Yandere Stream

The third knock echoed through the bedroom wall before silence swallowed the apartment once again.

Kai didn’t move.

It wasn’t a conscious decision anymore. His body had simply reached the conclusion that moving was a terrible idea.

His flashlight stayed fixed on the peeling gray wall. Beneath the fresh coat of paint, hundreds of desperate messages covered the surface in overlapping handwriting. Some lines were neat, others barely legible, as though whoever had written them had grown more frantic with every passing hour.

Then another sound drifted through the room.

Not another knock.

A scrape.

Soft.

Slow.

Like fingernails dragging across rough concrete from somewhere inside the wall.

Every muscle in Kai’s body locked.

”...Tell me you heard that.”

”I heard it,” Luna answered immediately.

At almost the same moment Daniel spoke through the phone.

”What was that?”

Kai frowned.

”You heard it too?”

”Heard what?”

”The scraping.”

Daniel hesitated.

”...Mr. Mercer, I don’t hear anything except you talking.”

Kai’s pulse skipped.

”You didn’t hear the knocking?”

”No.”

Daniel sounded genuinely confused now.

”The line is completely clear.”

Kai slowly lowered the phone from his ear.

His thoughts collided.

Luna had heard it.

He had heard it.

Daniel hadn’t.

That should have made the answer obvious.

Except another explosion of messages flooded across his monitor before he could finish the thought.

NightShiftNoodle: WAIT DID ANYONE ELSE HEAR THAT??

PixelGrim: THE MIC PICKED UP SCRATCHING

SleepDebtCEO: NAH I’M TURNING MY VOLUME DOWN

Kai stared at chat.

”...What?”

He looked toward OBS.

The microphone level was still bouncing.

His stream had captured it.

Thousands of viewers had heard the sound.

But Daniel—standing just outside the apartment—hadn’t heard a thing.

That somehow made even less sense.

”Luna.”

”...Yeah?”

”How can my stream hear something my phone can’t?”

Silence.

A few seconds passed before she finally answered.

”I don’t know.”

No theory.

No guess.

No attempt to reassure him.

Just honesty.

Oddly enough, that steadied him more than another explanation would have.

Kai took a slow breath and stepped closer to the wall.

His flashlight drifted across another section where the fresh gray paint had begun to flake away. He hadn’t noticed it before.

There was more writing underneath.

Different writing.

The letters were smaller.

Messier.

Older.

He crouched beside the wall.

”What does it say?” Luna asked.

Kai brushed away loose flakes of paint with the sleeve of his hoodie.

The faded letters slowly became readable.

”’If you hear knocking...’”

The sentence vanished beneath another layer of gray.

His heartbeat quickened.

He rubbed harder.

Paint crumbled onto the floor.

More words appeared.

”’...don’t answer.’”

Nobody spoke.

Even chat seemed to slow down.

Kai kept brushing away the paint.

Another sentence emerged beneath the first.

”’It learns your...’”

The last word remained hidden.

His sleeve scraped against the wall again.

Gray dust fell away.

”’...voice.’”

A cold wave traveled down his spine.

He stared at the sentence for several long seconds, trying to convince himself it was only another attempt to scare whoever lived here before.

Then the wall whispered.

”...Kai.”

He nearly dropped the flashlight.

The voice wasn’t similar to his.

It was his.

Every pause.

Every breath.

Every tiny crack in his exhausted voice.

Perfect.

Kai stumbled backward, crashing into the edge of his bed.

”No...”

The whisper came again.

”...Kai.”

This time it sounded frightened.

Small.

Like someone trapped behind several feet of concrete.

Then it spoke again.

”Please let me out.”

Kai’s heart stopped.

He knew those words.

He’d said them.

Not tonight.

Months ago.

During one of his earliest streams after getting locked inside a storage room by accident. Chat had laughed. He’d clipped the moment himself.

The voice hadn’t copied him.

It had repeated him.

Exactly.

”No...”

His mouth had gone completely dry.

”That’s not...”

”Kai.”

Luna’s voice cut through the panic.

”Don’t answer it.”

She sounded calm.

Too calm.

The kind of calm people forced themselves into when they were terrified.

”Whatever you do...”

”...don’t speak to it.”

Kai immediately clamped his mouth shut.

The thing behind the wall remained silent for several seconds.

Then it spoke again.

”...Luna.”

Kai’s blood froze.

It wasn’t using his voice anymore.

It was using hers.

Soft.

Gentle.

Comforting.

”I’m here.”

Kai whipped around toward his monitor.

Luna’s Discord icon wasn’t glowing.

”I’m not talking,” she whispered.

The imitation laughed.

It wasn’t cruel.

It wasn’t mocking.

It sounded...

Interested.

Like a child discovering a new toy.

Or a predator realizing it had finally figured something out.

Kai backed away from the bedroom as slowly as he could.

He refused to turn his back on the wall.

One step.

Then another.

The imitation never spoke again.

Only watched.

He could feel it.

By the time he reached the hallway, his breathing had become shallow.

The apartment looked exactly as it always had.

The crooked picture frame he’d been meaning to straighten.

The couch with the worn armrest.

The coffee mug still sitting beside the sink.

Everything was familiar.

Painfully familiar.

Yet Daniel insisted he was standing outside an empty apartment.

No furniture.

No lights.

No Kai.

His phone vibrated.

A message from Derek.

Police are reviewing the hallway cameras.

Before Kai could reply, another message appeared.

Kai...

A third arrived almost immediately afterward.

No one entered your apartment tonight.

Kai stared at the screen.

”What?”

His voice barely existed.

Instead of texting again, Derek called.

Kai answered before the first ring finished.

”What do you mean nobody entered?”

”The cameras cover the elevator, both stairwells, and the hallway outside your apartment,” Derek said. His normally casual tone had disappeared completely.

”They reviewed the last twelve hours.”

Kai waited.

”No one came to your door.”

His stomach twisted.

”What about the guy who ran past earlier?”

”They saw him.”

”And?”

”He came out of Apartment 7B.”

Kai squeezed the phone tighter.

”Then where did he go?”

A long silence followed.

When Derek finally answered, his voice was barely above a whisper.

”That’s the problem.”

Kai didn’t breathe.

”The camera shows him running.”

”It shows him passing your apartment.”

”It shows him reaching the end of the hallway.”

Another pause.

”And then...”

Derek swallowed audibly.

”...he disappears.”

Not behind a corner.

Not into the stairwell.

Not into the elevator.

One frame he was there.

The next...

The hallway was empty.