Chapter 1: Tomorrow night, they would both want him.
The thrift store smelled of mothballs and forgotten lives, a dim cavern where dusty relics whispered secrets to anyone foolish enough to listen. Mark Harlan, thirty-eight and freshly divorced, wandered the aisles like a ghost haunting his own regrets, his eyes scanning for something—anything—to fill the echoing void of his new apartment. That's when he saw it: a sleek smart TV, forty inches of black glass perched on a rickety shelf, its price tag a steal at fifty bucks. The seller, an old woman with eyes like cracked porcelain, muttered something about it being "finicky," but Mark waved her off. What could go wrong with a used screen? He lugged it home under a sky bruised with impending rain, the weight of it pulling at his shoulders like an unwelcome embrace.
Setting it up was child's play—plug in, connect to Wi-Fi, and the thing hummed to life with a soft, almost eager glow. Mark flicked through channels that night, the blue light bathing his sparse living room in an otherworldly hue. A couch sagged against one wall, a coffee table scarred with rings from too many solitary beers, and the window overlooked a street where shadows danced like uninvited guests. He fell asleep to the murmur of a late-night infomercial, the remote slipping from his fingers onto the floor.
It started at 3:03 AM.
A click, sharp as a bone snapping, jolted Mark from dreams he couldn't quite recall. His eyes snapped open to darkness pierced by the TV's sudden illumination, the screen flickering to life without warning. No remote in sight—it had turned on by itself. He sat up, heart thudding in his chest, rubbing sleep from his eyes as the image stabilized. There, in crystal clarity, was his own living room. Not a reflection, not a live feed from some hidden camera, but a recording—or so it seemed. The angle was from the TV's perspective, staring out at the room like an unblinking eye.
And there he was, on the screen: himself, asleep on the couch just moments ago, chest rising and falling in rhythmic slumber. Mark's breath caught in his throat. How? He leaned forward, the real him mirroring the ghostly version on display. The timestamp in the corner glowed faintly: 3:03 AM, but the date... the date was tomorrow's. A chill slithered down his spine, coiling in his gut like a living thing. This wasn't a recording of the past—it was the future, unspooling before him in silent mockery.
On screen, the future-Mark stirred, just as he had, but then something shifted in the shadows beyond the couch. A shape, indistinct at first, like a smudge on the lens, hovered at the edge of the frame. It wasn't there in the real room—Mark whipped his head around to check—but on the TV, it lingered, drawing closer with agonizing slowness. Was it a person? A trick of the light? The figure resolved slightly, revealing a pale outline that suggested limbs and a head tilted in curiosity or hunger. It paused just outside the pool of lamplight, watching the sleeping man with what felt like intent.
Mark's hand trembled as he fumbled for the remote, jabbing at the power button. Nothing. The TV ignored him; the scene continued to play on. Future-Mark sat up now, eyes wide with the same terror twisting Mark's features. The shape inched forward, its edges blurring as if it were made of smoke or nightmare. Closer still, until Mark could almost make out a face—hollow eyes, a mouth stretched in a silent scream or perhaps a grin. His pulse roared in his ears, drowning out the silence of the room.
Then, abruptly, the screen went black. 3:04 AM. The TV powered down as if nothing had happened, leaving Mark alone in the dark, staring at his reflection in the dead glass. But was it his reflection? Or something else, waiting just beyond the surface?
He didn't sleep again that night. The room felt smaller, the walls pressing in like curious spectators. And in the back of his mind, a whisper: what would it show tomorrow?
Morning came in gray sheets of rain that slapped against the window like impatient fingers. Mark hadn’t moved from the couch; his body felt soldered to the cushions, eyes raw and fixed on the dead television screen. The room carried the sour smell of fear-sweat and stale air, the kind that clings to skin and refuses to leave. Every time he blinked, he saw that shape again—pale, elongated, tilting its head as though listening to a conversation only it could hear.
He forced himself upright, joints cracking in protest, and approached the TV as one might a sleeping animal that could wake snarling. The glass was cold under his palm, ordinary, innocent. No hum, no flicker, no sign of the impossible thing it had done hours earlier. He checked the cables, the power strip, and even crawled behind the stand to peer at the ports. Nothing loose, nothing tampered with. Just a perfectly normal smart TV that had, at 3:03 AM, decided to broadcast tomorrow.
Mark brewed coffee he didn’t taste and sat at the kitchen counter scrolling through forums on his phone—glitchy TVs, haunted electronics, firmware bugs that played pranks. Pages of bored skeptics and lonely conspiracy nuts. No one described anything like this. He almost posted his own story, fingers hovering over the keyboard, but the thought of typing it out made the room tilt. If he wrote it down, it became real. Irrefutable. He closed the browser instead.
The day dragged, thick and syrupy. He tried to work—freelance graphic design, deadlines that no longer mattered—but every layer he opened in Photoshop blurred into that same pale outline. By evening, he was pacing, arguing with himself in whispers. Unplug it. Smash it. Sell it. Keep it and watch again, just to be sure it wasn’t a dream.
At 11:47 PM, he gave in. He dragged the coffee table closer, sat directly in front of the screen, and waited like a man keeping vigil over his own grave. Midnight passed. 1:00 AM. 2:00. His eyelids sagged, heavy as wet curtains. He jerked awake repeatedly, pinching his thigh until it bruised.
3:02 AM.
The apartment was silent except for the rain’s steady drumming and the low thud of his heart.
3:03 AM.
Click.
The screen bloomed to life with that same soft, hungry glow. Mark’s breath stopped. There again: his living room, captured from the TV’s unblinking vantage. There again: himself, seated exactly where he sat now, staring back at his future self with the same wide, bloodshot eyes. The timestamp read tomorrow’s date, 3:03 AM.
But tonight—tomorrow—the shape was closer.
It stood just behind the couch, no longer a smudge at the edge of the frame. Tall, thin, its outline wavering like heat above asphalt. The head was wrong—too narrow, tilted at an angle no neck should allow. It had no clear features yet, only hollows where eyes and mouth ought to be, but Mark felt it watching. Not the sleeping version of himself from last night. It was watching the awake one. Watching him now.
On screen, future-Mark leaned forward, mouth opening in a soundless gasp. The figure behind him extended something—a hand, perhaps, or something shaped like one—and rested it on the back of the couch, inches from future-Mark’s shoulder. The fabric of the cushion depressed slightly under an invisible weight.
Real-Mark’s skin prickled as though spiders marched across it. He whipped around, half expecting to feel that touch on his own shoulder, but the room behind him was empty, rain-streaked shadows sliding across the walls. When he turned back, the figure had leaned down. Its hollow face now hovered directly behind future-Mark’s head, close enough that strands of dark hair—or something like hair—brushed the screen man’s cheek.
Future-Mark hadn’t noticed yet. He was still staring into the TV, into the endless regression of himself staring back.
The shape opened its mouth. Wide. Wider. As if preparing to speak, or to swallow.
Mark lunged for the power button on the side of the set, slamming it with his palm. The screen died instantly this time, plunging the room into black. 3:04 AM exactly.
He stood there panting, hand still pressed to the plastic bezel, waiting for the darkness to move. It didn’t. Only the rain kept falling, and somewhere inside his chest a small, terrified voice repeated the same question, louder now, impossible to ignore:
Tomorrow night, how much closer would it be?
He didn’t unplug it.
That was the first mistake, or maybe the second—he’d lost count somewhere between the third and fourth beer he nursed until dawn. The TV sat there all the next day like a black monument, reflecting his haggard face at him whenever he passed. He kept the curtains drawn, the lights low, as though brightness might provoke it. Work was impossible; emails piled up unread. He ordered delivery—pizza that congealed untouched on the coffee table—and paced the apartment in widening circles, muttering explanations to himself that sounded thinner with every repetition.
By nightfall, the rain had stopped, leaving the city outside slick and shining, every streetlamp smeared into halos. The silence felt deliberate, as if the building itself were holding its breath. Mark sat on the floor this time, back against the couch, knees drawn up, eyes locked on the clock in the corner of his phone. He had sworn he wouldn’t watch again. He had sworn he would smash the fucking thing with the baseball bat he didn’t own. But curiosity—ugly, corrosive—had rooted deeper than fear.
2:58 AM.
He tasted metal in his mouth, realized he’d bitten the inside of his cheek raw.
3:00.
3:01.
3:02.
His pulse was a frantic bird beating against the cage of his ribs.
3:03.
Click.
The glow returned, softer this time, almost tender, like a lover switching on a bedside lamp. Mark’s throat closed. There it was again: the living room, his living room, rendered in the same merciless clarity. There he sat on the floor, exactly as he sat now, spine pressed to the couch, face lit from below by the screen’s pallid light. The timestamp burned white: tomorrow, 3:03 AM.
And the shape—the thing—was no longer behind the couch.
It stood beside him.
Close enough that its elongated shadow fell across future-Mark’s shoulder like a cloak. The outline had sharpened; he could see now that it was naked, or nearly so, skin the color of old ash stretched over bones that didn’t quite align with human geometry. The head remained tilted, listening, but the hollows where eyes should be had deepened into pits that drank the light. One thin arm—if it was an arm—hung at its side, fingers too long, joints bending wrong. The other was raised, hovering just above future-Mark’s hair, not quite touching.
Yet.
On screen, future-Mark stared straight ahead, mouth slightly open, pupils blown wide. He hadn’t turned to look at the thing beside him. He couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. The hand descended slowly, those impossible fingers threading through the hair with a gentleness that made Mark’s stomach lurch. It stroked once, twice, like someone petting a frightened animal.
Real-Mark felt it.
Not the touch itself, but the memory of a touch that hadn’t happened yet—a cool, dry pressure along his scalp that raised every hair on his body. He jerked sideways, slamming his shoulder into the couch leg, breath exploding out of him in a ragged gasp. The room behind him was still empty, still silent, but the sensation lingered, phantom fingers combing through his hair with proprietary care.
On the screen, the thing bent lower. Its face—now disturbingly clear—came level with future-Mark’s. The mouth opened, revealing not teeth but darkness, a vertical slit that widened until it seemed the entire lower half of the face might unhinge. It leaned in, closer, closer, until its lips—if they were lips—nearly brushed the ear of the man who would be him in twenty-four hours.
Mark scrambled backward on hands and feet, crab-like, until his spine hit the wall. He wanted to scream, to smash the screen, to do anything but watch, but his body refused to obey. The thing on the TV inhaled, chest expanding in a slow, deliberate motion, as though drawing in the scent of its companion. Then, with agonizing patience, it placed its mouth against future-Mark’s ear and stayed there, motionless, intimate.
The screen cut to black.
3:04 AM.
Mark stayed pressed against the wall long after the glow died, knees to chest, shaking so hard his teeth chattered. The apartment smelled of ozone and terror. Somewhere in the dark, the television waited, patient as a spider at the center of its web.
And deeper now, in the marrow of his bones, the question had changed.
It wasn’t how much closer it would be tomorrow night.
It was what it would do when it finally touched him for real.
He tried to leave.
At first light, he threw clothes into a duffel, grabbed his laptop, told himself he’d check into the cheapest motel with cash and never come back to this apartment, this TV, this room that now felt like a mouth waiting to close. But when he reached the door, key in hand, his fingers froze on the knob. The hallway outside was ordinary—faded carpet, buzzing fluorescent light, the faint smell of someone’s burnt toast—but it felt wrong, as though the building had rearranged itself in the night and this door no longer led anywhere safe. He stood there ten minutes, twenty, sweat cooling on his back, until he turned around and walked back inside like a dog returning to its leash.
The television watched him unpack.
He drank until the bottle was empty and the room spun in slow, sickening circles, but sobriety returned sharp as a scalpel around midnight. He sat on the couch again, closer this time, drawn by a gravity he hated. The screen remained black, patient, reflecting his distorted face like a dark mirror. He talked to it—quietly at first, then louder—demanding answers, cursing it, begging it to leave him alone. The glass gave nothing back except his own ragged breath fogging the surface.
2:55 AM.
He hadn’t blinked in so long his eyes burned.
3:01.
The silence pressed against his eardrums like deep water.
3:02.
He leaned forward until his forehead almost touched the cold screen.
3:03.
Click.
The glow rose gently, almost affectionately, bathing his face in corpse-light. There was the room again, identical down to the empty bottle on the floor and the tremor in future-Mark’s hands. The timestamp glowed tomorrow’s date, steady and merciless.
And the thing was no longer standing beside him.
It was on the couch.
Straddling him.
Its ash-pale thighs bracketed future-Mark’s hips, weightless yet heavy enough to sink the cushions on either side. The long, wrong-jointed arms rested on his shoulders, fingers curled loosely at the nape of his neck as though measuring the pulse there. Its chest pressed to his, close enough that the hollow pits of its eyes aligned perfectly with future-Mark’s own. The mouth—that vertical, widening slit—hovered an inch from his lips, exhaling something that fogged the inside of the screen like breath on winter glass.
Future-Mark’s mouth was open too, but not in terror now. His eyes were half-lidded, pupils dilated until almost no color remained, and his hands—God, his hands—had risen to grip the thing’s narrow waist, pulling it closer instead of pushing away. The expression on his face was surrender, hunger, something raw and shameful that made real-Mark’s stomach twist with recognition and revulsion.
The creature tilted its head, slow, intimate, and lowered its mouth the final inch.
Contact.
The screen flared white for a single heartbeat, as though the kiss had short-circuited reality itself.
Then black.
3:04 AM.
Mark recoiled so violently he toppled backward off the couch, skull cracking against the floor. Pain bloomed bright and clean, grounding him for one blessed second before the deeper horror flooded in. He tasted blood where he’d bitten his tongue. His body felt violated by proxy, skin crawling with the ghost of hands that had not yet touched him but soon would.
He crawled to the bathroom on all fours and vomited until nothing remained but bile and the echo of that image burned behind his eyes: himself welcoming the thing, craving it, feeding it.
When he finally looked in the mirror, his reflection stared back with pupils too wide, lips parted as if still waiting for the kiss that tomorrow would deliver.
And somewhere beneath the nausea and the terror, a new whisper uncoiled—quiet, treacherous, and growing louder with every heartbeat:
What if it feels good?
He tried to drown the whisper in daylight, in noise, in anything that felt human.
He left the apartment for the first time in days, walked until his legs burned, bought coffee he couldn’t drink, sat in a park where children screamed, and dogs barked, and nothing watched him with hollow eyes. But every reflective surface—shop windows, phone screens, the dark lenses of strangers’ sunglasses—showed him a man whose pupils stayed too wide, whose mouth stayed slightly parted, as if still tasting something he hadn’t yet swallowed. The whisper followed him down every street, patient, curling around his thoughts like smoke: what if it feels good?
Back home, dusk bled into the windows, and the room shrank again.
He stood in front of the television for an hour, hand hovering over the power cord, fingers trembling with the need to yank it free. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. The black screen reflected him perfectly now: disheveled, unshaven, lips wet where he kept licking them without realizing. Behind his reflection, the couch waited like an altar. He sat. He waited. He hated himself for waiting, hated the heat pooling low in his gut, hated the way his breath already quickened at 2:45 AM.
2:59.
His palms sweated against his thighs.
3:01.
He could feel the air thickening, expectant.
3:02.
He leaned forward, not away, elbows on knees, staring into the dead glass as though begging it to wake.
3:03.
Click.
The screen ignited with that same soft, possessive glow, and there he was—future-Mark—sprawled on the couch exactly where real-Mark now sat, shirt rucked up, jeans undone, head thrown back in a silent gasp that looked less like terror and more like ecstasy. The thing was fully on him now, astride his lap, ash-pale skin flushed with something darker, hips rolling in a slow, deliberate grind that made the cushions creak on screen. Its long fingers threaded through future-Mark’s hair, pulling just hard enough to arch his neck, exposing the throat where the creature’s mouth worked—sucking, biting, drawing sounds from the man beneath it that the TV refused to give voice to but which Mark could almost hear in his bones.
Future-Mark’s hands clutched the thing’s hips, guiding the rhythm, urging deeper, harder, as though he couldn’t get close enough. His eyes were closed now, face twisted in raw, shameless pleasure, mouth open on a moan that promised oblivion. The creature’s head lifted, and for the first time Mark saw its face clearly—beautiful in the way a knife is beautiful, sharp and cold and hungry—and it smiled, a slow stretching of that vertical slit into something almost tender, before lowering again to claim another kiss that looked less like invasion and more like communion.
Real-Mark’s body answered before his mind could stop it.
Heat surged through him, cock hardening painfully against his zipper, breath coming in shallow, desperate pants. He hated it, hated the slick throb of want that mirrored every movement on screen, hated the way his own hips shifted restlessly, seeking friction that wasn’t there yet. His hand moved without permission, pressing down on the ache, and the relief was so sharp he groaned aloud, the sound shocking in the silent room.
On screen, the thing looked up—directly into the camera, directly into him—and smiled wider, as if it had felt that groan, tasted it.
The screen went black.
3:04 AM.
Mark sat frozen, hand still cupped over the bulge in his jeans, shame and lust warring so fiercely he couldn’t tell which was winning. His reflection stared back from the dead glass, lips swollen, eyes black with need, chest heaving as he’d already been fucked senseless.
And the whisper was no longer a whisper.
It was a promise, spoken in his own voice, low and filthy and undeniable:
Tomorrow night, it will feel even better.
He didn’t sleep.
Not a single minute of the long, dragging hours between 3:04 AM and the pale smear of dawn. He sat on the couch with every light in the apartment blazing, eyes fixed on the black screen, waiting for it to move, to breathe, to do anything but reflect his own wrecked face at him. The promise throbbed inside his skull like a second heartbeat: tomorrow night, it will feel even better. He hated how the words tasted sweet on his tongue when he whispered them aloud, testing their weight.
Daylight brought no relief.
He showered until the water ran cold, scrubbing his skin raw as if he could wash away the phantom grind of hips that hadn’t yet happened. But every time he closed his eyes, he felt it again—the slow, deliberate roll, the cool weight settling over him, the mouth opening against his own like a question he was desperate to answer. His cock stirred at the memory that wasn’t a memory, and he punched the tile wall hard enough to split a knuckle, welcoming the bright sting of real pain.
Evening crawled in on bruised clouds.
He ordered food again, but couldn’t eat. He tried to watch something mindless on his phone, anything to drown the anticipation, but the screen kept going dark, reflecting his face, and he swore the reflection smiled a fraction slower than he did. By midnight, he was pacing, shirt soaked with fresh sweat, every footstep echoing like a countdown. He told himself he would unplug it this time. He told himself he would leave. He told himself lies that crumbled the moment the clock hit 2:58 AM.
3:00.
The room felt charged, air thick enough to chew.
3:01.
He sat down without meaning to, body folding onto the couch as it belonged there.
3:02.
His hands rested on his thighs, palms up, waiting.
3:03.
Click.
The screen bloomed, soft and intimate, and there he was—future-Mark—naked now, clothes scattered across the floor like shed skin, legs spread wide, back arched in a bow of pure, filthy need. The thing rode him harder this time, hips snapping with a rhythm that looked almost violent, almost loving, its ash-pale body gleaming with sweat that couldn’t possibly be its own. Future-Mark’s hands clawed at its back, nails leaving red trails that vanished instantly, as though the creature healed faster than it could be hurt. His mouth was open on a silent cry, eyes rolled back, every muscle straining toward release.
But something was different.
Something was watched from the corner of the screen.
A second shape.
Smaller. Curled in the shadows near the window, knees drawn to chest, head tilted exactly like the first. It hadn’t been there before. Mark was sure of it. This new thing was watching them—watching future-Mark get fucked into oblivion—with the same hollow-eyed hunger, but its posture was almost shy, almost childlike. When the creature on top thrust deeper, the smaller one shivered, arms tightening around its own legs as if holding itself back.
Future-Mark’s head turned—slowly, impossibly—toward the corner.
His lips moved.
Not in pleasure this time.
In warning.
Or invitation.
The larger creature paused mid-motion, buried deep, and turned its beautiful, terrible face toward the newcomer. It smiled that slow, stretching smile and extended one long arm, fingers beckoning. The smaller shape uncurled, hesitant, then crawled forward on hands and knees, every movement echoing the first night’s creeping advance. It reached the couch. It climbed up. It settled behind future-Mark, pressing against his back, mouth opening against the nape of his neck with a tenderness that made real-Mark’s throat close.
Future-Mark’s body shuddered—trapped between them now, filled and surrounded—and his eyes opened fully, staring straight into the camera.
Straight into real-Mark.
And he smiled.
Not the smile of a man lost to pleasure.
The smile of a man who had been waiting.
The screen cut to black.
3:04 AM.
Mark sat paralyzed, cock throbbing untouched, breath sawing in and out of lungs that suddenly felt too small. The room was silent except for the wet thud of his heart and the new, impossible knowledge crawling under his skin like insects.
There wasn’t one of them.
There were two.
And tomorrow night, they would both want him.
But the deepest twist—the one that turned his blood to ice even as his body burned—was the realization that future-Mark hadn’t looked afraid.
He had looked relieved.
Like finally, after all the lonely nights of waiting, he wouldn’t have to take them one at a time anymore.
To Be Continued….
(Chapter 2 will be published very soon.)
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