The Stranger in My Photos 19 I didnβt scream. I couldnβt. My throat locked up, and my lungs felt like they forgot how to work. The room was pitch black, but I knew I wasnβt alone. I couldnβt see him β but I felt him. The air was wrong, thick and cold, pressing against my skin like something tangible. My phone buzzed, lighting up the room for a split second. A new message: "Run." I didnβt think. I bolted. I crashed through the door, barely registering the pain as my shoulder slammed into it. The hallway was darker than it shouldβve been, stretching too long, the corners twisted in ways that didnβt make sense. My phone buzzed again. "Wrong way." My legs stopped before my brain caught up. I stood there, heart hammering, trying to figure out what that meant. Then I heard it. Not footsteps β something wetter. Like a heavy, dragging sound, scraping along the walls behind me. I didnβt want to look. I looked anyway. It wasnβt him. It was worse. A mess of limbs, tangled and wrong, skin that looked like it was stitched from too many bodies. And at the top, where a head shouldβve been β my face. It wasnβt moving, but its mouth hung open, slack and drooping unnaturally. The buzzing started again, rapid this time, one message after another flooding my screen. "Run." "Run." "RUN." The thing twitched β then lunged. I ran.