The Tetris Effect

The first time I set foot in Julian’s flat, I felt it. Not a draft, not a chill, but a wrongness, like the air was a size too small. He lived on the fourth floor of a low-rise building in Cebu City, overlooking a tangle of tin-roofed shanties that spilled down the hillside like a rash. The unit was a studio, all open plan: door on the left, bathroom on the right, a step down into the living and kitchen area. He’d been there for two years and swore he never noticed anything. But I did. I noticed the way the shadows in the corners seemed to lean in, the way the dust motes hung still in the afternoon light, the way the floorboards creaked even when no one moved.

The first incident happened on a Tuesday. Julian had ducked out to buy dinner from the carinderia down the street, leaving me alone with his PlayStation. I was in the middle of a racing game, the screen a blur of neon and exhaust, when the console started to stutter. The frames dropped, the audio glitched into a staccato buzz, and then the game froze. I waited, expecting it to crash, but instead, the screen went black. A single white block appeared in the center, glowing faintly. It was a Tetris block. I hadn’t played Tetris in years. The block began to descend, slowly, methodically, and as it fell, it rotated, snapped into place, and vanished. Another block appeared. Then another. The console was playing Tetris by itself. I reached for the controller, but my hand stopped mid-air. The blocks were falling too fast now, forming lines and clearing them with a hollow clack. And then, from the small speaker on the TV, I heard a voice. It was thin and reedy, like a child speaking through a tin can. It said, ‘You don’t belong here.’

I should have left. I should have called Julian and made up some excuse. But instead, I stayed, telling myself it was a prank, a faulty console, a bad trip. When Julian came back, the PlayStation was off, and I was sitting on the sofa, trying to steady my hands. He asked if I was okay, and I said I was fine. But he knew better. He always knew. He told me about the other things, the things he’d never told anyone. The sound of weeping from the walk-in closet at 3 AM. The figure he glimpsed in the bathroom mirror, a woman with no eyes. The way the kitchen knives would rattle in their block when he passed by. He said he’d started sleeping with the lights on, and even then, he felt watched. But he said the occurrences had gotten worse since I came. He blamed me, not directly, but I could hear it in his voice. ‘You’re a medium, aren’t you?’ he asked. I’d never told him, but he knew. I could see the fear in his eyes, the way he looked at me like I was a loaded gun.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in the narrow bed beside Julian, listening to the hum of the air conditioner, the distant rumble of the city, the occasional yelp of a stray dog. The room was dark except for the glow of the streetlights filtered through the blinds. I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of the room, my feet cold on the tiled floor. The walk-in closet door was ajar, and I saw a sliver of darkness within. I thought I saw a hand, pale and long-fingered, disappearing into the shadows. I blinked, and it was gone. I walked closer, my heart pounding. Inside, the closet was empty, just Julian’s jackets and a stack of boxes. But on the floor, there was a photograph. It was torn, faded, of a woman in her forties, her face blurred as if it had been scrubbed with acid. I picked it up, and from behind me, I heard a hiss, like steam escaping a pipe. I turned, and the bathroom door was open, the light off. I knew I should run, but my legs wouldn’t move. I saw a shape in the doorway, a woman, tall and gaunt, her head tilted at an unnatural angle. She raised a finger to her lips, and then she vanished.

Julian found me on the floor the next morning, unconscious. He said I was convulsing, my eyes rolled back. He rushed me to the hospital, and the doctors said I had a seizure, a stress-induced epileptic episode. But I knew what it was. The thing had tried to take me. When I got back to the flat, I couldn’t stay. I made Julian pack a bag, and we went to a hotel in the city. But it followed us. Every night, I’d wake up to see the woman standing at the foot of the bed, her mouth open in a silent scream. Julian said he saw her too, now. He stopped blaming me; instead, he became obsessed with getting rid of her. He bought sage, crucifixes, even had a priest come to bless the flat. Nothing worked. She was always there, just out of sight, a cold presence in the corner of my eye.

We moved out of the flat a week later. Julian found a place in the suburbs, a house with a garden and a fence, far away from the shanties and the cramped corridors. But the woman didn’t come with us. Instead, she started following me. I’d see her in reflections, in the corner of my vision. Sometimes, I’d hear her voice in static. One day, I was driving, and I looked in the rearview mirror, and there she was in the back seat, her face pale and twisted. I slammed on the brakes, and she was gone. I couldn’t tell Julian. He thought we had escaped. He thought the problem was solved. But I knew the truth. She wasn’t attached to the place; she was attached to me. She had been all along. The flat was just where I first noticed her. I think she was always there, waiting, watching, and the moment I stepped into that room, she latched onto me like a parasite. The game was just the beginning.

Now, I’m writing this from a friend’s apartment in Manila, far from Julian, far from that flat. But it doesn’t matter. She’s here. I can feel her cold breath on my neck, and when I close my eyes, I see the Tetris blocks falling, falling, falling. The lines clear, but the pile grows. And I know, eventually, the game will end. And when it does, I’ll be the one to vanish.