The Constant Iteration

The night air tasted of cut grass and cheap cider when my mate Callum pulled a worn, wooden box from under his bed. Inside, wrapped in a moth-eaten scarf, was a board that looked older than my gran. Callum claimed his uncle had brought it back from some séance in Prague, but we were fifteen, bored, and buzzing from the stolen beer we’d snuck into his garden. We thought we’d muck about, you know, pretend to summon something. We didn’t even know the rules, just placed our fingers on the planchette and giggled.

I was the one who said ‘Boo’ – just to break the tension. Maybe I was trying to be funny, to prove I wasn’t scared. The planchette moved a split second later, sliding to ‘B’ then ‘O’ then ‘O’. It spelled ‘BOO’ with a trembling jerk. We screamed, laughed, called it a coincidence. But my heart was hammering. I felt a cold draft that didn’t match the summer night. We shoved the board back into the box and decided to hit a party at Marcus’s place, eager to shake off the unease.

At the party, it started. I saw the word ‘BOO’ – not on a phone screen or a poster, but scrawled in the condensation on a beer bottle. Then on the kitchen tiles, in the smear of a spilled drink. Outside, the streetlights flickered in a pattern that spelled it across the pavement. In the car, Callum’s brother’s new bumper sticker read ‘BOO’ in peeling letters. I felt a crawling sensation, like something was watching me from the periphery. My mates thought I was having a laugh, but I wasn’t. I was starting to feel sick.

I went home early, hoping sleep would reset my brain. But my bedroom became a nightmare. As I lay in bed, my collection of model cars flew off the shelf, smashing against the wall. My drawer shot open so hard it nearly broke, and my t-shirts flew out. My TV turned on with static, then off, then on, the power button cycling by itself. I tried to scream, but my throat was locked. I was pinned to the mattress by an invisible weight. My dad burst in, scenting chaos, but I couldn’t even blink. He saw the overturned room, the flickering TV, his son’s rigid face, and he turned white as a sheet. He grabbed me, shook me, but I was a statue.

The next night was worse. The knives from my desk drawer – I whittled wood, not for weapons, but the blades were sharp – they levitated, pointing at my head. The drawers banged open and shut like a manic drummer. My TV did its on-off dance. And then my cat, Miso, a fluffy tabby, was suddenly hurled across the room. She yowled and thudded against the wall, then scrambled away, leaving a streak of urine on the carpet. I could move my eyes, and I saw my reflection in the black TV screen – but it wasn’t my face. It was a pale, wide-eyed mask of my own features, grinning at me with too many teeth.

My dad took me to a doctor, who said anxiety. He gave me sleeping pills. But the pills didn’t stop the pattern. Every night at 2:33 AM, the same ritual. The room would hum with a frequency that made my fillings ache. The planchette from the board – which we’d thrown in the bin – appeared on my desk, spinning in circles. I realized it wasn’t about the word ‘BOO’ anymore. It was about the number. The board had spelled not just ‘B-O-O’, but then the planchette had drifted to ‘1’ and ‘3’ and ‘3’ before we stopped it. I never told anyone. I thought it was part of the game. Now I knew it was a countdown.

On the third night, I mustered the courage to speak. As the knives rose, I whispered, ‘What do you want?’ The room went silent. The TV crackled, and in the static, a voice like grinding gravel said, ‘Keep saying it.’ I didn’t understand. ‘Keep saying what?’ I asked. The drawers slammed shut. The knives dropped. The voice faded into a low hum.

But then I noticed the pattern. Every time I spoke the word ‘BOO’ naturally – in a laugh, in a joke – the phenomena paused, as if confused. The fourth night, I tried it deliberately. I said ‘BOO’ at 2:33, and the room was calm. The fifth night, I said it twice. The phenomena lessened. I told my dad I was fine, that it was stress. But I knew I was bargaining with something. Each night, I had to say ‘BOO’ more often. It was like feeding a fire. If I missed a beat, the knives would twitch.

By the end of the week, I was saying ‘BOO’ constantly – to my reflection, to the air, to my cat. My mates thought I’d lost it. But I couldn’t stop. It was the only way to keep the dark thing at bay. And then, on the seventh night, I said ‘BOO’ one last time, and the room went black. When the lights came back, the board was gone. The knives were back in the drawer. My cat was alive and purring. But my reflection wasn’t mine. It was a copy of me, silently repeating ‘BOO’ over and over, its lips moving without sound.

Now I wear a mirror around my neck. I have to check my reflection every few minutes to make sure I’m still me. Because every time I see my face, I swear it flaps its lips, forming the word I can’t escape. The word that keeps the world from falling apart. The word I whisper to my own face in the dark: ‘BOO, BOO, BOO’ – until I fall into a dreamless sleep, praying it will be the last time. But I know, deep down, the countdown isn’t over. It’s just starting a new iteration. And this time, I’m the one who’s trapped inside the board.