Short - Psychological Thriller #005: Message Thirty-Eight
A Mecca of Thrill Original
The fluorescent lights above Samaira's desk hummed with the persistence of an insect trapped against glass. She'd grown accustomed to the sound over the past eight months, the way one grows accustomed to tinnitus, not because it becomes pleasant, but because acknowledging it drives you mad.
The radio station after midnight felt like a tomb. Her father's pride and joy, WLDR 94.7 radio, reduced to skeletal staff and automated programming. Just her, the voicemails, and the occasional trucker calling in to request The Isley Brothers for the third time that week.
She reached for another piece of strawberry taffy, the cellophane crinkling like dead leaves. The energy drink beside her keyboard had gone flat hours ago, but she sipped it anyway. On the muted television, a news ticker scrolled past: Local Disappearances Continue—Families Report "Disturbing Changes" in Returned Loved Ones.
The automation system clicked, preparing to play the next scheduled song. Instead, an old recording of her own voice filled the studio: "You're listening to WLDR, where the music never stops..." But something was off about the inflection, like hearing yourself on an answering machine from years ago. She didn't remember recording that particular promo.
She frowned, checking the playlist. The file wasn't listed anywhere in the system.
The voicemail chime interrupted her search. Message thirty-seven of the night.
A panicked man's voice crackled through:
"They're replacing people, you have to understand, they study you first, learn everything about you until--”
Static consumed the message. She tried to replay it, but the audio had corrupted completely. The message counter dropped to thirty-six. As if it had never existed.
Message thirty-seven… a different thirty-seven now, began with a woman venting about her ex-boyfriend. Normal. Mundane. But as Samaira half-listened, something the caller said made her freeze:
"...and I keep thinking about those strawberry candies, you know? The ones you're probably eating right now while you listen to this..."
Samaira looked down at the unwrapped taffy in her hand. Coincidence. Had to be.
The woman continued: "People think they know you, but they don't see the real you. The one who laughs at funerals, attempts murder, and hurts relatives just to watch them suffer..."
The line went dead.
Samaira's heart hammered against her ribs. She rewinds the message, but this time the woman only talked about her ex-boyfriend. No mention of candy or secrets or anything else. Just relationship drama, ordinary and forgettable.
But she'd heard what she'd heard.
Message thirty-eight made her blood turn to ice water.
"Samaira." Her own voice, but pitched slightly lower, like a recording played at the wrong speed. "I'm watching you through the glass. Can you see me yet?"
She spun toward the window behind her desk. The parking lot stretched empty under yellow streetlights, but something felt wrong about the shadows between the cars. They seemed deeper than they should be, more purposeful.
"I know you think this is a joke," her voice continued from the speakers. "I know you're looking for me in all the wrong places."
She yanked the curtains shut, heart pounding, and fumbled for the electrical tape, sealing the window locks. Her hands shook as she worked, the black tape stark against the glass.
The message wasn't finished: "But I'm not out there, Samaira. I'm in here. In your voice. In your secrets. In all the dark little corners you thought no one would ever find."
She stabbed the delete button, but the counter remained unchanged: 38 messages. She tried again. Still 38. The message had burned itself into the system like a scar.
Message thirty-nine arrived as she stared at the impossible number.
Her voice again, but younger this time. Fourteen years old and shaking with guilt:
"I turned on all the gas burners that night. Every single one. Then I went back to bed and waited. I wanted to see if anyone would wake up. If anyone would save us. If anyone cared enough to notice before it was too late."
But no one knew about that. She'd never told anyone and had buried the memory so deep she'd almost convinced herself it never happened.
"But Dad's insomnia saved you all," the voice continued. "He smelled the gas at 3 AM and turned everything off while you pretended to sleep. You let him think it was an accident. A faulty burner. But you knew the truth. You wanted the whole family to go that night, and when it didn't work, you felt dissatisfied."
Samaira tried to call the number back, but it went straight to a disconnected tone. She checked the system logs, but there was no record of the incoming call. As if her own voice was materializing from the static itself.
She stood up, needing movement, needing to feel her body in space. In the break room, the vending machine hummed quietly, its glass front reflecting her pale face. She bought a candy bar she didn't want, fumbling with quarters just to hear the normal sound of coins dropping.
When she turned away from the machine, her reflection lingered for a heartbeat too long.
Message forty was waiting when she returned.
"Do you remember the swing set?" The voice was hers but stripped of remorse. Childlike, curious about pain. "Your sister, four years old. You dared her to jump; said you'd catch her. You didn't. You stepped back and watched her fall. You told Mom she slipped, and everyone believed you. She cried for hours, her arm bent wrong. She still has the scar. And you. Do you remember how it felt to be believed? To be innocent?"
The candy bar fell from her nerveless fingers.
The memory lived in a locked vault in her mind, sealed away with other childhood shames. But here it was, spilling from the speakers in her own voice, as if someone had reached inside her head and pulled out what was supposed to see the grave.
"That's when you knew you were different," the voice continued. "That's when you realized you were broken. And you've been pretending to be normal ever since."
The lights flickered. Once. Twice. Then steady again.
Message forty-one made her skin crawl: "I found Dad's gun in the closet tonight. It's heavier than I thought it would be. Cold. But it feels right in my hands, like it was made for this moment."
"No," she whispered to the empty room. "I would never—"
"You laughed at his funeral," her voice interrupted. "While everyone else cried, you laughed because you realized you'd never have to pretend to like his potato salad again. That's who you really are underneath all the pretenses. That's the daughter you were."
The accusation hit like a physical blow. She did laugh… one horrified bark of inappropriate amusement when the minister mispronounced her father's middle name. But it hadn't been calloused. It had been grief doing what grief does: making people react in ways that defied logic.
But the voice made it sound deliberate. Monstrous.
"You don't deserve the life you have," it continued. "You don't deserve people's love or trust or friendship. You're a fraud, Samaira. A parasite wearing human skin. And deep down, you know it's true."
Something cold settled in her chest. Because part of her, the part that stayed awake at 3 AM cataloguing her failures, did know it was true. She was broken. It had always been broken. The gas leak, her younger sister, the inappropriate laughter… they were evidence of something fundamentally wrong with her wiring.
"I'm sorry I wasn't stronger," her voice said, softer now. Defeated. "I'm sorry I couldn't fight what I am. But maybe this is better. Maybe the world is better without me in it."
The sound of a gunshot exploded through the speakers.
Samaira screamed and fell backward, her chair toppling. In the silence that followed, she could hear her own ragged breathing and the relentless hum of the fluorescent lights.
She scrambled for her phone, but there was no signal. The bars flickered wildly before disappearing entirely. She tried the landline. Silence. Not even a dial tone. Even the internet connection had vanished, leaving her completely isolated.
Footsteps echoed from the hallway.
Slow. Deliberate. Getting closer.
She turned toward the sound and saw herself in the doorway. Same clothes, same tired expression, same silver key necklace. But the eyes were different. Too bright, with a smile too wide.
"Hello, Samaira," it said with her voice, but the rhythm was wrong. Like a song played at the wrong tempo. "We need to talk."
It moved into the room with jerky, unnatural steps. When it walked, the air around it seemed to flicker, like heat waves rising from summer asphalt.
"You've been listening to my messages," it continued, tilting its head at an unnatural angle. "I hope you're finally ready to accept what you are."
"What do you want?" Samaira backed against the sealed window.
"I want you to stop pretending." The thing smiled with her mouth but without warmth. "Every whisper of guilt. Every moment of shame. Every scar you tried to hide… I memorized them all. I wore your regret like a second skin until I became more you than you are."
It reached into its pocket and pulled out her silver necklace, the one that should have been around her neck but was somehow missing.
"The beautiful thing about humans," it said, "is how eager you are to confess. You think it's catharsis, but it's really just an exhibition. You want to be known for who you truly are, even if it destroys you."
"I'm not—I'm not a monster."
"Aren't you?" The creature's smile widened. "You turned the burners on and waited. Not for rescue, but to see who noticed. What kind of child thinks like that? A would-be family killer hiding behind big, sad eyes. These aren't aberrations, Samaira. This is who you are."
The words hit like poisoned darts, seeping into her bloodstream. Because she couldn't deny them. Couldn't explain them away or contextualize them into something forgivable.
"You don't deserve love," it continued. "You don't deserve happiness. You don't deserve to exist in a world full of good people when you're fundamentally broken."
Something inside her began to crack. The creature was right. She was broken and had always been broken. The people who cared about her; her father, her few friends, only loved the mask she wore. If they knew what she really was underneath...
"Let me take your place," the creature whispered. "I'll be a better you than you ever were. I'll be kind. I'll be normal. I'll be everything you pretend to be."
For a moment, the offer seemed almost merciful. To stop fighting, stop pretending, stop carrying the weight of her own monstrosity. To let something cleaner wear her face and live her life properly.
But then she thought about her father's real laugh, not the laugh at his funeral, but the one from Sunday mornings when they made pancakes together. She thought about her sister Keiko and their friendship. It was imperfect but genuine. She thought about the letters from listeners who said her late-night voice had helped them through dark moments.
Maybe she was broken. Maybe she carried darkness inside her like everyone else. But that didn't make her worthless. It made her human.
"No," she said, and grabbed a pair of metal scissors. "I won't let you erase me."
The creature's expression shifted, surprise flickering across its stolen features. "You can't fight what you are."
"I'm not fighting what I am," Samaira snarled. "I'm fighting what you want me to believe I am."
Samaira didn’t hesitate. She lunged, driving the rusted scissors deep into the creature’s chest. Static poured from the wound, fizzing and shrieking like a swarm of hornets made of white noise. The thing screamed, her voice, distorted and slammed her into the console. Lights exploded above her. The air filled with ozone and melted plastic.
It clawed at her face and arms, nails digging into her cheek and shoulders, gouging ribbons of skin. She screamed back, raw and primal. Blood poured down her arms, mixing with the static pouring from the creature. It thrashed, glitching, its form flickering between her face and something pale black with a void for eyes.
She shoved the scissors upward with a savage twist, feeling it snag on bone—or code. With a final lurch, the creature collapsed, splitting open into a puddle of static that hissed and sizzled as it evaporated across the floor.
Samaira fell to her knees, gasping. Blood ran from where the creature's nails had scraped her arms, but she was alive. She was herself.
She was…
Awake. At her desk. Candy wrapper stuck to her cheek.
The clock showed 3:47 AM. Her shift was almost over. The voicemail counter read thirty-six messages, nothing more sinister than the usual collection of human drama and loneliness.
A documentary played on the television on low volume: "...Skinwalkers feed on doubt and self-loathing, convincing their victims that they deserve to be replaced. The transformation is psychological as much as physical; the victim must surrender their sense of self-worth before the creature can complete the theft..."
Samaira touched her arms where the creature had scratched her. Unmarked. She checked her neck for her necklace. Still there.
Just a dream. A vivid, horrible dream brought on by too much caffeine and too many late nights alone with other people's confessions.
But as she gathered her belongings, preparing to leave, she couldn't shake the feeling that something had changed. The shadows in the corners still appeared deeper. The reflection in her computer screen showed her face, but with eyes that looked darker. Sunken in.
She hurried toward the exit, eager to get home to her own bed, her own life, her own problems. Behind her, the equipment hummed quietly, recording silence for the few remaining hours until dawn.
She was halfway to her car when she heard it… a soft thump from the trunk.
She froze, keys in hand. The sound came again. Deliberate. Rhythmic. Like someone knocking from inside.
Impossible. She'd had the car for three years, knew every creak and rattle. The trunk was empty except for jumper cables and a spare tire.
But the knocking continued, patient and persistent.
She fumbled with the trunk release, telling herself it was just something shifting around, something loose that needed to be secured. The lid popped open with a pneumatic hiss.
Empty. Just like it should be.
But pressed against the inside of the trunk lid, like a beaten down punching bag, was unmistakable dents the size of her own fist.
Behind her, the radio station's front door clicked open. She turned to see herself walking out, stretching like someone who'd just finished a long shift. The other Samaira waved cheerfully, car keys jingling in her hand.
"Drive safe," it called out with her voice. "You look tired."
The real Samaira, or the one who thought she was real stood frozen between her car and her doppelganger, no longer certain which of them belonged in the driver's seat.
In the distance, the radio tower's red warning light blinked against the sky like a heartbeat, broadcasting its signal to anyone willing to listen.
The call-in line was always open.
And something was always ready to answer.
Until the next short, stay strange,
🖤 The Mecca of Thrill