Kai’s breath caught in his throat.
The smiling man outside the door wasn’t standing with the police. He was standing behind them, close enough that he should have been visible the entire time. Yet Kai could have sworn he had only just appeared.
The officers remained frozen in place. Daniel too. No blinking. No shifting weight. No radios crackling. Nothing. They looked less like people and more like photographs taped into the hallway.
Only the man in the hoodie moved.
His smile widened by the slightest amount before he slowly mouthed two words.
Found you.
Kai lurched away from the peephole so violently that his shoulder slammed into the wall. The impact rattled the framed picture hanging beside the front door, knocking it loose. It crashed onto the hardwood floor, glass exploding across the apartment.
"Kai!"
Luna’s voice snapped through his headset, sharp enough to cut through the panic.
"What happened?"
"There..."
Kai pointed uselessly toward the entrance even though nobody could see him.
"...there’s someone outside."
Daniel spoke almost at the exact same moment.
"Mr. Mercer?"
His voice still sounded perfectly normal through the phone.
"Why did you move away from the door?"
Kai stared at his phone.
"You don’t see him?"
"See who?"
"The man behind you."
Silence answered first.
Then Daniel spoke carefully, choosing every word.
"...There’s nobody behind us."
Kai’s pulse thundered in his ears.
"No."
"He smiled at me."
"No one is smiling."
"There are only four of us."
His mouth suddenly felt dry enough to choke him. Every instinct screamed at him not to look again, but another part of him—the same curiosity that had gotten him into this nightmare in the first place—refused to let it go.
Very slowly, he stepped back toward the peephole.
"Luna."
"I’m here."
"If I tell you to yell..."
"I will."
Kai leaned forward once more.
The hallway had returned to normal.
Daniel shifted his weight tiredly. One of the officers adjusted the radio clipped to his shoulder while another rubbed at the bridge of his nose. They looked completely alive now. Completely ordinary.
The unnatural stillness was gone.
And the man in the hoodie...
Had vanished.
Kai blinked several times, searching every inch of the hallway.
Nothing.
Just the police.
"...He’s gone."
Luna didn’t sound relieved.
"What did he look like?"
"I..."
Kai frowned.
"I don’t..."
The words refused to come.
That didn’t make any sense.
He had seen the man’s face.
He knew he had.
Yet the harder he tried to remember it, the more his memory slipped through his fingers. Details dissolved one after another until all that remained was a vague outline.
Dark hoodie.
Average height.
Smiling.
That was it.
No eye color.
No hairstyle.
No age.
No scars.
Nothing.
It was as if the moment he’d looked away, his mind had erased everything that could identify the stranger.
His phone buzzed.
A new message.
Unknown Number.
You looked away too soon.
Kai immediately locked the screen without reading anything else.
His hands were shaking again.
"No."
The word escaped as little more than a whisper.
"I’m done."
He turned away from the front door and looked toward his monitors. Chat still flooded the screen at impossible speed while the viewer count continued climbing.
184,219 viewers.
The number barely registered anymore.
It didn’t even feel real.
"I’m ending the stream."
Nobody argued.
Not Luna.
Not Derek.
Not Daniel.
Even chat, somehow sensing the exhaustion in his voice, slowed enough that the flood of jokes became scattered messages wishing him luck.
Kai reached for the mouse.
His cursor hovered over End Stream.
His finger rested on the button for only a second before he clicked.
Nothing.
The button instantly grayed out.
A loading circle appeared in the center of OBS.
Kai frowned.
"...What?"
He clicked again.
Still nothing.
He tried opening Task Manager.
It refused to launch.
Keyboard shortcuts stopped responding entirely. Even Alt-Tab failed. His streaming computer ignored every command as though it had suddenly forgotten how to function.
"Luna..."
"I’m thinking."
"The stream won’t end."
Another donation alert appeared.
No sound played.
Only white text slid silently across the top of his monitor.
Anonymous donated $0.00
Not until the finale.
Kai stared at it.
"...Finale?"
Before he could process the message, it disappeared and another immediately replaced it.
Everyone’s watching.
Then another.
Don’t disappoint them.
The alerts vanished as suddenly as they’d appeared.
OBS unlocked.
The End Stream button lit back up.
Kai didn’t hesitate.
He clicked it again.
A confirmation window filled the center of the screen.
Are you sure you want to end your stream?
"Yes."
He practically slammed the confirmation button.
The preview window faded to black.
His webcam disconnected.
The microphone icon muted itself.
The timer stopped counting.
Everything went silent.
Kai sat perfectly still.
For the first time in what felt like forever, there was no scrolling chat. No donation alerts. No impossible notifications. Only the quiet hum of his computer and the soft rain tapping against the apartment window.
He let out a long, exhausted breath.
"...It’s over."
The words felt strange.
Fragile.
Like saying them too loudly might break something.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then his phone vibrated.
Not a text.
A notification.
Kai glanced down.
Your stream has started.
His brow furrowed.
"...What?"
He unlocked the screen.
His heart stopped.
His channel was live.
Viewer Count:
1
His stomach twisted.
The stream title wasn’t one he’d written.
It simply read—
Waiting For Kai
A cold weight settled in his chest.
With trembling fingers, he tapped the stream.
The video loaded almost instantly.
It wasn’t showing his apartment.
It wasn’t showing his webcam.
Instead, the screen displayed an unfamiliar room with faded blue walls. A single desk sat beneath an old monitor, accompanied by a worn office chair that faced the camera. Dust floated lazily through the dim light spilling in from an unseen window.
Kai couldn’t breathe.
He knew this room.
He’d never been inside it.
Yet he knew it.
His eyes slowly drifted toward the back wall.
Every inch of it was covered in the same sentence, written again and again in black marker until there wasn’t a patch of paint left untouched.
Please don’t stream again.
Some lines were neat.
Others looked frantic.
Many had been written over older ones until the words became almost unreadable.
The room remained perfectly still.
For several long seconds...
Nothing moved.
Then, at the far end of the room, the closet door creaked open.
Not quickly.
Not dramatically.
Just slowly enough to make every second feel unbearable.
Darkness spilled from the narrow gap.
A figure stepped out.
He wore a dark hoodie.
His face remained hidden until he reached the center of the room.
Then he slowly lifted his head.
He looked directly into the camera.
Directly at Kai.
He smiled.
When he finally spoke, the voice that came through Kai’s phone sounded calm...
Comfortable...
Almost welcoming.
"You’re finally watching my stream."
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