The gallery began innocently. A plain black background, white text across the top: “Don’t look if you can’t handle it.” Most people scrolled past. But Mara didn’t. Her curiosity was always louder than her fear.
The first photo was ordinary—a weathered wooden door, slightly ajar, in what looked like a deserted farmhouse. Faint scratches etched across its surface, almost like claw marks, or maybe desperate fingernails. In the corner, a date had been carved into the wood: 11/10/1987.
The second photo showed the same door, open wider, revealing a hallway lined with peeling floral wallpaper. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling. It was off, yet the photographer’s flash revealed long, dark stains on the floorboards—stains too irregular to be paint.
As Mara continued, the images grew progressively stranger. A mirror with no reflection. A child’s toy in an empty room. A chair overturned with rope coiled on the floor. A kitchen with plates still on the table as if the people had vanished mid-meal. Each photo was eerily silent, but together, they whispered something wordless—an unfinished story.
Photo twelve froze her. It was blurry, taken from a distance. A figure in the hallway. Tall. Thin. Its head tilted too far to the side. Its arms hung limp like something broken. Mara leaned closer to the screen, instinctively holding her breath. There was a caption beneath: “He notices when you look too long.”
She laughed nervously. It had to be a hoax. Dozens of internet stories had similar setups. But a strange pulse of cold air slid down her back.
The next sequence of images changed tone. Instead of old buildings, they were close-ups. Human close-ups. Faces with wide eyes. Mouths open. Frozen expressions of terror. Each face seemed to be looking directly into the camera. Their backgrounds were indistinct—as if they’d been photographed in the same dark place.
Photo twenty-nine came with no caption. Just an image of an old rotary phone on a small wooden table. In the photo, the phone’s receiver was slightly lifted, like someone had just answered it—or like someone on the other end was still waiting to speak.
Then came the photo that made Mara hesitate for the first time. Number thirty. A bedroom that looked almost identical to hers. The same color curtains. The same mirror on the left. Even the same fairy lights strung above the bed. In the far corner, something shadow-like crouched, head bowed, limbs too long to be human. The caption read: “Is this yours too?”
She clicked away, heart pounding. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Lots of bedrooms looked alike. Still, she checked her room nervously, eyes darting to the far corner. Empty. Just clothes piled on the chair.
But when she returned to the page, something had changed. The gallery had skipped ahead to photo forty. And this one wasn’t just familiar—it was her room. Exactly as it looked at that moment. Even the angle matched the way she was sitting. And in the bottom corner of the image, a shape had begun to rise.
Mara’s breath caught. Her webcam light wasn’t on. How could anyone…
She slammed the tab closed. The gallery vanished, replaced by her quiet reflection in the dark laptop screen. Her chest rose and fell like a trapped bird. But then—an unmistakable click.
The next sound was softer: brrrng.
Her phone.
On the screen, an unknown number. No caller ID.
She shouldn’t have answered, but fear makes strange choices for us.
She pressed the screen to her ear. Nothing. No voice. No breathing. Just faint static, like wind moving through a narrow space.
She hung up.
The ringing came again, immediately.
This time, when she answered, a voice whispered so low it felt like it slid inside her head instead of through the speaker:
“Photo fifty.”
The call ended.
With shaking hands, Mara reopened her laptop. Against every survival instinct she had, she typed the site’s address from memory. The gallery loaded instantly, but now the title was gone. Only a black screen with a single photo: Number fifty.
And there she was. Sitting in her chair. At that very moment. Her head slightly tilted, eyes wide, her laptop screen glowing against the dark.
But behind her—behind the version of her in the photo—a figure loomed. The same figure from the hallway shot. Head cocked. Hands dangling. Inches away.
Mara whirled around.
Nothing.
But the air was wrong. The shadows in the corner looked deeper, thicker, like they could move if they wanted. She could almost hear something breathing beneath the quiet.
Then her lights flickered.
She grabbed her phone to call someone—anyone—but her screen flashed white, then black, then displayed an image she hadn’t taken: her own terrified face, seconds delayed, like someone was photographing her through her own device.
The sound of the rotary phone from the photo—a sound she’d never heard in real life—echoed through the room. It wasn’t coming from outside. It was coming from inside her laptop.
Her breathing quickened. She backed away, step by step, but the shadows followed her peripheral vision like they were attached to her heartbeat.
A new photo flashed on her screen: Photo 51. It shouldn’t have existed. There were only fifty.
This one was darker than the rest, but Mara could still make out the outline of her door—closed when it had been open. A handprint, wet and glistening, rested on the wood.
Then came Photo 52. Her face. Mouth covered by a pale, skeletal hand.
The gallery ended there.
No back button. No forward button.
Her webcam light blinked on.
For the first time that night, Mara screamed. Not because she saw something. But because she finally realized—someone else was still looking.
And somewhere in the darkness behind the glass of her screen, the figure tilted its head, exactly like it had in the photo.
