The hum of the refrigerator was the only sound left in the apartment.
Arin sat on the edge of his bed, the faint glow from the monitor painting his face in flickering blue.
His eyes were dry, but he didn't blink.
He hadn't, for a while now.
The audio file from Anaya still played in his head — her whisper trapped in the static.
> "Don't come back… it remembers you."
He replayed the message again, hoping for a different ending, but each time it stopped at 03:00 exactly.
No glitch.
No error.
Just precision — like a machine that knew when to stop.
---
He opened his laptop. The cursor was already blinking in a text document he hadn't opened.
Words began appearing on their own, line by line:
> You left the door open.
We found you.
Arin froze, breath caught in his throat.
He reached for the power button — the screen flickered but refused to turn off.
Another line appeared:
> Don't turn away. You wanted to know what happens after.
He whispered, "Who are you?"
The cursor blinked twice, then typed:
> You.
---
Every sound in the room sharpened — the hum of the fridge, the buzz of the light, his pulse roaring in his ears.
His reflection on the black monitor tilted its head — again, a heartbeat late.
He blinked.
The reflection didn't.
He stood slowly.
So did it — but half a second behind, its eyes darker than the rest of its face.
He leaned forward; the reflection leaned closer, lips moving a fraction out of sync.
> "Say it," Arin whispered.
Its mouth formed the words "You came back."
The same phrase from the hospital monitor.
He stumbled backward, hitting the desk. The monitor toppled, shattering on the floor — and for an instant, in the reflection of the glass shards, dozens of faces stared up at him.
Each one was him.
Each one at a slightly different angle.
Each one whispering at once:
> "Three minutes. Over and over. You never left."
---
The lights went out.
The apartment fell into perfect silence — the kind that presses on your eardrums until you can hear your own blood move.
Then — click.
The lamp flickered back to life.
And across the room, written in fog on the inside of the windowpane, were three digits:
> 02:57
He stumbled forward, hands shaking. The numbers dripped slowly down the glass, dissolving into streaks.
Behind the reflection, a shadow lingered — human-shaped, but stretched wrong, as if time itself were bending around it.
Arin whispered, "What are you?"
The shadow tilted its head the way he did.
Then, slowly, it raised one hand — and on the other side of the glass, so did he.
The same movement. Perfect mirror.
Until his hand stopped… and its didn't.
The shadow's fingers kept rising, pressing through the surface like water.
Ripples spread across the glass.
Arin stumbled back, heart hammering.
The air turned colder, heavy, as though gravity had shifted.
The shadow leaned forward, its mouth forming a single word:
> "RETURN."
---
He blinked — and the room snapped back.
The light was steady. The glass was clean.
His own reflection stared back, terrified but alone.
Except —
his laptop had turned itself on again.
On the screen, a new recording file was open.
Timestamp: 02:57 – 03:00
Duration: exactly three minutes.
He pressed play.
Static.
Then breathing.
Then his own voice, whispering words he never remembered saying:
> "It's watching through me now."
---
That night, Arin realized something horrifying.
He hadn't been studying The Borderline.
He'd been opening it.
---