My Daily Vlog Footage Showed A Glitch — The Camera Wasn’t Mine

Part 1

The glowing timeline on my editing software dragged across the screen in slow motion.

I rubbed my temples.

My coffee had gone completely cold three hours ago.

The digital clock in the corner of my monitor blinked two in the morning.

I clicked the spacebar with a heavy finger.

The footage on the screen jolted to life.

“Hello everyone, welcome back to my channel,” the audio played through my heavy headphones.

I hit the spacebar again to pause it.

I leaned back in my ergonomic chair.

My spine popped in the quiet room.

I had been sitting here since dinner.

Tyler had gone up to bed hours ago.

He always complained about my late nights.

He didn’t understand the intense pressure of the daily upload schedule.

I dragged the playhead back a few seconds.

I needed to trim the dead space before I spoke.

I always left a few seconds of silence before starting my intro.

It gave me a moment to paste a smile onto my tired face.

I clicked play again.

I waited for my voice to chime in.

“Hello everyone, welcome back to my channel—back to my channel—back…” the audio glitched and repeated.

I froze.

My hand hovered over the keyboard.

That wasn’t right.

I hadn’t repeated the phrase three times.

I never repeated my intro.

I always nailed it on the first take.

It was the one part of my routine that was entirely muscle memory.

I clicked the mouse and dragged the playhead back again.

My eyes narrowed at the audio waveforms on the screen.

They looked completely identical.

Three perfect, identical peaks.

The voice sounded exactly like mine.

But the cadence was just a fraction of a second off.

It lacked the breathless enthusiasm I always forced into my greetings.

It sounded flat.

It sounded practiced.

I pulled one headphone off my ear.

The house was dead silent.

The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen was the only sound.

I swallowed hard.

My throat felt like dry sandpaper.

I clicked the spacebar a fourth time.

The video track wasn’t matching the audio.

On the screen, my mouth was closed while the voice spoke.

I was just sitting there, staring blankly at the lens.

But the audio was still playing my greeting.

I leaned closer to the monitor.

The pixels danced in the low light of the editing bay.

The angle of the shot was completely wrong.

My camera was mounted on a tripod on my desk.

This footage was looking down at me from a higher angle.

It was looking down from the top of the tall bookshelf behind me.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

I turned my chair slowly.

The bookshelf stood in the deep shadows behind my desk.

I stared into the darkness between the rows of old novels.

A tiny, pinpoint red light blinked back at me.

I stopped breathing.

I reached for my phone on the desk.

My fingers fumbled against the smooth screen.

I tapped Tyler’s name in my recent contacts.

The phone pressed against my ear felt like a block of solid ice.

It rang once.

It rang twice.

It went straight to his voicemail.

I lowered the phone to my lap.

The red light on the bookshelf blinked again.

It was recording.

Someone had put a camera in my private office.

Someone was recording me right now.

Pushing away from the desk, my chair rolled backward with a quiet scrape.

My knees trembled uncontrollably under my weight.

A slow step toward the bookshelf made the floorboard creak loudly in the silent room.

Panic seized my chest as the sound echoed.

Every muscle in my body tensed while listening for movement in the dark house.

Nothing stirred.

Another cautious step brought me closer to the shadows.

Fingers shaking, my hand reached out.

My fingertips brushed the cold plastic of a camera body.

It wasn’t my expensive DSLR.

It was a small, cheap action camera.

I pulled it down from the dusty shelf.

The red light continued its rhythmic blinking.

I pressed the power button to turn it off.

It didn’t respond.

I pressed the record button.

Nothing happened.

I turned the camera over in my hands.

There was a piece of white masking tape stuck to the bottom.

Someone had written a word on it in thick black marker.

I held it up to the pale light of my monitor.

The word was “Soon.”

My stomach dropped into my shoes.

I turned toward the open door of my office.

The hallway was pitch black.

I heard a heavy footstep directly above my head.

That was the attic.

Tyler never went into the attic.

Tyler was fast asleep in the master bedroom down the hall.

Another footstep echoed heavily through the ceiling.

Someone was up there.

Someone had been living up there.

And they were watching me.

I gripped the action camera tightly in my hand.

I backed away from the doorway.

My breathing grew rapid and shallow.

I didn’t know what to do.

I couldn’t just stand here waiting for them to come down.

I had to get to Tyler.

I took a quiet step into the dark hallway.

The air felt heavy and thick.

I could smell something faint and metallic.

It smelled like old copper.

I took another step.

The house was entirely silent again.

Then I heard the slow creak of the attic stairs pulling down.

They were coming down.