I've stopped checking my inbox at night.
At least, that's what I tell myself.
But every night, my fingers betray me. I tell them no, and they hover over the keyboard anyway, trembling like they have a memory of their own. And then I'm staring at the screen, watching the faint glow paint my face in that dead blue light that always makes my apartment feel like an aquarium.
Empty. Cold. Silent.
I thought the worst was over. After that last email from D., the one that ended with "The Lie You Told," I unplugged everything. Laptop, router, even the lamp. I wanted darkness. Real darkness. The kind that swallows your reflection.
But darkness doesn't save you from what's already inside your head.
Three nights later, I woke to the sound of typing.Not loud, soft, like the sound of fingers on old keys, steady and deliberate. I froze.
The first thing I thought was, someone's in my apartment.The second was worse, someone's using my laptop.
But when I looked across the room, it was closed. Still. The only light came from the window, spilling weakly across the floor. I held my breath for a long time, waiting for another sound. Nothing.
I almost convinced myself it was a dream.Almost.
Until the next morning.
When I opened my laptop, there it was, a new file on the desktop."Manuscript_Resumed.docx."
I don't remember naming it that. I don't even remember writing it. But when I opened it, my words stared back at me, or at least, I thought they were mine.
The sentences looked familiar, but they felt wrong.Too calm. Too clean. Too knowing.
Halfway through the first paragraph, I found something that made my stomach twist:
"She thought she could unplug the dead."
My name wasn't mentioned, but it didn't have to be.I slammed the laptop shut.
Do you know that feeling when silence becomes too heavy? When it stops being peaceful and turns into something that listens back? That's what my apartment feels like now. Every sound is a maybe, maybe it's the fridge, maybe it's him.
I tried deleting the file. It came back.Different name this time: "Manuscript_Returned.docx."And underneath the first line, another appeared, one that wasn't there before:
"She's starting to forget which parts she wrote."
I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I just sat there and stared at the words until my reflection blurred in the screen.
Maybe I really am losing my mind.Or maybe this is what happens when you write ghosts into existence—and they start writing back.