always meant to paint over.

The camera angle was wrong, though. It wasn’t from my phone or laptop. It was elevated, angled slightly downward, as if mounted in the corner of the ceiling.

My breath caught.

The timestamp in the corner read 02:17 AM.

The video continued. The room was empty for several minutes. I found myself leaning closer to the screen, heart thudding, a creeping certainty forming in my chest that I already knew what was coming.

Then the door opened.

I stepped into the room.

Not a reflection. Not a lookalike. Me. Same clothes I was wearing that night—grey hoodie, faded jeans. I watched myself cross the room and sit on the bed, head in my hands. I remembered that night vaguely: the headache, the crushing sense of dread, the feeling that something was wrong but not knowing what.

On screen, I looked up.

And stared directly into the camera.

I slammed the laptop shut so hard it nearly snapped.

For several seconds, I just sat there, breathing heavily, hands shaking. The basement felt colder. Too quiet. I told myself it was an elaborate prank, some old experimental recording I’d forgotten. Memory is unreliable. Stress does strange things.

Eventually, against every instinct screaming at me not to, I opened the laptop again.

The video was still playing.

On screen, I was standing now—closer to the camera. My face filled the frame, eyes wide, pupils dilated. My mouth moved, though there was still no sound.

Then text appeared beneath my image.

“You didn’t listen last time.”

The video ended.

The file closed itself.

And the folder vanished.

I searched for it for over an hour. It was gone. No recycle bin. No hidden files. Nothing.

That night, when I finally went to bed, I dreamed of cameras in my walls—of blinking red lights and whispering static.

At exactly 2:17 AM, I woke up.

And I swear I heard something shift inside the ceiling.

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model