Chapter 3: The Man on Camera 6

Chapter 3: The Man on Camera 6

The levitating bolt had shattered Mason’s skepticism. Now, fear was his constant companion, a cold presence sitting in the operator's chair beside him. He no longer saw the control room as a job, but as a bunker. The routine that had once lulled him into a state of boredom was now a frantic, nightly ritual of survival. The laminated card, once a laughable prank, was now a holy text. He had it propped against the base of the main monitor, its red letters a constant, screaming reminder of the unnatural laws that governed Black Hollow Station.

He’d replayed the footage from Camera 12 a hundred times. Each time, the bolt performed its impossible ballet, unscrewing itself from the floor, hanging in the air, and dropping with a clang that echoed in the deepest parts of his memory. It was his proof, his anchor in this new, terrifying reality.

Tonight, the station felt different. The silence was heavier, charged with a palpable sense of anticipation. Mason found himself scanning the monitors with a hunter’s intensity, his eyes darting between screens, searching for the next violation of physics, the next tear in the fabric of the world.

It started subtly. On Camera 14, which monitored a short corridor leading to a sealed-off section of the labs, the handle on a heavy steel door twitched. It was a tiny, metallic spasm, barely perceptible. Mason’s entire body went rigid. He zoomed in, his heart hammering against his ribs. The handle was perfectly still. Had he imagined it? No. He trusted his eyes now. A few seconds later, it happened again. A sharp, downward jig, as if a hand on the other side had tested the lock. Then nothing.

He scrambled for the laminated card, his fingers clumsy with panic. He read through the six rules, his breath held tight in his chest. Nothing. There was no rule for a twitching door handle. The realization was a fresh wave of cold terror. The list wasn't a comprehensive guide. It was a primer, a list of the known threats. What else was out there, moving in the dark, for which there were no rules?

A low groan emanated from the station's infrastructure, a deep, guttural sound like a dying beast. The overhead lights in the control room dimmed, their steady white light souring to a jaundiced, sickly yellow.

Rule 2.

The words flashed in his mind, brighter than the failing lights. If the lights on your console flicker, you must remain perfectly still. Do not move a muscle. Do not breathe.

Ellis’s voice echoed in his memory, cold and final. We found his coffee mug on the floor. We never found him.

Mason froze instantly, his hand hovering over the mouse. He was leaning forward, his weight on his elbows. He locked every muscle, every joint. His lungs, half-full of air, immediately began to burn. The lights flickered again, plunging the room into a strobing, disorienting twilight. The hum from the monitors warped, dropping in pitch to a discordant, menacing drone.

Time seemed to slow down. A bead of sweat trickled from his temple, tracing an agonizingly slow path down his cheek. He fought the primal urge to wipe it away, to shift his weight, to draw a single, desperate breath. His heart throbbed in his ears, a frantic drumbeat against the station’s dying hum. He felt… exposed. He felt like prey, caught in the open, hoping the predator’s eyes would pass over him if he just didn't move.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. The lights flared back to their full, sterile brightness. The hum of the console snapped back to its normal frequency. The silence that followed was absolute, predatory.

Mason remained frozen for a full ten seconds before his body remembered how to function. He collapsed back into his chair, a shuddering gasp tearing from his throat. He sucked in air, the recycled oxygen stinging his starved lungs. He was shaking, a fine tremor running through his entire body. He had passed the test. Peterson’s test. And he was still here.

But the night was far from over. The clock on the main display was ticking relentlessly towards the station’s unholy hour.

2:58

2:59

He forced himself upright, his terror giving way to a grim, adrenaline-fueled resolve. He gripped the arms of his chair, knuckles white.

3:00

Rule 1. At all times between 3:00 a.m. and 3:07 a.m., your eyes must not leave the monitors.

His gaze was glued to the screens. He scanned them methodically, left to right, top to bottom. Empty corridors. Silent labs. Humming machinery. Everything was exactly as it should be. The station was a perfect, frozen tableau of inactivity.

3:01

His eyes burned. The urge to blink, to look away, was immense. He fought it.

3:02

The twitching door on Camera 14 was still. The shadows in the server room on Camera 17 were behaving. It was quiet. Too quiet.

3:03

He appeared on Camera 6.

One moment, Lab 3 was empty. The next, he was there, standing in the center of the room. There was no flicker, no distortion. He simply… was.

He wore the same standard-issue dark blue jumpsuit as Mason. For a split second, Mason’s sleep-deprived brain registered him as another staff member, maybe Ellis. But then he saw the man’s head, tilted at an impossible angle, his neck clearly broken. And his face…

Rule 4 slammed into Mason’s consciousness like a physical blow. You will see a man on Camera 6… His jaw is disconnected.

It was. The man’s jaw was not just slack; it was unhinged, hanging open in a way that defied anatomy. It created a perfect, black, silent ‘O’ of a mouth, a void in his face. He was a caricature of a human scream. But the worst part was his eyes. They weren't looking around the lab. They were staring directly into the camera lens. Directly at Mason.

A whimper escaped Mason’s lips. He wanted to scream. He wanted to look away, to shut his eyes, to run from the control room and not stop until the arctic sun burned the image from his retinas. But Rule 1 held him captive, forcing him to meet the dead, accusatory gaze of the impossible man on the screen. The thing was not just an anomaly; it was an audience. It knew he was watching.

The seconds crawled by, each one a small lifetime of pure terror. The man didn't move. He just stood there, his head crooked, his silent scream of a mouth aimed at the camera, his eyes boring into Mason’s soul. He was a silent sentinel of a world gone wrong.

3:06

Just one more minute. Mason’s vision began to swim. Black spots danced at the edges of the screen.

3:07

The clock ticked over. The figure on Camera 6 vanished. Not walked away. Not faded. In the space between one frame and the next, he was simply gone. Lab 3 was empty again, as if he had never been.

The moment the time read 3:08, the spell broke. Mason shoved his chair back so violently it tipped over, sending him crashing to the floor. He scrambled backwards on his hands and knees, crab-walking away from the monitors as if the man could crawl out of them. He reached the far wall and huddled there, gasping, choking on his own terror.

After a long time, the shaking subsided enough for him to get to his feet. He righted the chair and stared at the bank of screens, now showing their familiar, comforting emptiness. His eyes fell on the laminated card.

He picked it up. His hands still trembled, but his mind was shockingly clear. The twitching door. The flickering lights. The man on the screen. They weren't random events. They were attacks. Probes, tests, assaults.

These weren't rules. They were battle commands. This wasn't a watch; it was a nightly siege. And the flimsy laminate in his hand was the only thing standing between him and the things that hunted in the station's silent, watchful dark.