Horror Short: "Screen Time"
"Screen Time"
*This is a work of fiction.
It has been two years since I started living alone.
I liked this room because it was quiet.
Nothing strange had ever happened here.
The first sense of unease was just a trivial thing.
In the morning, I picked up my toothbrush to brush my teeth.
It was slightly damp.
"Did it not dry properly last night?"
I didn't pay it any mind.
A few days later.
I felt like the barley tea in the fridge was disappearing quickly.
But it was a hot season.
I was drinking it often myself.
I thought that was the end of it.
That Saturday.
While cleaning, I found a rubber band tangled with hair under the bed.
My hair is short.
I don't use rubber bands.
"Maybe it belonged to the previous tenant."
I threw it in the trash.
A few days later.
I woke up in the middle of the night.
I was thirsty.
I headed to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.
As I was pouring some barley tea, I suddenly felt something was off.
Water droplets in the sink.
They were still there, as if someone had just been using the water a moment ago.
I couldn't move from where I stood.
I must have forgotten to turn the faucet off properly.
I convinced myself of that and went back to the bedroom.
The next morning.
A notification arrived on my smartphone.
"This week's screen time"
I opened it to kill some time.
The app I had used the longest.
Camera: 3 hours and 12 minutes
"...What?"
I hardly ever take photos.
I have no memory of opening the camera at all this week.
It must be a glitch.
Thinking that, I opened the usage history.
The last time it was used.
Yesterday at 2:41 AM.
Exactly,
the time I woke up because I was thirsty.
My chest felt uneasy.
Wanting to check something, I opened the camera roll.
There wasn't a single new photo.
No videos either.
Everything was as usual.
"It really was a bug."
I muttered that and tried to close it.
That was when it happened.
At the bottom of the screen,
there was one extra album I don't usually see.
"Recently Deleted"
I opened it without thinking.
In there,
with the same timestamp as last night,
There was a row of photos deleted at 2:41 AM.
48 in total.
With trembling fingers, I restored just one.
The photo appeared.
A dark bedroom.
A bed.
Me, sleeping.
The photographer,
was standing right next to the bed.