Black Tape.

When I moved into the apartment, I thought it was a fresh start. Fresh paint, new floors, a little balcony that caught the afternoon sun just right. I unpacked my boxes slowly, half listening to music, half just enjoying the silence that wasn’t mine yet. That night, I couldn’t sleep. The mattress was stiff, the air felt different. I kept telling myself it was just new place nerves, but when I turned over and saw the faint outline of the window blinds on the ceiling, I felt eyes on me, though I was alone.

It was in the third box I unpacked that I found them. VHS tapes. Stacked neatly, labeled with dates. The handwriting was tight, neat, almost obsessive. The earliest was from a month ago. I picked up the first one, hesitated, then slid it into the player I’d found at the back of the closet. The screen flickered to life, static first, then the familiar view of my bedroom. My bedroom. From the exact angle of my bed. Someone was asleep in it. Me, but not me. Someone else, curled under my blankets, chest rising and falling. My breath caught, my hands shaking.

I dropped the remote. My heart raced. I rewound the tape, tried to convince myself it was some old recording, some prank the landlord played. The bedspread was mine, the nightstand the same, the curtains pulled the same way. It was impossible. I could feel the sweat prickling on my arms. I had not met anyone who had lived here before. No one mentioned anything.I told myself it was a joke. Some kind of horror game someone left behind for the new tenant. But curiosity, morbid curiosity, made me keep watching. Each tape followed the same pattern. The person in my bed changed subtly, sometimes different clothes, sometimes same pajamas, always sleeping. Always alone. The dates marched forward, like a calendar counting down my sanity. The last tape, the one on top of the stack, had tomorrow’s date. My stomach dropped. I held it, shaking. My hands felt clammy.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t watch it. I shoved it back into the box, tried to distract myself with unpacking, cleaning, scrolling through my phone, anything. But every time I went near the bed, I felt a weight on it, as if someone had just gotten up. I checked the locks obsessively, doors, windows, even the ventilation shafts, the tiny gap where the wall met the floor. Nothing. Yet every night, that feeling pressed down harder.

I told my friend over the phone, voice trembling. She laughed at first, trying to calm me, saying it had to be some kind of joke, some prank, maybe someone sneaking in before I got the place. I hated to tell her I lived on the second floor, the entrance locked, the hallways empty, no maintenance ever around. She stopped laughing when I told her.The next night, I couldn’t stop thinking about the tape. I told myself I was imagining it, seeing shadows in the corners, hearing the floor creak. But when I lay down, the room felt wrong. The blanket was crumpled as if someone had just gotten up. My phone buzzed with a notification, and my stomach dropped again. The notification was empty, blank, but the timestamp was the same as the date written on the tape. Tomorrow.

I couldn’t wait. I had to know. I pulled the tape from the box. Inserted it. The screen blinked to life. My room. My bed. Someone sleeping. My bed, my blanket, my pillow. I stared so long that my eyes watered. Every breath felt heavy. And then I saw it a hand twitch. A small twitch under the blanket. A foot peeking out. The camera panned slightly, and I realized the person was… me. Or someone who looked exactly like me. I swallowed hard, my throat dry.

I paused it. Sat back. Tried to laugh. Tried to tell myself it was editing, mirrors, some cheap trick. But the tape didn’t lie. I hadn’t been asleep when I pressed play. I hadn’t moved from the chair. The room, my body, the blankets… everything matched. I could see my own hair spread across the pillow. My own hand, peeking out. I could see the fear in that version of me.I called the landlord. No answer. I went to the building office. Empty. No previous tenants, no notes, no stories. I went home. Closed the door, locked it, triple checked. My apartment smelled faintly of bleach, of dust, of someone else’s shampoo. I tried to sleep. I didn’t.

When I woke, my blankets were on the floor. My pillow was on the chair. The tape was gone. And a new one was on the shelf. Tomorrow’s date. The same as before. I knew what I had to do. I had to watch it.

I pressed play. My own room. My bed. Me, asleep, just like the tape. Only this time, my eyes opened. Slowly, deliberately, just as I realized that the person watching, the one who had left the tapes, wasn’t just watching. They had been inside. They had been me.

I dropped the remote. I didn’t move for hours. The light of the morning came in through the blinds, and I saw it. The black tape. Stuck to my door. And underneath, scrawled in the same handwriting from the tapes: See you tonight.

I didn’t sleep.