The Static Between Songs

I was midway through a calculus problem, the scratch of my pencil a dull counterpoint to the synth-heavy track thrumming in my earbuds. My roommate, Leo, was on his bed, scrolling through his phone, his own headphones on and blocking me out. The air in our apartment, a cramped two-bedroom above a laundromat on the edge of campus, was thick with the smell of old carpet and the faint, sickly sweet scent of Leo’s air freshener. It was February 3rd, a Tuesday, and the snow outside had turned to a gray slush that muffled the world.

Around eight, I felt a prickle on the back of my neck. I looked up from my homework, and there it was: a tall, impossibly thin figure silhouetted in the doorway that led to our small living room. It was just a black cutout against the dim light of the hallway, but I could feel it was watching me. I blinked, and it was gone. I shook my head, chalking it up to fatigue. But ten minutes later, it was there again, a little more defined, the edges of its form seeming to drink the light. My music, a driving bass line, felt wrong, like it was coming from a different, darker place.

The third time I saw it, I pulled out my earbuds, the sudden silence ringing in my ears. I glanced at Leo, who was now watching a video, his face lit by the glow of his screen. He hadn’t noticed anything. I felt a cold dread settle in my stomach. I tried to focus on my homework, but my eyes kept darting to the doorway. The fourth time, it lingered. It stood there for what felt like a full minute, a solid mass of darkness, and then stepped back, dissolving into the black of the hallway.

I took a deep breath, trying to convince myself it was a trick of the light, a car passing outside. I put my headphones back on, but the music felt hollow. About ten minutes later, a cold washed over my left side. I turned, and it was there, standing between my desk and Leo’s bed, blocking my view of the window and of Leo entirely. It was a black, featureless mass, roughly man-shaped, but its proportions were off – its shoulders too broad, its arms too long. It was as if the darkness itself had coalesced into a solid form. Leo’s bed was completely obscured, as was the streetlight outside. My breath caught in my throat. This was not my imagination.

I tore off my headphones and threw them onto the desk. ‘Leo,’ I said, my voice cracking. He looked up, startled, pulling out his own earbuds. ‘Do you feel anyone else in the room?’ I asked, the words feeling stupid even as I said them. Leo’s eyes widened, and then a familiar sly smile crept onto his face. ‘Yeah, actually,’ he said, his voice a low whisper. ‘Right behind you.’ My blood ran cold. I didn’t turn. I knew what I would see. Instead, I grabbed my phone, my hands trembling, and messaged my friend Maya: ‘Something is in my room. Not a person. It’s standing right next to me.’ I sent it, and the phone’s screen flickered, the battery suddenly draining to 1%.

I stared at the dark mass. It didn’t move, but I felt it breathing, a slow, rhythmic expansion and contraction of the blackness. Leo was still looking at me, his smile now a wide, unnerving grin. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen things like this before. In stories my grandmother told me. They come for people who get too close to the static.’ He gestured to my headphones on the desk. ‘The pause between songs. That’s when they slip in.’ I looked at the dark mass, and for the first time, I noticed a faint, high-pitched hum emanating from it, like the sound of a TV tuned to a dead channel. My phone buzzed. I was too scared to look, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw the screen light up with Maya’s reply: ‘What are you talking about? I can see you through the window. There’s no one else in there.’ The dark mass seemed to lean closer, and the hum grew louder. It wasn’t standing next to me anymore. It was inside my head. I reached for my headphones, a stupid instinct, and put them on. The music had stopped. The silence was absolute, but I could still hear the hum. And then, a voice, soft and cold, whispered through the static: ‘Found you.’