At 1:14 a.m., the entity stood up and offered Amanda its hand. She took it, a soft smile playing on her lips, and allowed herself to be led toward the stairs. They moved past the hallway camera. As they reached the bottom step, the entity suddenly stopped.
It didn’t look at Amanda. It slowly turned its head back toward the living room, tilting its chin upward at a sharp, unnatural angle.
It looked directly into the lens of the hidden camera.
The pale blue eyes locked onto mine through the digital ether. The creature didn’t look angry or surprised to find a camera there. Instead, the corners of its mouth twitched upward into a wide, jagged grin that stretched a fraction of an inch too far across its face, baring a row of teeth that were just a little too straight, a little too white.
It raised its right hand—my hand, down to the small scar on the knuckle from a childhood bicycle crash—and gave a slow, deliberate wave.
Then, it turned and followed my wife upstairs into the darkness of our bedroom, where there were no cameras.
The Long Walk Home
I didn’t sleep. I sat in the motel room until the sky outside turned from pitch black to a bruised, smoky gray.
At 5:45 a.m., I logged back into the app. The driveway camera showed the morning mist rolling off the hood of my wife’s car. At exactly 5:58 a.m., the front door opened. The entity stepped out onto the porch, pulling the collar of its charcoal blazer up against the damp Pacific Northwest chill.
It walked down the steps, its gait steady and confident. It didn’t look back at the house. It didn’t look at the cameras. It simply walked down the sidewalk, turning the corner past Mr. Thompson’s pristine hedges, and vanished from the frame.
It didn’t have a car. It just walked away on foot into the fog.
By 7:00 a.m., I was back in my vehicle, driving with a manic, caffeine-fueled intensity toward my neighborhood. My mind was no longer a chaotic mess of fear; it had hardened into something cold, sharp, and dangerous. I was being replaced. Or perhaps, I had already been replaced, and I was just the last one to find out.
I parked three houses down, out of sight of my own driveway. I walked down the sidewalk, my boots crunching against the wet maple leaves.
