The Static Visitor

The first time I saw the thing in the TV, I was twenty-one, sharing a cramped two-bedroom with a guy named Marcus. He was the kind of friend who left dishes in the sink but always paid his share of the Wi-Fi. My cousin Lena had come over with her beat-up guitar, and we were sprawled on the threadbare couch, listening to her play a half-finished song. The television was off, a black mirror against the wall. Marcus was stretched out on the floor, eyes closed, tapping his foot to a rhythm only he could hear.

Lena stopped mid-strum. She squinted at the TV. ‘Marcus, there’s something on your shoulder. Like a… reflection? No, it’s on the screen.’ I looked, saw only the dark glass and our silhouettes. ‘Quit messing around,’ Marcus said without opening his eyes. But Lena insisted, and I looked again. This time, a faint, shimmering form was visible—a skeletal shape, ribs and spine clearly defined, lying inches from Marcus’s side, as if sharing his imaginary mattress. I blinked, and it was gone. But I knew I hadn’t imagined it. That night, I didn’t sleep.

What followed was a slow unraveling. At first, it was flashes: a woman in a soaked dress standing in the hallway, a child’s giggle from the closet when no child lived there. Then the visions became constant. I could see them all, translucent figures drifting through the apartment, paying me no mind except for the occasional glance that made my blood run cold. Marcus thought I was losing it, but I needed proof. I borrowed Lena’s old digital camera and started snapping pictures. To my shock, they came out clear—the skeletal figure, now hovering over Marcus’s bed; a gaunt man with hollow eyes peering from the kitchen doorway; a woman whose head ended in a tangle of wires. When I showed Marcus, he turned pale, whispered, ‘We need to get out.’

But the apartment was just the beginning. After I moved out, into a tiny studio on the third floor of an old building near the train tracks, the visions only grew stronger. The malevolent ones started coming at night. They’d crawl out of the shadows, their forms ragged and oozing, and they’d lie beside me, close enough that I could feel a chill radiating from them. I’d close my eyes, and they’d whisper—not words, but a kind of static hiss, like the sound of a dead channel. I started sleeping with the lights on, but it didn’t help. They’d materialize in the glow, their faces a blur of pain and hunger.

One night, I woke to find them surrounding my bed—dozens of them, broken and small, like children caught in a fire. They reached out with thin, grasping fingers, and the static in my ears rose to a deafening roar. I screamed, but no sound came out. I squeezed my eyes shut, and when I opened them, they were gone, but I swore I could hear them breathing in the dark corners. I started carrying a small radio everywhere, leaving it on between stations, because the white noise seemed to drown them out, even if just for a moment.

A month later, I found a note slid under my door. It was a faded Polaroid, the kind that develop in your hand. It showed a man in his twenties, lying on a bed, eyes wide with terror. Next to him was a shadowy shape that looked exactly like the skeletal figure from the apartment. Written on the back, in shaky handwriting, was a single word: ‘Run.’ I didn’t need to be told twice. I packed a bag and left that night, but as I walked down the stairwell, my radio flickered and died. The static in my ears returned, and I saw their forms pressing in from the walls, their silent scream echoing in the empty space where my courage used to be. I understood then—the static was just their way of speaking, and they had been talking to me all along. The question was, what were they saying?