Shadows in the Fringe
By
Christian Emecheta
The walls breathe when nobody's watching. I know this because I've been watching them, counting the minutes, tracking the subtle movements that everyone else dismisses as mere imagination.
My name is Daniel Harris, and I'm not crazy. At least, that's what I keep telling myself as I sit in this dimly lit apartment, every surface covered with photographs, twine, and meticulously placed sticky notes mapping out connections that nobody else can see.
It started three months ago, with a reflection.
I was washing dishes, the mundane evening routine that separates a normal day from the descent into something else. The kitchen window caught the streetlight at an odd angle, and for a split second, I saw something that shouldn't exist. A figure, half-formed, standing just beyond the glass. Not a person, not quite a shadow, but something in between.
I blinked, and it was gone.
Most people would have forgotten about it. Dismissed it as a trick of light, a momentary optical illusion. But I've never been “most people”. My mind doesn't let go of details, of anomalies. Each unexplained moment becomes a rabbit hole, and I dig and dig until the entire mystery starts unraveling.
The first photograph appeared a week later after that strange encounter. Tucked into my mailbox; black and white, grainy. It showed my apartment building from across the street, my window circled in red marker. No note, no explanation. Just that single image, waiting for me.
I knew then that something was watching. Tracking. Gathering.
My colleagues at the graphic design firm started noticing changes. My work became obsessive, tiny details in marketing layouts transformed into complex pattern recognition exercises. I'd spend hours examining logos, advertisements, and street signs—searching for hidden messages, for the connections that nobody else could see.
"You need rest," my manager Susan told me. Her voice was soft, concerned. "You're burning out."
But rest was impossible. My watchers were getting bolder.
The photographs continued. Each one more precise, more intimate. My car in the parking lot. My morning coffee routine. The path I took walking to work. Always black and white, always that same grainy quality that suggested someone was watching through an old surveillance camera.
I installed cameras. Not the standard home security system, but custom-modified units with enhanced night vision, motion tracking, and infrared capabilities. I needed to capture everything.
Days grew into weeks. Sleep became a rare commodity for me. Sometimes, I get interrupted by sudden movements in my apartment. Shadows that seemed to shapeshift and teleport themselves when I wasn't directly looking. The sensation of being observed became a constant companion, more real than any human interaction.
My brother Michael tried numerous interventions. Therapy recommendations and whatnot. His concern for my predicament even started to sip into our casual conversations.
"Daniel, when was the last time you slept properly?" he'd ask.
I'd laugh. Sleep was for those who didn't understand my life. Sleep was vulnerability.
The final photograph changed everything.
It arrived on a Tuesday morning; slipped under my apartment door. This one was different. Color. High resolution. Taken from inside my apartment, showing me asleep on the couch, surrounded by my investigation wall of connected images and notes.
And in the corner, barely visible, a figure. Watching.
I knew then that they weren't just watching anymore. They were preparing to attack me physically.
The night I decided to confront whatever was hunting me, the apartment felt different. Charged. Electric with potential energy. My custom cameras were positioned perfectly, my research materials were meticulously organized.
I would not be a victim. I would be the observer.
When the shadows finally came, they moved with a precision that was almost... automated.
They moved like time-lapse photography, fluid yet fragmented. Three distinct shapes, humanoid but wrong in ways my mind struggled to process. They emerged from the corners where my cameras' fields of view overlapped; the blind spots in my surveillance. The beings were not just sneaky, they were also intelligent.
I stood in my living room, surrounded by walls of evidence that suddenly felt meaningless. My hands trembled as I held up my phone, recording. The shapes noticed me—or acknowledged me—I'm not sure which is more accurate. They turned in unison, movements too precise to be natural.
"I have proof now," I whispered, my voice strange in the charged air. "I can show them to everybody."
The nearest figure tilted what passed for its head. The movement reminded me of security cameras adjusting their angle. In the glow of my phone's screen, I could see its surface rippling like static on an old television.
My brother's words echoed in my head: "Sometimes the mind creates what it expects to see." But this was real. The cameras would prove it. All of them, running simultaneously, capturing this moment from every angle.
The figures began to move closer, maintaining their perfect triangular formation. I backed away, bumping into my evidence wall. Photographs and sticky notes rained down around me. As they fell, I noticed something that made my blood run cold.
In every single surveillance photo I'd collected, there was a reflection. A glimpse of someone holding a camera. Someone wearing my clothes.
"No," I muttered, "that's not possible."
The shadows were almost upon me now. My phone's screen flickered, and in that instant, I saw my face reflected—distorted, obsessive, unrecognizable. Behind me, where the figures should have been, there was nothing but empty apartment space.
I spun around. The shadows were gone, but my cameras were all facing me. When had I turned them? Had I always been watching myself?
My phone buzzed. A text from Michael: "Danny, I'm worried. The neighbors called again. They say you've been standing in your window taking pictures of the street for hours. Please let me help."
The timestamp was from three days ago.
Another buzz. A video file, corrupted but playing. Me, standing in different locations around my street, photographing my apartment. The footage was black and white, grainy. Exactly like the surveillance photos I'd been receiving.
The realization hit me like a real blow to the skull. I wasn't being watched.
I was the watcher.
The shadows weren't hunting me.
They were trying to stop me.
My phone lit up with another message. Unknown sender. A single image—me, in my apartment, right now, looking at my phone. Taken from where the shadows had been standing.
The room temperature dropped. I could see my breath forming patterns in the air, complex geometries that matched the string patterns on my evidence wall. Everything was connecting, but not in the way I'd thought.
My cameras began to move on their own, or perhaps they were always moving and I was only now noticing. Each one turned to face me, red recording lights blinking in perfect synchronization. In their lenses, I could see reflections of the shadows but they weren't shadows anymore.
They were holes. Holes in reality, shaped like people, showing what existed on the other side of existence.
And through those holes, I saw myself. Hundreds of versions, each one watching, photographing, documenting. Each one thinking they were the observer, not the observed.
My phone started playing all the videos at once. The dissonance of overlapping audio tracks created a pattern that sounded almost like words:
"We tried to warn you."
The shadows were back now, surrounding me. But I understood at last—they weren't here to hurt me. They were here to show me what I'd become. What I'd always been.
I looked down at my hands. They were transparent, flickering like bad reception. Like a shadow given form.
The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was my face, watching through every camera lens, taking pictures that would be delivered to another version of myself, starting the cycle again.
They found my apartment empty the next day. The only evidence of what happened was a wall of photographs, all showing the same thing: a figure, half-formed, standing just beyond reflective surfaces. Not quite a person, not quite a shadow.
Watching.
Always watching.
Michael visits the apartment sometimes. He stands in the empty rooms, trying to understand what happened to his brother. Sometimes, he catches movement in his peripheral vision. Sometimes, he feels the urge to take out his phone and start documenting.
Sometimes, he sees a familiar face in the window reflection, holding a camera.
And the cycle continues.
Because the walls still breathe when nobody's watching.
And somebody always has to watch.
That's my job now.
That's what I've always been doing.
I am Daniel Harris.
I am the Observer.
And if you see shadows moving in your peripheral vision, if you feel the urge to start documenting the patterns nobody else notices, remember:
You're not being watched.
You're becoming the watcher.
And we'll be waiting for you.
Emecheta Christian started out writing poetry but gravitated towards short stories. His work explores themes of self-actualization and the complexities of human nature. His poems and short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in esteemed literary journals and anthologies such as Arts Lounge Magazine, Writefluence Anthology, 9th Edition of Chinua Achebe Poetry/Essay Anthology, Synchronized Chaos Online Journal, The Decolonial Passage, Mocking Owl Roost, and elsewhere.
By
Christian Emecheta
The walls breathe when nobody's watching. I know this because I've been watching them, counting the minutes, tracking the subtle movements that everyone else dismisses as mere imagination.
My name is Daniel Harris, and I'm not crazy. At least, that's what I keep telling myself as I sit in this dimly lit apartment, every surface covered with photographs, twine, and meticulously placed sticky notes mapping out connections that nobody else can see.
It started three months ago, with a reflection.
I was washing dishes, the mundane evening routine that separates a normal day from the descent into something else. The kitchen window caught the streetlight at an odd angle, and for a split second, I saw something that shouldn't exist. A figure, half-formed, standing just beyond the glass. Not a person, not quite a shadow, but something in between.
I blinked, and it was gone.
Most people would have forgotten about it. Dismissed it as a trick of light, a momentary optical illusion. But I've never been “most people”. My mind doesn't let go of details, of anomalies. Each unexplained moment becomes a rabbit hole, and I dig and dig until the entire mystery starts unraveling.
The first photograph appeared a week later after that strange encounter. Tucked into my mailbox; black and white, grainy. It showed my apartment building from across the street, my window circled in red marker. No note, no explanation. Just that single image, waiting for me.
I knew then that something was watching. Tracking. Gathering.
My colleagues at the graphic design firm started noticing changes. My work became obsessive, tiny details in marketing layouts transformed into complex pattern recognition exercises. I'd spend hours examining logos, advertisements, and street signs—searching for hidden messages, for the connections that nobody else could see.
"You need rest," my manager Susan told me. Her voice was soft, concerned. "You're burning out."
But rest was impossible. My watchers were getting bolder.
The photographs continued. Each one more precise, more intimate. My car in the parking lot. My morning coffee routine. The path I took walking to work. Always black and white, always that same grainy quality that suggested someone was watching through an old surveillance camera.
I installed cameras. Not the standard home security system, but custom-modified units with enhanced night vision, motion tracking, and infrared capabilities. I needed to capture everything.
Days grew into weeks. Sleep became a rare commodity for me. Sometimes, I get interrupted by sudden movements in my apartment. Shadows that seemed to shapeshift and teleport themselves when I wasn't directly looking. The sensation of being observed became a constant companion, more real than any human interaction.
My brother Michael tried numerous interventions. Therapy recommendations and whatnot. His concern for my predicament even started to sip into our casual conversations.
"Daniel, when was the last time you slept properly?" he'd ask.
I'd laugh. Sleep was for those who didn't understand my life. Sleep was vulnerability.
The final photograph changed everything.
It arrived on a Tuesday morning; slipped under my apartment door. This one was different. Color. High resolution. Taken from inside my apartment, showing me asleep on the couch, surrounded by my investigation wall of connected images and notes.
And in the corner, barely visible, a figure. Watching.
I knew then that they weren't just watching anymore. They were preparing to attack me physically.
The night I decided to confront whatever was hunting me, the apartment felt different. Charged. Electric with potential energy. My custom cameras were positioned perfectly, my research materials were meticulously organized.
I would not be a victim. I would be the observer.
When the shadows finally came, they moved with a precision that was almost... automated.
They moved like time-lapse photography, fluid yet fragmented. Three distinct shapes, humanoid but wrong in ways my mind struggled to process. They emerged from the corners where my cameras' fields of view overlapped; the blind spots in my surveillance. The beings were not just sneaky, they were also intelligent.
I stood in my living room, surrounded by walls of evidence that suddenly felt meaningless. My hands trembled as I held up my phone, recording. The shapes noticed me—or acknowledged me—I'm not sure which is more accurate. They turned in unison, movements too precise to be natural.
"I have proof now," I whispered, my voice strange in the charged air. "I can show them to everybody."
The nearest figure tilted what passed for its head. The movement reminded me of security cameras adjusting their angle. In the glow of my phone's screen, I could see its surface rippling like static on an old television.
My brother's words echoed in my head: "Sometimes the mind creates what it expects to see." But this was real. The cameras would prove it. All of them, running simultaneously, capturing this moment from every angle.
The figures began to move closer, maintaining their perfect triangular formation. I backed away, bumping into my evidence wall. Photographs and sticky notes rained down around me. As they fell, I noticed something that made my blood run cold.
In every single surveillance photo I'd collected, there was a reflection. A glimpse of someone holding a camera. Someone wearing my clothes.
"No," I muttered, "that's not possible."
The shadows were almost upon me now. My phone's screen flickered, and in that instant, I saw my face reflected—distorted, obsessive, unrecognizable. Behind me, where the figures should have been, there was nothing but empty apartment space.
I spun around. The shadows were gone, but my cameras were all facing me. When had I turned them? Had I always been watching myself?
My phone buzzed. A text from Michael: "Danny, I'm worried. The neighbors called again. They say you've been standing in your window taking pictures of the street for hours. Please let me help."
The timestamp was from three days ago.
Another buzz. A video file, corrupted but playing. Me, standing in different locations around my street, photographing my apartment. The footage was black and white, grainy. Exactly like the surveillance photos I'd been receiving.
The realization hit me like a real blow to the skull. I wasn't being watched.
I was the watcher.
The shadows weren't hunting me.
They were trying to stop me.
My phone lit up with another message. Unknown sender. A single image—me, in my apartment, right now, looking at my phone. Taken from where the shadows had been standing.
The room temperature dropped. I could see my breath forming patterns in the air, complex geometries that matched the string patterns on my evidence wall. Everything was connecting, but not in the way I'd thought.
My cameras began to move on their own, or perhaps they were always moving and I was only now noticing. Each one turned to face me, red recording lights blinking in perfect synchronization. In their lenses, I could see reflections of the shadows but they weren't shadows anymore.
They were holes. Holes in reality, shaped like people, showing what existed on the other side of existence.
And through those holes, I saw myself. Hundreds of versions, each one watching, photographing, documenting. Each one thinking they were the observer, not the observed.
My phone started playing all the videos at once. The dissonance of overlapping audio tracks created a pattern that sounded almost like words:
"We tried to warn you."
The shadows were back now, surrounding me. But I understood at last—they weren't here to hurt me. They were here to show me what I'd become. What I'd always been.
I looked down at my hands. They were transparent, flickering like bad reception. Like a shadow given form.
The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was my face, watching through every camera lens, taking pictures that would be delivered to another version of myself, starting the cycle again.
They found my apartment empty the next day. The only evidence of what happened was a wall of photographs, all showing the same thing: a figure, half-formed, standing just beyond reflective surfaces. Not quite a person, not quite a shadow.
Watching.
Always watching.
Michael visits the apartment sometimes. He stands in the empty rooms, trying to understand what happened to his brother. Sometimes, he catches movement in his peripheral vision. Sometimes, he feels the urge to take out his phone and start documenting.
Sometimes, he sees a familiar face in the window reflection, holding a camera.
And the cycle continues.
Because the walls still breathe when nobody's watching.
And somebody always has to watch.
That's my job now.
That's what I've always been doing.
I am Daniel Harris.
I am the Observer.
And if you see shadows moving in your peripheral vision, if you feel the urge to start documenting the patterns nobody else notices, remember:
You're not being watched.
You're becoming the watcher.
And we'll be waiting for you.
Emecheta Christian started out writing poetry but gravitated towards short stories. His work explores themes of self-actualization and the complexities of human nature. His poems and short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in esteemed literary journals and anthologies such as Arts Lounge Magazine, Writefluence Anthology, 9th Edition of Chinua Achebe Poetry/Essay Anthology, Synchronized Chaos Online Journal, The Decolonial Passage, Mocking Owl Roost, and elsewhere.
