The knock: soft. Two taps. Then dead air.
Arman cracked the door. Nobody. Just a cardboard box squatting on the step, like it grew there. No name, no stamp, no return. Just shit tape barely holding it together.
He dragged it in, spoon-gutted it. Inside: weird.
A chunk of busted mirror, palm-sized. Edges: jagged razors. Blood-smear dried on the glass. Underneath, paper folded into three words block-punched:
"CLEAN IT. PROOF. TELEGRAM."
Arman froze.
Whose blood?
Who sent it?
Why him?
Hands did the shakes. A flicker of clean thought:
This is wrong. Fucking wrong. Cop shop. Help. People vanish this way.
But then the whisper slithered in.
Familiar snake-tongue – the addiction-voice coiled in his brain:
"Come on… Box's open. Curiosity's a bitch. Finish it. Just this once…"
So he cleaned it.
Water washed over the shard. Rag wiped the blood till it gleamed. Black cloth backdrop. Photo snapped. A heartbeat of hesitation before sending it to the Telegram channel he was somehow already in.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Reply in seconds.
"Good." "You clean up nice."
Then another hit. An address thrown down.
"Alone. Shard. No phone. No talk. It's yours."
He knew the address, yeah, but what the fuck waited there? Didn't want to go. Junkie-brain didn't give a damn for logic.
Dark already when Arman got there. Edge of the city, past the last stop, past the dead lights.
A shit-shack at the end of a dirt-track. Windows boarded. Doorwood rotten enough to fall apart with a sneeze.
Shard clutched in cloth, he knocked twice.
Pause. Then a dry-cough voice from inside:
"In. Don't touch shit that ain't yours."
Door creaked open on its own.
Inside: dim yellow bulb swinging. Stink of rot and wet wood. House looked dead, but organized weird. Everything in its place. Untouched for years.
Nobody there.
He walked slow. Shoes whispered on dead carpet. No voices. No steps. Just the silence ringing in his skull.
Low wood table near the far wall. Metal box, closed but unlocked. Drugs inside, maybe. Next to it, another scrap:
"Touch shit, it goes different."
Didn't know the fuck that meant.
Turned to leave. Hand on the door.
Then—mirror. Cracked, sideways on the wall. Big, busted one. Center gone, ripped out.
Shard out of the cloth.
Fit perfect.
Breath caught. Room squeezed in.
Looked over his shoulder.
Still nobody.
But that voice…
"In. Don't touch shit that ain't yours."
It wasn't his head-noise. Someone was there. Still is.
Heart: a fucking drum solo in his chest.
Wrong. So fucking wrong.
He bolted.
Didn't touch shit. Didn't look back. Sprinted down the path, through the black, past the trees, house gone.
Back in his apartment, safety a chokehold, he slammed the door, double-locked, and ate shit on the couch. Lungs burned, yeah, but his brain was charcoal.
Telegram. Same dead chat.
"Who in the house?"
"Who talked?"
Reply flickered in.
"Not worth a fuck."
"Do the task. Snag the prize."
He stared at the screen, thumb twitching over the "Call Cops" button. Mouth: dust.
Was he even driving this car anymore?
He stared at the screen, thumb still twitching "Cops." Mouth: dust.
Was he even fucking real?
Other hand shook.
The box from the house sat on the desk, untouched till now—like it had teeth.
But now, need and want twisted together.
He grabbed it.
Inside: the shit.
Neat. Sealed. Waiting. Like a goddamn lover.
He looked at it—held it.
Weight: too familiar, too heavy with the past.
A ghost of himself screamed throw it.
But that ghost was fading to white noise.
Addiction sliced through, a shadow peeling off his skin.
No words, just the jones.
Spike it.
Earned it.
Need it.
Teeth clenched. Gave in.
Needle went home.
High hit.
Warm flood. Head back. Body melt.
Dopamine: raw, reckless, a fucking tsunami.
For a flash, forgot the blood, the vo
ice, the mirror. Forgot the rules. The fear. The house-silence.
Just silence. And bliss.
Then—
Guilt, the hangover.
