~~BEYOND THE BINARY~~

Chapter- 6

{ TW: GORE, PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR}

Chapter-6: Silent Archives (Part 2)

Iris barely had time to react before the screen froze.

The cursor stopped blinking. The text, the files—gone.

Her fingers hovered over the keys, unsure whether to move.

Then, the image on the screen shifted.

Her breath caught.

It was a live CCTV feed.

Her own reflection stared back at her from the grainy, static-laced footage. A bird's-eye view of the room. This room.

Iris turned her head slowly, half-expecting to see a camera in the corner. But there was nothing. No visible lens, no blinking red light.

Then, the footage glitched.

A burst of static.

And suddenly—

The timestamp flickered wildly, distorting the video, but the image remained clear enough:

A body on the floor.

Her chair was overturned. And lying there—was her.

Her own body sprawled unnaturally on the ground, arms twisted, a dark pool of blood seeping from underneath.

She felt her lungs seize.

The air in the room thickened, pressing against her ribs. She wanted to move, to back away from the screen, but she couldn't.

Then, her body on the screen twitched.

A subtle shift of fingers. A slow turn of the head.

Iris's breath hitched as her own bloodied reflection lifted its head.

And smiled.

Not a normal smile. Not even a smirk.

A wide, unhinged, eyes-too-open, teeth-bared grin.

Static hissed in the background. The image flickered, distorting and reforming in jagged, unnatural movements.

Her own reflection, her dead self, mouthed something.

Iris's stomach dropped.

The words were silent, eaten by the crackling distortion. But she could still read them.

"Run."

The screen snapped to black.

For a second, all she could hear was her own ragged breathing.

Then, a final message appeared in white, sterile text:

ACCESS DENIED.

The silence in the room was suffocating.

She wasn't supposed to be here.

And something—someone—wanted her to know it.

...................................................................................

.....Tell me, dear reader...

If you saw yourself lying there, broken and bleeding...
Would you try to save yourself?

Or would you just watch yourself die?.....