“Are you crazy? Are you actually crazy? ” I stared at him, my own dark joke hanging in the air. It wasn’t even that funny.
We were filming a stream. Just another night. He was setting up his equipment, I was holding a small black bag he’d asked about — one of mine he’d had lying around. “I don’t even know where I put it.
It’s on the white box over there,” he said. I looked around the room. Boxes, cables, bags. A proper chaotic setup.
Then I noticed it. “Whoa, what’s that back there? ” I asked. “Where?
”
“Right there. That little monster… in the lamp. ”
I was kidding. Mostly.
The camera light caught the corner just right, and something about the shadow made my skin crawl. He spun around, checking. “You’re crazy,” he laughed. Then everyone in the chat started typing the same thing.
Monsters. Ghosts. “That’s a ghost in the lamp. ”
We both laughed it off.
He adjusted the camera. “Can you turn your camera forward? Let me see. ”
I shifted, and there it was again — a shape I couldn’t quite explain.
The chat went wild. “Okay, but what am I supposed to do with the bag? ” I asked. “Just hang it on the hooks up there.
There’s an eyelet. ”
“There’s no hook. ”
“Just put it on the chair. Nothing’s ever happened before.
”
I put it down on the chair and tried to ignore the uneasy feeling in my chest. The chat typed things I pretended not to read. We were supposed to be winding down. He even pointed out the festival lights shining through the window, making the whole place look lit up like a party.
Pretty. Wrong. “Looks good, right? ” he said.
“Yeah, it has something. ”
He showed me both camera routes on his screen. The battery was running low again. I figured it was the same for me.
Power bank was nearly dead. We said goodnight to the chat, made plans to check in the morning, and I took off my microphone. The sound would only come through the camera now. I told everyone I hoped we’d still be seeing each other in the morning, and not just staring at a pause screen for three hours.
“Good night, guys. ”
The chat closed to emotes only. He hit the lights. I pulled the covers up.
That’s when I heard the bag move. I froze. It was a small, dark bag. On a chair.
Nothing more. But it made a sound. A shift. Like something was inside it, turning over.
I told myself it was the building settling. The wind. The power bank. Anything but what I knew I’d just heard.
Then the lamp flickered. I looked at it — at the little shape I’d joked about earlier. It wasn’t a shadow. It wasn’t just the light.
It was staring back at me. The chat was dark. The stream was on pause. The sound was dead.
And that bag moved again.
