Unnamed.jpg -

Julian looked at the corner of his ceiling. There was no camera. He looked at the empty spot on his bed where the figure had been. The sheets were still pressed down, as if by a lingering weight.

He shut his laptop immediately. "It’s just an algorithm," he whispered to the empty room. "An AI-generated prank or a lingering virus."

One Tuesday, while working late, Julian noticed something different. The image thumbnail seemed sharper. He clicked it open. The hallway wasn't empty anymore. At the very end of the corridor, where there had once been only a closed brown door, there was now a sliver of darkness. The door was slightly ajar.

The screen was cracked, but the image was clear. It wasn't the hallway anymore. It was a photo of Julian’s bedroom, taken from the corner of his ceiling. In the bed, Julian lay asleep. Beside him, sitting on the edge of the mattress, was a figure with no face—just a smooth, blank surface where features should be.

A notification was waiting for him. AirDrop: "unnamed.jpg" wants to share a photo.

The image file "unnamed.jpg" had sat on Julian’s desktop for three years. He didn’t remember downloading it, and he certainly didn't remember taking it. It was a low-resolution shot of an empty hallway in an old house, bathed in a sickly, jaundiced light.

If you enjoyed this, I can pivot the story into a different genre: A mystery about a corrupted space station log. A whimsical tale of a forgotten memory regained. A noir detective story involving a missing photographer. Which direction

His computer chimed from the desk. A new file had appeared on the desktop: .