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You ever heard silence breathe? Not just quiet—but real, living silence. The kind that hums under your skin and crawls behind your ears? That's how the night felt.
My name's Rhysho. I'm nineteen. No college. No dreams. No future. Just a stiff mattress in a cramped apartment, leaky pipes, and four walls that creak like they miss being trees.
The world doesn't really notice people like me. Which is funny… because something else did.
It all started on a Saturday night.
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That night, the lights went off at exactly 12:00 AM. No warning. Just the soft buzz of the ceiling bulb giving up the ghost.
Click. Gone.
I was in the middle of pacing the living room—nervous energy from yet another sleepless day. I'd stopped checking the time by then. Midnight always found me. This time, it felt like it targeted me.
I reached for my phone.
Black screen. No battery. It was at 63% five minutes ago.
Something wasn't right.
My apartment, already a coffin of shadows and moldy air, suddenly grew cold. Not AC cold. Grave cold.
A chill swept past me—like air being sucked out of the room, replaced by something heavier. Denser.
I turned slowly.
Nothing.
But it wasn't over. Not even close.
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The bathroom. That's where I always go to splash water on my face, hoping to jolt myself back to reality.
This time, as I stepped forward, the hallway stretched.
I don't mean it looked longer. I mean I took five steps and the bathroom door never got closer. The walls grew narrower. The ceiling lower. The wallpaper peeled faster, like it was rotting in fast-forward.
My breathing echoed. My heartbeat slowed.
Finally, I reached the door.
I opened it.
The mirror greeted me.
And then something else did too.
Behind me.
A tall, thin figure, pale like it hadn't seen sunlight in centuries. It wearing a black suit. The suite was perfect, untouched, like the figure had stepped out of a funeral for the gods.
It had no face.
No eyes.
No mouth.
Just a smooth, bone-white skull covered in tight, stretched skin, and hands—cold, clawless—but wrapped gently around my shoulders.
I blinked.
It vanished.
But the chill remained and so did the mark, long, faint bruises on both shoulders, like fingerprints made of frostbite.
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That was the first time.
It returned the next night.
And the next.
And the next.
Five times in one week,
and each time, it stayed longer.
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I started writing this down because the world is forgetting me. I called Jamie—she answered once. Then she forgot my name.
"Sorry, who is this?"
She was my best friend since we were kids. We shared secrets. Now she doesn't remember me, says she never met a Rhysho.
I checked my texts. Gone.
Old photos? Blurred faces.
My social media accounts were gone, like I never existed.
I even tried calling my mom.
Her number was disconnected.
But I remember her.
I remember everything.
The world is erasing me.
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The thing in the suit... it's not just haunting me.
It's replacing me.
[CONTINUES...]
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