Chapter 2: The Viewer in the Doorway

Chapter 2: The Viewer in the Doorway

The phone call was as brutal as he’d expected.

“What the hell happened, Alex?” Sarah’s voice was a whip-crack of anger and accusation through the receiver. He could picture her on the other end, pacing her pristine suburban kitchen, the one he’d helped tile.

“She had a nightmare, Sarah. That’s it,” Alex lied, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. How could he possibly tell her the truth? That their daughter was screaming because she’d seen a twisted version of her own father stalking the apartment? He’d be served with a restraining order before lunch.

“A nightmare so bad I had to come get her at two in the morning? She wouldn’t even look at you, Alex. She was hysterical.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” The apology felt hollow, a flimsy shield against a truth he couldn’t yet face. He listened to her list his failings—the cramped apartment, his reclusive nature, the general atmosphere of sad-divorced-dad that probably seeped into the walls. He didn't fight back. He just absorbed it, because fighting would require energy he didn't have.

He was still replaying Lily's words, a horrifying loop stuck in his mind. It wasn't your smile, Daddy. It was too big for your face.

After Sarah hung up, the silence that flooded the apartment was different. It wasn't the lonely, peaceful quiet of the night before. This silence was heavy, watchful. Malevolent. Every shadow seemed to stretch a little too far, to cling to the corners with a new, deliberate darkness. The doorway to his bedroom, once just a simple frame of wood, now felt like a gaping maw, a stage where some terrible play had been performed. He found himself avoiding looking at it directly, his eyes skating past it as he paced the small living room.

He had to get a grip. It was a nightmare. A vivid, terrifying night terror brought on by the stress of the divorce. That was the only logical explanation. Kids had active imaginations. Sarah was probably right; his own depression was likely a palpable thing, a low-grade poison in the air that Lily had absorbed and twisted into a monster in her sleep. He clung to that explanation like a drowning man to a splinter of driftwood.

His gaze fell upon his workbench, a chaotic island of relative sanity in the sea of his anxiety. Wires, circuit boards, propellers, the half-assembled carbon-fiber frame of a new quadcopter. It was a world of logic and order, of cause and effect. You solder point A to point B, you get a connection. There were no whispering doppelgangers or smiles that didn't fit.

Work. That’s what he needed. A distraction.

He sat down, the familiar scent of solder flux and ozone a comforting balm. He was working on a long-range FPV (First-Person View) build, a personal project he documented for his tiny YouTube channel, ‘Apex Drones.’ It was his only real outlet, a way to connect with a world that didn't know he was a failure.

He picked up the flight controller, his hands surprisingly steady. For the next two hours, he lost himself. He meticulously soldered the delicate wires from the electronic speed controllers to the board, his movements precise and practiced. He mounted the camera and the video transmitter, his mind occupied with frequencies and power outputs. The fear didn't vanish, but it receded, pushed to the back of his mind by a wall of technical minutiae.

He’d filmed the process in short bursts, a cheap smartphone clipped to an articulated arm above the bench. He had a good segment on wiring the VTX. Maybe editing and uploading it would help cement the feeling of normalcy, a small act of productivity to prove his world hadn't tilted completely off its axis.

He transferred the clips to his aging laptop, trimming the footage where his hands shook slightly, splicing the best takes together. He recorded a quick, quiet voiceover, explaining the importance of clean solder joints. His voice sounded thin, strained. He cleared his throat and tried again, forcing a more confident tone.

He titled the video: Long-Range 7" Build Part 3: VTX and Camera Install. He wrote a short description, hit the 'upload' button, and watched the blue bar creep across the screen.

For a few minutes, he felt almost human again. He made a cup of instant coffee, the bitter taste grounding him. He sat back at his laptop, refreshing the page. He knew it was pathetic, the desperate hunt for a comment or a like, but it was a connection, however fleeting.

Usually, there was nothing for hours, maybe a day. But this time, a single comment appeared almost immediately. It wasn't from one of his few regulars, like QuadLife or DroneJunkie88. The username was just a random string of numbers.

The comment was five words.

Who's that in the doorway at 1:17?

Alex frowned. A troll. It had to be. Some kid trying to be spooky. He was about to delete it when a cold spike of curiosity, sharp and unwelcome, pierced his resolve. His apartment was tiny. The only person in it was him.

His heart began to beat a little faster. He dragged the progress bar on the video player back, his eyes glued to the timestamp. The video showed a close-up of his hands soldering a delicate wire to the flight controller. His voiceover was calmly explaining the process. He looked at the background. The shot was framed tightly on the workbench, but behind him, over his left shoulder, the darkened doorway to his bedroom was just visible.

He squinted. At first, he saw nothing. Just shadow. Just the familiar, empty blackness. It’s nothing, he told himself, a wave of relief washing over him. Stupid troll.

But he kept watching. The clip was about thirty seconds long. He sat perfectly still, focused on his work. And in the doorway… something else was perfectly still, too.

His breath caught in his throat. It wasn't a trick of the light. It wasn't a coat hanging on the door, because he didn't have a hook there. As his eyes adjusted to the grainy footage, a shape resolved itself from the deeper shadows.

It was a silhouette. A tall, slender silhouette that was unnervingly familiar. It had his build. His height. It was standing just inside the bedroom, partially obscured by the doorframe, in the exact spot Lily had described. It didn’t move. It didn’t breathe. For the entire thirty-second shot where he was focused on his work, this… thing, this viewer, stood in absolute, perfect stillness, a statue carved from shadow.

Alex’s blood ran cold. He slammed the laptop shut, his hands shaking violently. But the image was burned into his retinas. The dark, silent shape, standing there. Watching him.

He slowly, mechanically, opened the laptop again. His trembling finger found the mousepad and clicked ‘play.’ He scrubbed to 1:17. There it was. He hit the full-screen button, the pixelated image filling his vision. He leaned in close, his nose almost touching the screen, his mind screaming for a rational explanation. A reflection. A shadow from the lamp. Anything.

But there was no explanation. It had his shape. It was in his home. It had been standing there, just a few feet behind him, while he worked.

You were just standing in the doorway, Lily’s terrified whisper echoed in his head, no longer a fragment of a child's nightmare, but a horrifying piece of eyewitness testimony. And he was now staring at the objective, undeniable proof. He wasn’t just haunted. He was being watched.