…me.<\/p>\n
Not just someone who looked like me. It was me.<\/p>\n
My flashlight beam trembled as it swept across the cramped, dusty space. Hundreds of polaroids, faded photographs, and crisp digital prints were pinned methodically to the drywall. I stepped closer, my breath catching in my throat.<\/p>\n
There was a photo of me at my seventh birthday party, blowing out candles in my childhood home three states away. Next to it, a candid shot of me crying in my car after a terrible college breakup. Further down, a picture of my husband and me signing the mortgage papers for this exact house, taken just two weeks ago.<\/p>\n
The air in the room grew thick, smelling faintly of copper and ancient dust. The wallpaper I had just spent hours tearing down was easily sixty years old. The plaster sealing this door hadn’t been touched in decades. It was physically impossible for these recent photos to be here, yet the edges of even the newest pictures were curled and yellowed, as if they had been aging in this dark room for half a century.<\/p>\n
I traced the timeline of my life, which wrapped around the room sequentially. Left to right, top to bottom. Childhood. Adolescence. Adulthood. The timeline ended in the darkest corner of the room, leaving a small, empty patch of wall just big enough for one more picture.<\/p>\n
Beneath that empty space sat an antique, brass-legged stool. Resting on it was a heavy, vintage Polaroid camera.<\/p>\n
As my flashlight beam hit the lens, the camera suddenly whirred to life.<\/p>\n
Click. Whirrrr. A blinding flash illuminated the tiny room, leaving a purple spot dancing in my vision. The camera spat out a square of film, which fluttered to the dusty floor.<\/p>\n
My hands shook as I bent down to pick it up. I watched the chemicals react in the beam of my light, the image slowly taking shape from the gray haze. It was a photo of me. I was standing in this exact room, staring down in absolute horror at a freshly printed Polaroid.<\/p>\n
But that wasn’t what made my heart stop.<\/p>\n
In the background of the photograph, standing just inches behind my left shoulder, was a tall, shadowy figure with elongated, pale hands reaching toward my neck.<\/p>\n
I didn’t even have time to scream before the heavy metal door slammed shut behind me, plunging the room into absolute darkness. A heavy deadbolt slid into place, echoing like a gunshot through the walls of our dream home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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