Life doesn't always compute - Chapter Two: Static Between Thoughts

Sleep became impossible after that night.

I tried to tell myself the obvious explanations—that stress had triggered some elaborate false memory, that I’d once installed surveillance software for a project and forgotten. But the problem with rational thought is that it requires evidence, and evidence was exactly what I didn’t have.

No camera holes. No wires. No hardware connected to my router that didn’t belong.

Yet the feeling of being watched never left.

It wasn’t paranoia—not at first. It was subtler. Like walking into a room and knowing someone had just been there. Objects seemed slightly out of place: a chair angled differently, a cupboard door ajar when I was certain I’d closed it. Once, I found the basement light on when I hadn’t been down there all day.

The worst part was the sound.

At night, just as I drifted toward sleep, I’d hear a faint crackle—like radio static bleeding through the walls. Not loud enough to pinpoint, not consistent enough to record. It felt like it was inside my head, threading itself between my thoughts.

I started keeping a journal.

Day 4: Static again. Louder tonight. Sounds like whispering when I focus too hard.

Day 7: Dreamt of myself watching myself sleep. Woke up crying.

Day 9: Found a file on my phone this morning. Didn’t create it.

The file was an audio recording, only twelve seconds long. The waveform was jagged, chaotic. When I played it, I almost dropped the phone.

It was my voice.

Not speaking—breathing.

Slow. Shallow. Terrified.

In the background, beneath the breath, was the same static I’d been hearing at night. And under that… something else. A rhythm. Like fingers tapping on plastic.

I deleted the file immediately.

It reappeared the next morning.

I took my phone to a repair shop. The technician ran scans, frowned, and told me there was no malware, no evidence of tampering. When I asked if files could appear without user input, he gave me a look that said I should consider talking to someone.

I started avoiding mirrors. More than once, I thought my reflection lagged—just a fraction of a second too slow. I stopped recording myself entirely, stopped using video calls, covered my webcam with tape.

That’s when the messages began.

Not texts. Not emails.

System notifications.

“You are deviating.”

“Memory integrity compromised.”

“Correction pending.”

They appeared on every device I owned, regardless of whether it was connected to the internet. They vanished when I tried to screenshot them.

The journal entries became more frantic, less coherent.

Day 14: I don’t think this is happening now. I think it already happened.

Day 15: The video wasn’t watching me. It was reminding me.

I woke up that night to the sound of breathing beside my bed.

I lay frozen, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. The breathing matched mine exactly—inhale for inhale, exhale for exhale. When I held my breath, it stopped.

When I turned my head, the sound came from inside the wall.

Something tapped once.

Twice.

Three times.

Then a voice—soft, distorted, layered with static—whispered my name.

And said, very clearly:

“Please don’t make us do this again.”

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