I never thought I’d end up living through a horror story about a photograph. The guy selling it told me, “I got this from some guy. There was film in it, so I had it developed. Some weird stuff showed up.”
That got me curious, so I bought it.
It was an old film camera from the ’90s. I got it from a secondhand shop and transferred the pictures from the film onto my phone.
The first few pictures were completely normal. There was a wedding, a couple of landscapes, and a family of five standing in front of an old house.
Then I got to the last picture.
It was a picture of the living room inside that same house.
The family wasn’t in it anymore.
There was something sitting in the corner, against the wall.
It looked like a person, but it wasn’t.
It had long, skinny arms that reached all the way down to the floor. Its head was hanging forward, so I couldn’t see its face.
But you know that feeling when you suddenly get the sense that something is looking at you?
That’s what I felt when I looked at the picture.
I swear, I could feel it looking right at me.
I deleted the picture from my phone. Then I deleted it from the cloud and emptied the trash. I wanted to make sure it was completely gone.
The next morning, it was back.
The file name had changed to:
I CAN SEE YOU JPG
That night, it was pretty late. I was sitting around on my phone when I decided to go into the kitchen for a cigarette.
I turned on the kitchen light.
The refrigerator door was open, and the light inside was on.
Something was sitting on the floor in front of it.
It was the same thing from the photograph.
Long, thin arms hanging down to the floor. Its head bent forward.
And it was tapping its fingers against the refrigerator door.
Then it slowly raised its head.
And looked at me.
It didn’t have a face.
Just a mouth.
A huge mouth, stretched across where its face should have been. It looked like the skin had been ripped open.
There were no teeth.
Just flesh.
Then it spoke.
The voice didn’t come from its mouth.
I heard it inside my head.
“Put the picture back.”
“You took me out of there. Put me back.”
I turned on every light in the kitchen and started screaming.
And just like that, it was gone.
Then I saw something on the kitchen table.
The photograph.
That same photograph.
I hadn’t put it there.
The thing was gone from the picture. There was nothing in the living room now. Just an empty room.
But there was something behind me.
I could see it over my shoulder.
The thing was standing right behind me.
And there was a reflection in the glass of the photograph.
My reflection.
I cried until morning.
I stayed in my bedroom with the door shut, but that didn’t stop it
It started talking from the other side of the door.
For hours.
“Put me back.”
“Put me back.”
“Put me back.”
It finally stopped when the sun came up.
I took the camera and opened it. The film compartment was broken.
I took the negative out and tried putting it back inside, but the camera was completely ruined.
Then I tried to burn the photograph.
It wouldn’t burn.
And that mouth spoke again.
“You can’t burn me.”
“Put me back.”
I called the police.
When they arrived, I showed them the photograph.
“Look,” I said. “There’s something in here.”
The officer looked at it for a while.
Then he looked at me.
“There’s nothing here,” he said. “It’s just you.”
They didn’t take me seriously.
Then they left.
But I know what I saw.
That photograph is still here.
It’s sitting on my kitchen table right now.
And every night, that thing gets a little closer.
Last night, it was standing next to the refrigerator.
I don’t know where it’s going to be tonight.
Maybe next to me.
