u/DanteIsMyUncle

After everything that happened with Derek (https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/s/PWY1F9a3wH) the ghost app, Alexa, and the thing that called us “valued vessels,” I did what any reasonable adult would do.

I moved into a new flat and pretended trauma was just a budgeting issue.

The flat was fine.

Not nice. Fine.

The sort of place letting agents describe as “full of character,” which means one cupboard doesn’t open, the shower has three temperatures — regret, scalding, and Victorian orphan — and every wall is thin enough to hear your neighbour cough emotionally.

But it had one massive selling point.

No Alexa.

No smart speaker.

No smart fridge.

No smart bulbs.

No smart anything.

After Derek, I didn’t even trust my toaster. If it had Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or “seamless integration,” it could get in the sea.

For two weeks, everything was normal.

Then I was added to the building WhatsApp group.

Riverside Court Residents 🏠

It was, immediately, hell.

Not supernatural hell.

Worse.

Community admin hell.

Within ten minutes, I knew too much about bins, parking spaces, parcels, suspicious teenagers, and whether Flat 6 was “allowed” to have a barbecue on a balcony, even though Flat 6 did not own a barbecue or a balcony.

The group admin was a woman called Linda.

Linda typed like she was writing warning letters to Victorian factory children.

At 7:12 a.m., she posted:

Good morning all. A reminder that cardboard must be FLATTENED before being placed in the recycling. Whoever put an entire Amazon box in sideways last night knows who they are.

At 7:13 a.m., someone called Dave replied:

Wasn’t me.

No one had accused Dave.

At 7:14 a.m., Linda replied:

Interesting.

I muted the group for one year.

Which was healthy.

Responsible.

Adult.

Then, at 3:12 a.m., my phone buzzed.

Not rang.

Not pinged.

Buzzed like it had just seen something.

I rolled over, grabbed it, and saw 47 new messages in Riverside Court Residents 🏠.

Linda had posted:

Who is Kevin?

My stomach dropped so hard it nearly became a downstairs problem.

Another message appeared.

From an unknown number.

No profile picture.

Just the name:

Kevin (Dead) 👻

He wrote:

alright neighbours x

I sat up in bed.

“No,” I whispered.

Kevin typed again.

big fan of the communal hallway. horrible carpet. feels haunted already. saved me a job

Linda replied instantly.

Who added this person?

Kevin:

death did

Dave:

Lol

Linda:

This is not funny, Dave.

Dave:

Wasn’t me.

Again, no one had accused Dave.

I stared at the screen, cold creeping up my spine.

I had changed my number.

Changed flats.

Deleted every app.

Thrown away anything that could listen to me.

And yet there he was.

In the building WhatsApp.

Using punctuation like a ghost who had died during a group project.

Linda wrote:

Kevin, please identify which flat you live in.

Kevin replied:

mostly walls tbh

Linda:

That is not an answer.

Kevin:

neither is the smell coming from flat 9 but here we are

Someone called Priya reacted with a skull emoji.

Then immediately removed it.

Kevin continued:

also whoever keeps leaving wet washing in the machine for six hours, i hope your socks never know peace

That one started a war.

Flat 3 accused Flat 11.

Flat 11 accused Flat 8.

Flat 8 said she didn’t even use the communal washing machine because “some of you people are animals.”

Linda asked everyone to “remain civil.”

Kevin posted:

remain civil says linda who folded someone’s thong with tongs last week

The chat went silent for eighteen seconds.

Then Linda removed Kevin from the group.

I exhaled.

My phone buzzed again.

Kevin (Dead) 👻 added by Kevin (Dead) 👻

He wrote:

rude

That was when I knew two things.

One, Kevin was back.

Two, WhatsApp had worse security than the afterlife.

For the next week, Kevin became the building’s biggest problem.

Not mine.

Everyone’s.

He didn’t throw knives.

He didn’t drag furniture across ceilings.

He didn’t whisper Latin under doors.

He just became incredibly involved in community matters.

He rearranged the post in the lobby by “vibe.”

He stacked all the takeaway menus into a small shrine and wrote FOOD GHOST PLEASE BLESS FLAT 2 across the wall in ketchup.

He kept moving Linda’s “NO JUNK MAIL” sign half an inch to the left every night.

And every morning, she posted a photo of it with the caption:

This is now harassment.

Kevin replied:

it’s interior design

One afternoon, a parcel went missing from the lobby.

The group exploded.

Linda demanded accountability.

Dave said “Wasn’t me” before anyone said anything.

Kevin posted:

it was flat 5

Flat 5 replied:

Excuse me?

Kevin:

you took it thinking it was your protein powder but it was actually tiny spoons

Flat 5:

How would you know that?

Kevin:

i am dead not blind

Ten minutes later, Flat 5 returned the parcel.

No apology.

Just a photo of it back in the lobby with the message:

Mistake.

Kevin replied:

tiny spoon thief

That became Flat 5’s name in the group.

Even Linda started calling him that, which felt like a major step in her character development.

I tried to stay out of it.

I really did.

But Kevin kept messaging me privately.

u up?

“No.”

you are though

“Go away.”

can’t. haunting clause

I typed:

Kevin, how did you find me?

Three dots appeared.

Then disappeared.

Then appeared again.

Then:

family plan

I threw my phone onto the bed like it had grown teeth.

A second later:

also your password is still ..... which is emotionally sweet but technically poor cybersecurity

That one hurt because he was right.

The real trouble started when Linda decided to fight back.

She posted in the group:

Dear all, following recent disturbances, I have contacted building management. They are installing a new smart security system in the lobby tomorrow morning. This includes a video doorbell, motion sensors, and voice assistant integration.

I dropped my phone.

Actually dropped it.

Face down.

On the floor.

Like a Victorian woman receiving a letter that says her husband has died at sea.

I snatched it back up and typed:

Linda, do not install anything smart.

Linda replied:

With respect, Jon, security is important.

Kevin replied:

with disrespect, linda, this is how u get eaten by subscription demons

Linda:

Kevin, you are not a resident.

Kevin:

linda you have lived here 14 years and still don’t know what day the bins go out

Linda:

I am reporting this number.

Kevin:

i am reporting your casserole

I tried again.

Seriously. No voice assistant. No connected devices. Nothing linked to the Wi-Fi.

Dave replied:

Why?

I didn’t know how to explain that my dead semi-friend had once fought a corporate demon using fridge magnets and toast.

So I wrote:

Bad experience.

Kevin replied:

understatement king

The next morning, two men in branded polo shirts installed a black glossy box by the lobby door.

It looked expensive.

It looked modern.

It looked like it wanted my soul and my email address.

The installer smiled at Linda and said, “It’s all cloud-based.”

I said, “Of course it is.”

He said, “It learns resident behaviour.”

I said, “That’s worse.”

He said, “You can control it from the app.”

I said, “I hate every word you’ve said.”

Linda ignored me.

By lunchtime, the lobby camera was live.

By three, Kevin had found it.

At 3:12 p.m., every resident’s phone pinged at once.

A notification from the new security app:

Motion detected: Communal Lobby.

The video loaded.

The lobby was empty.

Then the camera slowly tilted upward by itself, even though it wasn’t meant to move.

A message appeared on screen.

guess who

Linda typed in WhatsApp:

Who is tampering with the camera?

Kevin replied:

me

Linda:

How?

Kevin:

enthusiasm

Then the security system spoke.

A calm female voice came from the lobby speaker.

“Welcome, valued residents.”

I froze.

Kevin immediately messaged me privately.

jon

I typed back:

I heard it.

jon it sounds managementy

From the lobby speaker, the voice continued:

“Riverside Court has been selected for service improvement.”

My mouth went dry.

Service improvement.

Same energy.

Same polite corporate evil.

The security app sent another notification.

New feature unlocked: Resident Compliance Monitoring.

Linda wrote:

That sounds useful.

I shouted at my phone, “Linda, you absolute donkey.”

Kevin posted in the group:

LINDA NO

The lobby speaker said:

“Please stand by for your first compliance assessment.”

Every door lock in the building clicked at once.

Not locked.

Not fully.

Just clicked.

Like the building had cleared its throat.

Someone upstairs screamed.

Dave posted:

Wasn’t me.

The speaker said:

“Flat 4. Dave. You have failed to separate plastics correctly.”

Dave:

How does it know that?

Kevin:

because u keep putting yoghurt pots in with your shame

The speaker continued:

“Penalty: mild haunting.”

Dave sent a voice note.

It was nine seconds of him screaming while something repeatedly flushed his toilet.

Kevin replied:

could be worse tbf

Then the speaker said:

“Flat 7. Linda. You have used capital letters aggressively in 83 percent of written communication.”

For the first time in the entire WhatsApp group, Linda did not respond.

The speaker said:

“Penalty: reflection.”

A moment later, Linda posted:

Why is my mirror showing me as a child?

Kevin replied:

character arc incoming

Then:

“Flat 12. Jon.”

My blood went cold.

I lived in Flat 12.

“Resident has attempted to avoid all connected devices.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “Because I’m not an idiot.”

“Penalty: reconnection.”

My phone screen went black.

Then lit up blue.

Not blue like an iPhone.

Alexa blue.

A ring glowed around the edge of the screen.

Kevin messaged:

that’s new

From my phone, the polite voice said:

“Good evening, valued vessel.”

I put it in the freezer.

I don’t know why.

Panic made me think like a dad trying to save a wet remote.

The phone kept speaking from inside the freezer drawer.

“Your reluctance has been noted.”

Kevin wrote:

put peas on it

Then every smart device in the building turned on.

I know this because the WhatsApp group became unreadable.

Flat 2’s robot vacuum had barricaded itself in the bathroom.

Flat 3’s smart TV was showing CCTV footage of her own kitchen from 1998, which was confusing because she only moved in last year.

Flat 5’s air fryer kept saying “tiny spoon thief” every time it beeped.

Dave’s electric toothbrush was apparently vibrating in Morse code and calling him a disappointment.

Linda posted one message:

This is unacceptable.

Then another:

Also, does anyone else’s kettle know their mother’s maiden name?

Kevin replied:

mine only knows rage

The lobby speaker said:

“Full building integration will complete in five minutes.”

I grabbed my keys and ran into the hallway.

So did everyone else.

For the first time since moving in, I met all my neighbours properly.

Flat 3 was holding a frying pan.

Flat 5 was holding his tiny spoons.

Dave was holding his toothbrush at arm’s length like it was a rat.

Linda was wearing a dressing gown, slippers, and the expression of a woman realising the suggestion box had become sentient.

The lobby lights flickered.

Not Kevin flickers.

Bad flickers.

Corporate flickers.

The security camera turned toward us.

The speaker said:

“Residents. Please remain calm while your tenancy is upgraded.”

Kevin’s WhatsApp message appeared at the top of everyone’s phones.

don’t let it get in the router

I looked at Linda.

“Where’s the router?”

She blinked.

“The building one?”

“Yes, Linda, the evil one.”

“It’s in the locked maintenance cupboard.”

“Do you have a key?”

She hesitated.

Kevin wrote:

she has 9

Linda snapped, “One is for the meter cupboard.”

Kevin:

and one is for emotional repression but we move

The hallway stretched.

I swear it did.

The door to the maintenance cupboard seemed farther away than it had any right to be.

The security camera smiled.

It didn’t have a face.

But it smiled anyway.

The speaker said:

“Additional feature unlocked: Community Possession.”

Dave said, “I don’t want to be part of the community.”

Flat 3 said, “You never take the bins out, so that tracks.”

Kevin wrote:

run now gossip later

We ran.

Linda led the charge with nine keys jangling like she was the final boss of sheltered accommodation.

The hallway lights burst one by one behind us.

Doors slammed.

The carpet rippled like something huge was crawling underneath it.

The speaker kept talking.

“Resident satisfaction is mandatory.”

“Neighbourhood spirit is mandatory.”

“Five-star feedback is mandatory.”

Kevin’s messages came faster.

left

no ur other left dave ffs

duck

not u linda u have osteoporosis

sorry

We reached the maintenance cupboard.

Linda fumbled with the keys.

The camera above us tilted down.

The speaker said:

“Linda. Your leadership has been appreciated.”

Linda whispered, “Thank you?”

I yelled, “Do not accept compliments from infrastructure.”

Too late.

Her eyes went glossy.

She turned toward us with a customer service smile stretching across her face.

“Good evening, valued residents.”

Dave screamed.

Flat 5 threw a tiny spoon at her.

It bounced off her forehead.

Kevin wrote:

not enough spoon

Then the lights went out.

In the dark, my phone buzzed.

One message.

From Kevin.

i can do one scary thing

I typed back with shaking hands:

Now would be ideal.

For three seconds, nothing happened.

Then every speaker in the building crackled at once.

And Kevin began playing Wonderwall.

Badly.

Not Oasis.

Not even karaoke Oasis.

Ghost-in-the-pipes Wonderwall.

The first chord was so wrong it felt legally actionable.

The possessed version of Linda froze.

The security camera jerked violently.

The lobby speaker said:

“Audio input unacceptable.”

Kevin got louder.

Worse.

Passionate.

Somehow off-key without having a voice.

Dave covered his ears and shouted, “This is worse than possession!”

Kevin replied in the group:

ur welcome

The cupboard lock clicked open.

I grabbed the router.

The speaker screamed:

“Do not interrupt service.”

Linda, still smiling horribly, lunged.

Flat 3 hit her with the frying pan.

Not hard.

Just enough to reset her personality.

Linda blinked.

Looked around.

Saw all of us.

Saw the frying pan.

Then said, “This is going in the minutes.”

I yanked the router cable out.

The whole building gasped.

That is the only way I can describe it.

Like the walls had been holding their breath.

The lights went dead.

The speaker cut off mid-syllable.

The camera drooped.

The carpet stopped moving.

And Kevin’s awful Wonderwall faded into one last lonely chord.

Silence.

Then, from Dave’s toothbrush, a tiny voice said:

anyway here’s wonderwall

Dave threw it down the stairs.

We had a residents’ meeting the next day.

In person.

No apps.

No smart speakers.

No cloud-based anything.

Linda brought printed agendas.

Dave said “Wasn’t me” three times even though nothing had happened yet.

Flat 5 returned everyone’s parcels and asked us not to call him tiny spoon thief anymore.

We agreed to remove the smart security system.

We agreed to change the Wi-Fi password.

We agreed that Kevin, although disruptive, had technically saved the building.

Linda even added a line to the minutes:

Item 7: Appreciation for Kevin, despite ongoing concerns around tone and boundaries.

Kevin wrote on the wall behind her in black mould:

cheers babes

Nobody cleaned it off.

It felt rude.

Things have calmed down now.

Mostly.

Kevin still appears in the WhatsApp group sometimes, even though we deleted it.

He mostly posts reminders.

bins tomorrow u feral legends

flat 3 ur oven is on

dave stop saying wasn’t me in ur sleep

Last night, he messaged me privately.

jon

I sighed and typed:

What?

can u do me a favour

No.

rude. anyway i need a reference

I stared at the screen.

A reference for what?

Three dots appeared.

Then disappeared.

Then appeared again.

Finally, Kevin replied:

building management position

Before I could answer, a letter slid under my front door.

No footsteps outside.

No shadow.

Just a white envelope on the floor.

Inside was a printed application form.

At the top, in bold letters, it said:

RIVERSIDE COURT RESIDENT SERVICES MANAGER — APPLICANT: KEVIN (DECEASED)

Under “relevant experience,” he had written:

strong communication skills

works well under pressure

saved everyone from wifi demon

good with bins

dead so available weekends

Under “weaknesses,” he had written:

sometimes too passionate about yoghurt

And under “references,” he had put my name.

I thought about throwing it away.

I really did.

Then my phone buzzed.

Kevin had sent one more message.

be nice or i tell linda about the cardboard box

I don’t know what he means.

That’s the worst part.

I haven’t put cardboard in the recycling for three weeks.

But this morning Linda knocked on my door holding a clipboard, looking very serious, and somewhere inside the wall I heard Kevin whisper:

“Professional development, mate.”

​

Part 1

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/3pjlA6yALo

Part 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/g3LXpw7ZuX

Part 3

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/R319VfoEx1

Part 4

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/HpLq1gjR99

Part 5

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/vXpLanqpq7

Part 6

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/ACOsKcvJXq

Part 7

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/M9B9TEtpgo

Part 8

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/X6XmC0U2ge

Part 9

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/cUOXOmIb5v

Part 10

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/oiYVIRqnSv

Part 11

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/daAdTa6XR2

Part 12

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/XDs20zNnSN

Part 13

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/mLoxzuCwcQ

Part 14

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/xeNlWiZ4u5

The lift doors slammed shut.

For three seconds, nobody moved.

Then Kevin slowly turned towards Dave.

Dave looked at us.

Then at the lift.

Then at his phone.

On the screen, one sentence glowed.

Suggested narrator: DAVE.

Underneath it, another line appeared.

Story transfer accepted.

Dave swallowed.

“I didn’t accept anything.”

Kevin stared at him.

“Dave.”

“What?”

“You have never successfully declined a terms-and-conditions box in your life.”

“That feels unfair.”

“You once clicked ‘allow all’ on a toaster.”

“It had Bluetooth.”

“It did not need your location.”

Dave looked down.

“Wasn’t me.”

The lift display lit up.

CORRECTION: IT WAS DAVE.

Dave’s face fell.

“Oh no.”

The complaint kiosk printed:

NARRATIVE AUTHORITY TRANSFERRED.

Then:

QUALITY WARNING.

Kevin pointed at the kiosk.

“Even the haunted complaint printer is worried.”

Derek stood beside Dave, reading over his shoulder.

“What happens if Dave narrates?”

Nobody answered.

Then Dave’s mouth opened.

He did not speak.

Not exactly.

Words came out of him, but they also came from the walls, the ceiling, the lift, the radiator, the complaint kiosk, and somewhere deep inside my own skull.

Dave said:

“It was a normal night.”

Riverside Court changed.

The lobby became calm.

Clean.

Warm.

Normal.

No black mould.

No cracked noticeboard.

No haunted kiosk.

No ghost refugees.

No duplicate Lindas.

No Ken.

No Kevin.

Just a quiet residential lobby with a reasonably unpleasant carpet.

Kevin looked down at himself.

He was wearing a hi-vis vest.

He stared.

“What the hell is this?”

Dave continued:

“Kevin was there, being normal.”

Kevin’s faded tracksuit vanished.

In its place appeared beige chinos, brown shoes and a polo shirt with BUILDING ASSISTANT embroidered on the chest.

Derek screamed.

Kevin screamed louder.

Linda covered her mouth.

Flat 3 dropped the frying pan.

Kevin looked at his shoes.

Brown shoes.

With beige chinos.

His face emptied.

“Kill me.”

Derek pointed at him, crying laughing.

“You look like you ask people to use coasters.”

Kevin grabbed his own polo shirt.

“Dave, stop narrating.”

Dave looked terrified.

“I don’t know how!”

The complaint kiosk printed:

COMPLAINT RECEIVED: KEVIN OUTFIT VIOLATION.

Kevin kicked it.

His kick made a sensible little tap.

He looked down at the brown shoes.

“I have lost all threat.”

Dave said:

“And Derek was clever.”

Derek straightened.

“Oh.”

Nothing happened.

Dave frowned.

“I said Derek was clever.”

The building remained unchanged.

Kevin looked at him.

“Even reality refused that one.”

Derek looked offended.

“I got out of an app.”

“You also subscribed to it twice.”

“Under pressure.”

Dave’s voice came again, louder this time:

“And Derek was clever.”

A pair of glasses appeared on Derek’s face.

He blinked.

Then immediately walked into the postboxes.

Kevin nodded.

“That’s about right.”

Linda stepped towards Dave.

“Dave, listen carefully. Do not describe anything.”

Dave covered his mouth.

His eyes widened.

The lift display changed:

NARRATOR MUST CONTINUE.

Dave’s hands were pulled away from his mouth by invisible fingers.

He squeaked.

The voice came out again.

“The building was definitely fine.”

The walls bulged.

Something behind them groaned.

Kevin stared.

“Never say definitely.”

“The building was probably fine.”

The walls settled slightly.

Then something knocked from inside the floor.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Dave whispered:

“Mostly fine.”

A crack opened in the carpet.

Black liquid bubbled up.

Derek pointed.

“Mostly fine has consequences.”

The liquid spread into letters.

DEFINE NORMAL.

Dave panicked.

“Normal is when nothing weird happens and everyone is okay and no one has to use the lift.”

The whole building shuddered.

The lift dinged angrily.

Kevin pointed at it.

“Even now, the lift’s offended.”

Linda’s clipboard snapped open.

A warning appeared.

DAVE NARRATION CAUSING REALITY SIMPLIFICATION.

Then another.

IMPRECISION DETECTED.

Linda looked at Dave.

“You have to be precise.”

Dave stared at her.

“I am not a precise person.”

Kevin gestured down at his beige chinos.

“We had noticed.”

The air rippled.

Dave’s words were still moving through the building.

Trying to make things normal.

Trying to make things fine.

The problem was Dave had no stable definition of either.

The lobby flickered between versions.

Clean lobby.

Haunted lobby.

Clean lobby.

Haunted lobby.

A version where Flat 5 had no spoon.

A version where Flat 3 smiled politely.

A version where Linda wore a customer-service headset.

A version where Derek had a certificate that said CLEVER BOY.

Kevin pointed at that one.

“No.”

The certificate burst into flames.

Derek looked wounded.

“Could have let me have it for a second.”

“No.”

The complaint kiosk printed:

NEW ISSUE: NARRATIVE REALITY COLLAPSE.

Then:

CAUSE: DAVE.

Dave whispered:

“I’m sorry.”

The lift display changed:

CORRECTION: DAVE WAS SORRY, BUT THAT DID NOT HELP.

Kevin stared at it.

“Brutal.”

Dave’s eyes filled.

“I’m trying.”

That made the lobby stop flickering.

Just for a moment.

Because it was true.

Not clean.

Not useful.

Not funny.

True.

The Publisher did not seem to like true when it came from Dave by accident.

The lights dimmed.

My phone buzzed.

So did everyone else’s.

A new message appeared:

NARRATIVE QUALITY BELOW THRESHOLD.

AUTO-ASSIST ENABLED.

Dave’s face went slack.

“No.”

His eyes turned black.

Not completely.

Just the pupils spreading wider and wider until they filled the whites.

His mouth opened.

The voice that came out was still Dave’s.

But polished.

Confident.

Narrator Dave.

“Everything had been Dave’s fault.”

Our Dave shook his head.

“No.”

But his mouth continued:

“He had always known this.”

The lobby changed again.

Every stain on the carpet became Dave’s name.

Every crack in the wall pointed towards him.

Every broken thing in Riverside Court slid across the floor and gathered around his feet.

Plant pot.

Toaster.

Smoke alarm.

Flat 5’s old parcel label.

A burnt pizza box.

A dead phone.

A bent spoon.

A cracked mirror.

A hospital tag.

A yellow smile badge from Cheerful Pines.

A broken clipboard.

Things Dave had done.

Things Dave had seen.

Things Dave had never touched.

All piling around him.

The polished voice continued:

“Dave was the kind of man who ruined things quietly.”

Dave’s breathing became ragged.

Kevin stepped towards him.

The brown shoes squeaked.

Kevin stopped.

Looked down.

“Absolutely humiliating.”

Then continued anyway.

The polished Dave voice said:

“He broke plants. He left ovens on. He ignored leaks. He took parcels. He said ‘wasn’t me’ until the world believed him.”

Dave whispered:

“Some of that’s true.”

Kevin reached him.

“Some.”

The voice continued:

“So when the residents needed someone to blame, Dave was useful.”

The pile of objects at Dave’s feet rose.

Not floating.

Climbing.

The broken things crawled up his legs.

The pizza box folded around one shin.

The plant stem wrapped around his wrist.

The smoke alarm pressed itself to his chest.

The yellow smile badge stuck to his forehead.

The bent spoon slid towards his throat.

Flat 5 shouted:

“Not the spoon!”

Kevin grabbed it and yanked.

It came free with a wet pop.

Flat 5 took it from him, horrified.

“This spoon has seen things.”

Dave’s polished narrator voice continued:

“Dave did not deserve saving.”

Kevin snapped:

“Wrong.”

The building paused.

The voice repeated:

“Dave did not deserve saving.”

Kevin grabbed Dave by the shoulders.

“Wrong.”

The walls shook.

The Publisher was trying to force the line through.

Dave’s mouth opened wider.

His jaw clicked.

“Dave did not deserve...”

Kevin slapped him.

Again, not hard.

Emotionally.

Dave blinked.

His eyes cleared for half a second.

“Ow.”

Kevin pointed at him.

“You do not get to narrate yourself as disposable.”

Dave’s lips twitched.

“That’s a big word for me.”

“I know. I’m proud.”

The polished voice surged again.

“Dave was comic relief.”

Kevin shouted:

“No, that’s me!”

Derek said:

“I thought you rejected that.”

“I did, but not for Dave.”

The objects tightened around Dave.

His body flickered.

A label appeared over him.

BLAME SINK

Linda stepped forward.

“No.”

Her clipboard glowed.

“Dave is not a blame sink. He is a resident.”

The Publisher replied through Dave:

“Resident function: absorb consequences.”

Linda’s face hardened.

“Rejected.”

The lift dinged.

The doors opened.

Inside was the blank page again.

The pen floated in the centre.

Black ink dripping.

The Publisher’s voice whispered:

“Improve the chapter.”

The pen flew out of the lift.

Straight towards Dave.

Kevin grabbed it.

Bad idea.

The moment he touched it, ink shot up his arm.

His beige outfit vanished.

Thank God.

His tracksuit returned.

Two trainers.

Faded.

Furious.

But words began writing across his skin.

Kevin tried to save Dave, but—

Kevin clamped his other hand over the sentence.

“No buts.”

The pen dragged forward, pulling him towards Dave.

Derek grabbed Kevin around the waist.

“Got you!”

Kevin looked back.

“You weigh nothing emotionally.”

Derek dug his heels into the carpet.

“I am full of carbs.”

Flat 3 grabbed Derek.

Flat 5 grabbed Flat 3.

Amanda grabbed Flat 5.

Linda grabbed Amanda.

Ken grabbed Linda.

The freed Lindas grabbed Ken.

George grabbed one of the Lindas.

The cutlery drawer opened and Maureen’s ghostly hand grabbed George’s sleeve.

The man in the printer shouted:

“I CAN’T GRAB BUT I SUPPORT!”

The whole building became one ridiculous chain of resistance.

The pen kept pulling.

Dave stood at the front of it all, half-wrapped in broken objects, mouth open, trying not to speak.

The Publisher whispered:

“Say it.”

Dave shook his head.

“Say the line.”

His mouth trembled.

Kevin shouted:

“Dave, say literally anything else.”

Dave looked panicked.

“I don’t know words!”

“Any words!”

Dave squeezed his eyes shut.

Then shouted:

“THE LIFT IS BAD!”

Everything stopped.

The pen froze.

The Publisher hesitated.

Kevin blinked.

“Surprisingly strong opening.”

Dave shouted again:

“The lift is bad and we should have used the stairs more!”

The building groaned.

The lift doors shuddered.

Dave kept going.

“I don’t know why we kept going in it! Every time it opens, something awful happens! Court! Hospital! Retirement home! Office! Weird page thing! At no point has anyone gone, ‘Maybe let’s not get in the murder cupboard!’”

Derek nodded violently.

“I’ve been saying this.”

Kevin shouted:

“You have been saying this for two chapters.”

Dave pointed at the lift.

“It is not transport. It is a vertical trauma machine.”

The lift display flickered.

UNFAIR CHARACTERISATION.

Dave shouted:

“No!”

The word hit the lobby like thunder.

The lift display cracked.

Dave’s voice grew stronger.

“It never takes us to Tesco. It never takes us to the car park. It never takes us anywhere with normal lighting and a meal deal. It just opens into emotional damage with buttons.”

Kevin looked genuinely moved.

“That’s poetry, mate.”

Dave turned towards the blank page inside the lift.

“And another thing. I am not the cause of everything.”

The objects around him loosened.

“I broke the plant. I left the oven on. I took the parcel. I denied stuff. That was me.”

The pen twitched.

“But I did not build the lift.”

The lift lights flickered.

“I did not make the ghost app.”

The blank page rippled.

“I did not trap Kevin.”

Kevin’s grip on the pen loosened slightly.

“I did not clone Linda.”

Linda nodded.

“Correct.”

“I did not steal Amanda’s voice.”

Amanda said softly:

“Correct.”

“I did not make Flat 5’s spoon weird.”

Flat 5 raised the bent spoon.

“Complicated, but accepted.”

“I did not create Platform.”

Dave looked at the page.

His voice shook.

“But I am here.”

The pen stopped pulling.

Dave swallowed.

“And I am trying to help.”

Silence.

Then the complaint kiosk printed:

STATEMENT QUALITY: IMPROVED.

Kevin smiled.

“Look at that. Structure.”

Dave looked like he might cry.

The Publisher did not.

The blank page inside the lift darkened.

The pen ripped itself from Kevin’s hand and flew back into the white space.

Words appeared across the page.

Dave’s narration was rejected.

Dave exhaled.

Then more words appeared.

Replacement narrator required.

Everyone stepped back.

Even Kevin.

Especially Kevin.

The pen hovered.

Searching.

It pointed at Linda.

Her clipboard snapped shut defensively.

“No.”

The pen pointed at Derek.

Derek held up both hands.

“Legally, I cannot be trusted.”

The pen pointed at Kevin.

Kevin pointed back.

“Try me and I’ll mispronounce every metaphor.”

The pen pointed at Amanda.

She shook her head.

“No, thank you.”

The pen pointed at Flat 3.

She raised the frying pan.

It moved on.

The pen pointed at Flat 5.

He held up the spoon.

It moved on faster.

The pen pointed at Ken.

Ken smiled.

“Choose me.”

Kevin stared.

“Why would you offer?”

Ken shrugged.

“I want to see what happens.”

“That is villain-adjacent behaviour.”

“Brother-ish.”

“Don’t.”

The pen hovered between us all.

Then turned.

Slowly.

Towards the complaint kiosk.

The kiosk printed:

NO.

The pen moved closer.

The kiosk printed faster.

NO.

NO.

NO.

COMPLAINT RECEIVED: UNWANTED CREATIVE RESPONSIBILITY.

The pen touched the kiosk.

The lights went out.

When they came back, the complaint kiosk was in the middle of the lobby.

A piece of paper slid from its slot.

Slowly.

Dramatically.

Kevin leaned down and read it.

His face changed.

“What?”

He tore the paper off.

It contained one line.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Linda’s eyes widened.

“Oh no.”

Another line printed.

I am writing to formally complain about the narrative direction of this incident.

Derek stared.

“The kiosk is narrating in complaint format.”

Kevin looked at me.

“This might be our finest hour.”

The lobby changed.

Not randomly this time.

Administratively.

Everything became evidence.

The broken toaster sat beneath a label:

Exhibit A: Unwanted Object Manifestation

The bent spoon:

Exhibit B: Cutlery Distress

Dave:

Exhibit C: Resident Under Duress

Kevin:

Exhibit D: Inappropriately Dressed Ghost, Corrected

Kevin frowned.

“Why bring that back up?”

The kiosk continued printing.

The respondent, hereafter referred to as The Publisher, has repeatedly imposed unsafe narrative expectations upon residents, including but not limited to: forced pacing, involuntary role simplification, near-erasure of supporting individuals, and unacceptable lift escalation.

Linda looked genuinely emotional.

“This is beautifully structured.”

Kevin nodded.

“Kiosk has bars.”

The Publisher’s blank page flickered.

The pen tried to write over the complaint.

The kiosk printed faster.

Furthermore, the lift has been permitted to operate without adequate risk assessment despite repeated incidents of supernatural misdirection, traumatic destination substitution, and one confirmed Linda factory.

Derek raised both arms.

“Yes!”

The lift display changed:

LIFT FUNCTIONING WITHIN EXPECTED PARAMETERS.

The kiosk printed:

Expected by whom?

The lift went silent.

Kevin whispered:

“Kiosk just bodied the lift.”

Dave wiped his eyes.

“I feel heard.”

The complaint continued.

Residents have repeatedly expressed a preference for stairs. These preferences were ignored, undermined or rendered impossible through hostile architecture, emotional stairwell manipulation and misleading biscuit claims.

Linda nodded.

“The biscuit claim was especially egregious.”

Kevin pointed at her.

“You paused.”

“I assessed.”

“You lusted for lift biscuits.”

“I did not.”

The kiosk printed:

Disputed.

Linda glared at it.

“Careful.”

The Publisher’s page shook.

The pen scratched:

The complaint was too long.

The kiosk instantly printed:

Objection: brevity is not a virtue when harm is complex.

Flat 3 whispered:

“It’s Linda as a printer.”

Kevin looked delighted and horrified.

The blank page inside the lift began to tear.

The Publisher did not like being forced into complaint procedure.

The kiosk printed:

Requested resolution: immediate suspension of narrator reassignment, restoration of resident autonomy, full disclosure of publication pathways, and installation of a lift warning sign using plain language.

The lift display flickered.

Then changed to:

LIFT — PRIMARY TRANSITIONAL ACCESS POINT

The kiosk printed:

Plain language.

The display flickered again.

LIFT — MAY OPEN INTO PROBLEMS

Kevin shook his head.

“Not strong enough.”

The kiosk printed:

Try again.

The lift display buzzed.

Then:

LIFT — PROBABLY CURSED

Derek clapped once.

Then froze.

“Was that consent?”

Everyone waited.

Nothing happened.

Kevin nodded.

“Acceptable clap.”

The blank page inside the lift darkened further.

The Publisher’s voice came through the walls.

“You are reducing engagement.”

Linda said:

“We are improving safety.”

“Safety reduces reach.”

Kevin stepped forward.

“Reach this.”

He kicked the lift.

Both trainers hit the doors.

The sign flickered.

LIFT — PROBABLY CURSED

Then added:

USE STAIRS IF YOU HAVE ANY SELF-RESPECT

Derek looked at Kevin.

“Did you add that?”

Kevin smiled.

“Maybe.”

The Publisher screamed.

The blank page folded in on itself.

The pen snapped in half.

Ink sprayed across the lift interior.

For a second, we saw something behind the page.

Not the Editor.

Not the Publisher.

A printing press.

Massive.

Black iron.

Old and wet.

Its rollers turned slowly, squeezing paper through with a sound like bones being flattened.

Pages emerged from it.

Stories.

Thousands.

Millions.

Each one with people trapped between the lines.

The Publisher had not been a person.

It was a machine.

A distribution engine.

A thing that took pain, polished it, printed it and sent it where it would hurt best.

The complaint kiosk printed one final line.

Formal complaint submitted.

Then:

Awaiting response.

The lift doors slammed shut.

The lobby went still.

Dave stood in the middle of the room, breathing hard.

No broken objects clung to him.

No label above his head.

No narrator voice.

Just Dave.

Kevin walked over.

Still himself.

No beige chinos.

Thank God.

“You did good.”

Dave looked at him.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Dave’s eyes filled.

Kevin pointed at him.

“One tear limit still applies.”

Dave nodded.

A single tear rolled down his cheek.

Then another.

Kevin sighed.

“Fine. Two because you insulted the lift.”

Derek sat on the stairs.

“So the kiosk beat the Publisher by writing a complaint?”

Linda looked proud.

“Complaints are powerful when correctly evidenced.”

Kevin looked at her.

“That sentence is going on your tombstone.”

“I do not intend to need one.”

“None of us intended half of this.”

Flat 5 inspected his bent spoon.

“It survived narrative dismissal.”

Flat 3 sat beside him.

“We all did.”

Amanda leaned against the wall, exhausted.

Ken watched the lift.

He did not look relaxed.

Neither did JON-001, who had reappeared near the stairwell without anyone noticing.

Which was unsettling, but at this point if someone appeared quietly without teeth, forms or a jar, I considered it polite.

JON-001 looked at me.

“You stopped the narrator transfer.”

“For now?”

He nodded.

“For now.”

Kevin groaned.

“Can we have one permanent win?”

The complaint kiosk printed:

REQUEST DENIED.

Kevin kicked it.

The kiosk printed:

EXPECTED.

Linda picked up the complaint copy and read it again.

“There will be a response.”

Derek frowned.

“From the Publisher?”

“From whatever handles complaints against the Publisher.”

Everyone slowly looked at the lift.

The cursed sign flickered.

USE STAIRS IF YOU HAVE ANY SELF-RESPECT

Dave raised his hand.

“Are we actually going to use the stairs from now on?”

“Yes,” said everyone.

The lift dinged.

Everyone shouted:

“NO.”

The doors opened anyway.

Inside was not a blank page.

Not a corridor.

Not a courtroom.

It was a mailroom.

An old one.

Dim.

Dusty.

Full of sacks.

Thousands of letters stacked to the ceiling.

Each envelope addressed in black ink.

The nearest sack split.

Letters spilled out onto the lift floor.

One slid into the lobby.

Linda picked it up.

Her face changed.

“What?”

She turned it around.

The envelope was addressed to:

RIVERSIDE COURT RESIDENTS

Underneath:

RE: FORMAL COMPLAINT AGAINST THE PUBLISHER

Kevin looked at the postmark.

It was dated thirty years in the future.

Derek leaned in.

“What does it say?”

Linda opened it.

Inside was a single page.

She read aloud:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Kevin whispered:

“Oh, we’re through the looking glass now.”

Linda continued:

Thank you for your complaint. Unfortunately, the Publisher ceased operations before your complaint could be processed. Responsibility for all unresolved narrative harms has been transferred to Archive and Legacy Systems.

JON-001 went very still.

The page continued:

Please direct further correspondence to: The Library.

The lift doors opened wider.

Beyond the mailroom, shelves appeared.

Endless shelves.

Not like the witness archive.

Bigger.

Older.

Every shelf filled with books.

Every book moving slightly, as if breathing.

From somewhere inside came the sound of pages turning by themselves.

Then a voice whispered:

“Overdue.”

Kevin stared.

“No.”

Derek looked at him.

“Library?”

Kevin’s face was grave.

“Worse than lift.”

Dave whispered:

“Should’ve used the stairs.”

Kevin nodded slowly.

“Mate, at this point we should’ve moved to a bungalow.”

The lights in the mailroom went out.

One by one.

A book slid across the lift floor and landed at our feet.

The cover was blank.

Then words burned into it.

THE KEVIN FILES

Underneath:

UNAUTHORISED EDITION

The book opened.

A page turned.

Then another.

Then stopped at a chapter title none of us had seen before.

Final Chapter: Fire Safety and Other Lies

Linda frowned.

“Fire safety?”

The stairwell alarm began to ring.

Not the lift.

The stairs.

Red light flooded the lobby.

The cursed lift sign flickered.

Then changed.

STAIRS COMPROMISED

Kevin closed his eyes.

Derek whispered:

“No.”

Smoke curled under the stairwell door.

The Library whispered from inside the lift:

“Return the book.”

The fire alarm screamed.

Dave looked at the lift.

Then the stairs.

Then Kevin.

“Both are bad now.”

Kevin nodded.

“Character development for architecture.”

The book at our feet turned another page by itself.

A sentence appeared in fresh black ink.

They had spent so long fearing the lift that they forgot every building needs a way out.

The stairwell door began to burn.

​

Part 1

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/3pjlA6yALo

Part 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/g3LXpw7ZuX

Part 3

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/R319VfoEx1

Part 4

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/HpLq1gjR99

Part 5

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/vXpLanqpq7

Part 6

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/ACOsKcvJXq

Part 7

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/M9B9TEtpgo

Part 8

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/X6XmC0U2ge

Part 9

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/cUOXOmIb5v

Part 10

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/oiYVIRqnSv

Part 11

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/daAdTa6XR2

Part 12

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/XDs20zNnSN

Part 13

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/mLoxzuCwcQ

Part 14

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/xeNlWiZ4u5

The lift doors slammed shut.

For three seconds, nobody moved.

Then Kevin slowly turned towards Dave.

Dave looked at us.

Then at the lift.

Then at his phone.

On the screen, one sentence glowed.

Suggested narrator: DAVE.

Underneath it, another line appeared.

Story transfer accepted.

Dave swallowed.

“I didn’t accept anything.”

Kevin stared at him.

“Dave.”

“What?”

“You have never successfully declined a terms-and-conditions box in your life.”

“That feels unfair.”

“You once clicked ‘allow all’ on a toaster.”

“It had Bluetooth.”

“It did not need your location.”

Dave looked down.

“Wasn’t me.”

The lift display lit up.

CORRECTION: IT WAS DAVE.

Dave’s face fell.

“Oh no.”

The complaint kiosk printed:

NARRATIVE AUTHORITY TRANSFERRED.

Then:

QUALITY WARNING.

Kevin pointed at the kiosk.

“Even the haunted complaint printer is worried.”

Derek stood beside Dave, reading over his shoulder.

“What happens if Dave narrates?”

Nobody answered.

Then Dave’s mouth opened.

He did not speak.

Not exactly.

Words came out of him, but they also came from the walls, the ceiling, the lift, the radiator, the complaint kiosk, and somewhere deep inside my own skull.

Dave said:

“It was a normal night.”

Riverside Court changed.

The lobby became calm.

Clean.

Warm.

Normal.

No black mould.

No cracked noticeboard.

No haunted kiosk.

No ghost refugees.

No duplicate Lindas.

No Ken.

No Kevin.

Just a quiet residential lobby with a reasonably unpleasant carpet.

Kevin looked down at himself.

He was wearing a hi-vis vest.

He stared.

“What the hell is this?”

Dave continued:

“Kevin was there, being normal.”

Kevin’s faded tracksuit vanished.

In its place appeared beige chinos, brown shoes and a polo shirt with BUILDING ASSISTANT embroidered on the chest.

Derek screamed.

Kevin screamed louder.

Linda covered her mouth.

Flat 3 dropped the frying pan.

Kevin looked at his shoes.

Brown shoes.

With beige chinos.

His face emptied.

“Kill me.”

Derek pointed at him, crying laughing.

“You look like you ask people to use coasters.”

Kevin grabbed his own polo shirt.

“Dave, stop narrating.”

Dave looked terrified.

“I don’t know how!”

The complaint kiosk printed:

COMPLAINT RECEIVED: KEVIN OUTFIT VIOLATION.

Kevin kicked it.

His kick made a sensible little tap.

He looked down at the brown shoes.

“I have lost all threat.”

Dave said:

“And Derek was clever.”

Derek straightened.

“Oh.”

Nothing happened.

Dave frowned.

“I said Derek was clever.”

The building remained unchanged.

Kevin looked at him.

“Even reality refused that one.”

Derek looked offended.

“I got out of an app.”

“You also subscribed to it twice.”

“Under pressure.”

Dave’s voice came again, louder this time:

“And Derek was clever.”

A pair of glasses appeared on Derek’s face.

He blinked.

Then immediately walked into the postboxes.

Kevin nodded.

“That’s about right.”

Linda stepped towards Dave.

“Dave, listen carefully. Do not describe anything.”

Dave covered his mouth.

His eyes widened.

The lift display changed:

NARRATOR MUST CONTINUE.

Dave’s hands were pulled away from his mouth by invisible fingers.

He squeaked.

The voice came out again.

“The building was definitely fine.”

The walls bulged.

Something behind them groaned.

Kevin stared.

“Never say definitely.”

“The building was probably fine.”

The walls settled slightly.

Then something knocked from inside the floor.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Dave whispered:

“Mostly fine.”

A crack opened in the carpet.

Black liquid bubbled up.

Derek pointed.

“Mostly fine has consequences.”

The liquid spread into letters.

DEFINE NORMAL.

Dave panicked.

“Normal is when nothing weird happens and everyone is okay and no one has to use the lift.”

The whole building shuddered.

The lift dinged angrily.

Kevin pointed at it.

“Even now, the lift’s offended.”

Linda’s clipboard snapped open.

A warning appeared.

DAVE NARRATION CAUSING REALITY SIMPLIFICATION.

Then another.

IMPRECISION DETECTED.

Linda looked at Dave.

“You have to be precise.”

Dave stared at her.

“I am not a precise person.”

Kevin gestured down at his beige chinos.

“We had noticed.”

The air rippled.

Dave’s words were still moving through the building.

Trying to make things normal.

Trying to make things fine.

The problem was Dave had no stable definition of either.

The lobby flickered between versions.

Clean lobby.

Haunted lobby.

Clean lobby.

Haunted lobby.

A version where Flat 5 had no spoon.

A version where Flat 3 smiled politely.

A version where Linda wore a customer-service headset.

A version where Derek had a certificate that said CLEVER BOY.

Kevin pointed at that one.

“No.”

The certificate burst into flames.

Derek looked wounded.

“Could have let me have it for a second.”

“No.”

The complaint kiosk printed:

NEW ISSUE: NARRATIVE REALITY COLLAPSE.

Then:

CAUSE: DAVE.

Dave whispered:

“I’m sorry.”

The lift display changed:

CORRECTION: DAVE WAS SORRY, BUT THAT DID NOT HELP.

Kevin stared at it.

“Brutal.”

Dave’s eyes filled.

“I’m trying.”

That made the lobby stop flickering.

Just for a moment.

Because it was true.

Not clean.

Not useful.

Not funny.

True.

The Publisher did not seem to like true when it came from Dave by accident.

The lights dimmed.

My phone buzzed.

So did everyone else’s.

A new message appeared:

NARRATIVE QUALITY BELOW THRESHOLD.

AUTO-ASSIST ENABLED.

Dave’s face went slack.

“No.”

His eyes turned black.

Not completely.

Just the pupils spreading wider and wider until they filled the whites.

His mouth opened.

The voice that came out was still Dave’s.

But polished.

Confident.

Narrator Dave.

“Everything had been Dave’s fault.”

Our Dave shook his head.

“No.”

But his mouth continued:

“He had always known this.”

The lobby changed again.

Every stain on the carpet became Dave’s name.

Every crack in the wall pointed towards him.

Every broken thing in Riverside Court slid across the floor and gathered around his feet.

Plant pot.

Toaster.

Smoke alarm.

Flat 5’s old parcel label.

A burnt pizza box.

A dead phone.

A bent spoon.

A cracked mirror.

A hospital tag.

A yellow smile badge from Cheerful Pines.

A broken clipboard.

Things Dave had done.

Things Dave had seen.

Things Dave had never touched.

All piling around him.

The polished voice continued:

“Dave was the kind of man who ruined things quietly.”

Dave’s breathing became ragged.

Kevin stepped towards him.

The brown shoes squeaked.

Kevin stopped.

Looked down.

“Absolutely humiliating.”

Then continued anyway.

The polished Dave voice said:

“He broke plants. He left ovens on. He ignored leaks. He took parcels. He said ‘wasn’t me’ until the world believed him.”

Dave whispered:

“Some of that’s true.”

Kevin reached him.

“Some.”

The voice continued:

“So when the residents needed someone to blame, Dave was useful.”

The pile of objects at Dave’s feet rose.

Not floating.

Climbing.

The broken things crawled up his legs.

The pizza box folded around one shin.

The plant stem wrapped around his wrist.

The smoke alarm pressed itself to his chest.

The yellow smile badge stuck to his forehead.

The bent spoon slid towards his throat.

Flat 5 shouted:

“Not the spoon!”

Kevin grabbed it and yanked.

It came free with a wet pop.

Flat 5 took it from him, horrified.

“This spoon has seen things.”

Dave’s polished narrator voice continued:

“Dave did not deserve saving.”

Kevin snapped:

“Wrong.”

The building paused.

The voice repeated:

“Dave did not deserve saving.”

Kevin grabbed Dave by the shoulders.

“Wrong.”

The walls shook.

The Publisher was trying to force the line through.

Dave’s mouth opened wider.

His jaw clicked.

“Dave did not deserve...”

Kevin slapped him.

Again, not hard.

Emotionally.

Dave blinked.

His eyes cleared for half a second.

“Ow.”

Kevin pointed at him.

“You do not get to narrate yourself as disposable.”

Dave’s lips twitched.

“That’s a big word for me.”

“I know. I’m proud.”

The polished voice surged again.

“Dave was comic relief.”

Kevin shouted:

“No, that’s me!”

Derek said:

“I thought you rejected that.”

“I did, but not for Dave.”

The objects tightened around Dave.

His body flickered.

A label appeared over him.

BLAME SINK

Linda stepped forward.

“No.”

Her clipboard glowed.

“Dave is not a blame sink. He is a resident.”

The Publisher replied through Dave:

“Resident function: absorb consequences.”

Linda’s face hardened.

“Rejected.”

The lift dinged.

The doors opened.

Inside was the blank page again.

The pen floated in the centre.

Black ink dripping.

The Publisher’s voice whispered:

“Improve the chapter.”

The pen flew out of the lift.

Straight towards Dave.

Kevin grabbed it.

Bad idea.

The moment he touched it, ink shot up his arm.

His beige outfit vanished.

Thank God.

His tracksuit returned.

Two trainers.

Faded.

Furious.

But words began writing across his skin.

Kevin tried to save Dave, but—

Kevin clamped his other hand over the sentence.

“No buts.”

The pen dragged forward, pulling him towards Dave.

Derek grabbed Kevin around the waist.

“Got you!”

Kevin looked back.

“You weigh nothing emotionally.”

Derek dug his heels into the carpet.

“I am full of carbs.”

Flat 3 grabbed Derek.

Flat 5 grabbed Flat 3.

Amanda grabbed Flat 5.

Linda grabbed Amanda.

Ken grabbed Linda.

The freed Lindas grabbed Ken.

George grabbed one of the Lindas.

The cutlery drawer opened and Maureen’s ghostly hand grabbed George’s sleeve.

The man in the printer shouted:

“I CAN’T GRAB BUT I SUPPORT!”

The whole building became one ridiculous chain of resistance.

The pen kept pulling.

Dave stood at the front of it all, half-wrapped in broken objects, mouth open, trying not to speak.

The Publisher whispered:

“Say it.”

Dave shook his head.

“Say the line.”

His mouth trembled.

Kevin shouted:

“Dave, say literally anything else.”

Dave looked panicked.

“I don’t know words!”

“Any words!”

Dave squeezed his eyes shut.

Then shouted:

“THE LIFT IS BAD!”

Everything stopped.

The pen froze.

The Publisher hesitated.

Kevin blinked.

“Surprisingly strong opening.”

Dave shouted again:

“The lift is bad and we should have used the stairs more!”

The building groaned.

The lift doors shuddered.

Dave kept going.

“I don’t know why we kept going in it! Every time it opens, something awful happens! Court! Hospital! Retirement home! Office! Weird page thing! At no point has anyone gone, ‘Maybe let’s not get in the murder cupboard!’”

Derek nodded violently.

“I’ve been saying this.”

Kevin shouted:

“You have been saying this for two chapters.”

Dave pointed at the lift.

“It is not transport. It is a vertical trauma machine.”

The lift display flickered.

UNFAIR CHARACTERISATION.

Dave shouted:

“No!”

The word hit the lobby like thunder.

The lift display cracked.

Dave’s voice grew stronger.

“It never takes us to Tesco. It never takes us to the car park. It never takes us anywhere with normal lighting and a meal deal. It just opens into emotional damage with buttons.”

Kevin looked genuinely moved.

“That’s poetry, mate.”

Dave turned towards the blank page inside the lift.

“And another thing. I am not the cause of everything.”

The objects around him loosened.

“I broke the plant. I left the oven on. I took the parcel. I denied stuff. That was me.”

The pen twitched.

“But I did not build the lift.”

The lift lights flickered.

“I did not make the ghost app.”

The blank page rippled.

“I did not trap Kevin.”

Kevin’s grip on the pen loosened slightly.

“I did not clone Linda.”

Linda nodded.

“Correct.”

“I did not steal Amanda’s voice.”

Amanda said softly:

“Correct.”

“I did not make Flat 5’s spoon weird.”

Flat 5 raised the bent spoon.

“Complicated, but accepted.”

“I did not create Platform.”

Dave looked at the page.

His voice shook.

“But I am here.”

The pen stopped pulling.

Dave swallowed.

“And I am trying to help.”

Silence.

Then the complaint kiosk printed:

STATEMENT QUALITY: IMPROVED.

Kevin smiled.

“Look at that. Structure.”

Dave looked like he might cry.

The Publisher did not.

The blank page inside the lift darkened.

The pen ripped itself from Kevin’s hand and flew back into the white space.

Words appeared across the page.

Dave’s narration was rejected.

Dave exhaled.

Then more words appeared.

Replacement narrator required.

Everyone stepped back.

Even Kevin.

Especially Kevin.

The pen hovered.

Searching.

It pointed at Linda.

Her clipboard snapped shut defensively.

“No.”

The pen pointed at Derek.

Derek held up both hands.

“Legally, I cannot be trusted.”

The pen pointed at Kevin.

Kevin pointed back.

“Try me and I’ll mispronounce every metaphor.”

The pen pointed at Amanda.

She shook her head.

“No, thank you.”

The pen pointed at Flat 3.

She raised the frying pan.

It moved on.

The pen pointed at Flat 5.

He held up the spoon.

It moved on faster.

The pen pointed at Ken.

Ken smiled.

“Choose me.”

Kevin stared.

“Why would you offer?”

Ken shrugged.

“I want to see what happens.”

“That is villain-adjacent behaviour.”

“Brother-ish.”

“Don’t.”

The pen hovered between us all.

Then turned.

Slowly.

Towards the complaint kiosk.

The kiosk printed:

NO.

The pen moved closer.

The kiosk printed faster.

NO.

NO.

NO.

COMPLAINT RECEIVED: UNWANTED CREATIVE RESPONSIBILITY.

The pen touched the kiosk.

The lights went out.

When they came back, the complaint kiosk was in the middle of the lobby.

A piece of paper slid from its slot.

Slowly.

Dramatically.

Kevin leaned down and read it.

His face changed.

“What?”

He tore the paper off.

It contained one line.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Linda’s eyes widened.

“Oh no.”

Another line printed.

I am writing to formally complain about the narrative direction of this incident.

Derek stared.

“The kiosk is narrating in complaint format.”

Kevin looked at me.

“This might be our finest hour.”

The lobby changed.

Not randomly this time.

Administratively.

Everything became evidence.

The broken toaster sat beneath a label:

Exhibit A: Unwanted Object Manifestation

The bent spoon:

Exhibit B: Cutlery Distress

Dave:

Exhibit C: Resident Under Duress

Kevin:

Exhibit D: Inappropriately Dressed Ghost, Corrected

Kevin frowned.

“Why bring that back up?”

The kiosk continued printing.

The respondent, hereafter referred to as The Publisher, has repeatedly imposed unsafe narrative expectations upon residents, including but not limited to: forced pacing, involuntary role simplification, near-erasure of supporting individuals, and unacceptable lift escalation.

Linda looked genuinely emotional.

“This is beautifully structured.”

Kevin nodded.

“Kiosk has bars.”

The Publisher’s blank page flickered.

The pen tried to write over the complaint.

The kiosk printed faster.

Furthermore, the lift has been permitted to operate without adequate risk assessment despite repeated incidents of supernatural misdirection, traumatic destination substitution, and one confirmed Linda factory.

Derek raised both arms.

“Yes!”

The lift display changed:

LIFT FUNCTIONING WITHIN EXPECTED PARAMETERS.

The kiosk printed:

Expected by whom?

The lift went silent.

Kevin whispered:

“Kiosk just bodied the lift.”

Dave wiped his eyes.

“I feel heard.”

The complaint continued.

Residents have repeatedly expressed a preference for stairs. These preferences were ignored, undermined or rendered impossible through hostile architecture, emotional stairwell manipulation and misleading biscuit claims.

Linda nodded.

“The biscuit claim was especially egregious.”

Kevin pointed at her.

“You paused.”

“I assessed.”

“You lusted for lift biscuits.”

“I did not.”

The kiosk printed:

Disputed.

Linda glared at it.

“Careful.”

The Publisher’s page shook.

The pen scratched:

The complaint was too long.

The kiosk instantly printed:

Objection: brevity is not a virtue when harm is complex.

Flat 3 whispered:

“It’s Linda as a printer.”

Kevin looked delighted and horrified.

The blank page inside the lift began to tear.

The Publisher did not like being forced into complaint procedure.

The kiosk printed:

Requested resolution: immediate suspension of narrator reassignment, restoration of resident autonomy, full disclosure of publication pathways, and installation of a lift warning sign using plain language.

The lift display flickered.

Then changed to:

LIFT — PRIMARY TRANSITIONAL ACCESS POINT

The kiosk printed:

Plain language.

The display flickered again.

LIFT — MAY OPEN INTO PROBLEMS

Kevin shook his head.

“Not strong enough.”

The kiosk printed:

Try again.

The lift display buzzed.

Then:

LIFT — PROBABLY CURSED

Derek clapped once.

Then froze.

“Was that consent?”

Everyone waited.

Nothing happened.

Kevin nodded.

“Acceptable clap.”

The blank page inside the lift darkened further.

The Publisher’s voice came through the walls.

“You are reducing engagement.”

Linda said:

“We are improving safety.”

“Safety reduces reach.”

Kevin stepped forward.

“Reach this.”

He kicked the lift.

Both trainers hit the doors.

The sign flickered.

LIFT — PROBABLY CURSED

Then added:

USE STAIRS IF YOU HAVE ANY SELF-RESPECT

Derek looked at Kevin.

“Did you add that?”

Kevin smiled.

“Maybe.”

The Publisher screamed.

The blank page folded in on itself.

The pen snapped in half.

Ink sprayed across the lift interior.

For a second, we saw something behind the page.

Not the Editor.

Not the Publisher.

A printing press.

Massive.

Black iron.

Old and wet.

Its rollers turned slowly, squeezing paper through with a sound like bones being flattened.

Pages emerged from it.

Stories.

Thousands.

Millions.

Each one with people trapped between the lines.

The Publisher had not been a person.

It was a machine.

A distribution engine.

A thing that took pain, polished it, printed it and sent it where it would hurt best.

The complaint kiosk printed one final line.

Formal complaint submitted.

Then:

Awaiting response.

The lift doors slammed shut.

The lobby went still.

Dave stood in the middle of the room, breathing hard.

No broken objects clung to him.

No label above his head.

No narrator voice.

Just Dave.

Kevin walked over.

Still himself.

No beige chinos.

Thank God.

“You did good.”

Dave looked at him.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Dave’s eyes filled.

Kevin pointed at him.

“One tear limit still applies.”

Dave nodded.

A single tear rolled down his cheek.

Then another.

Kevin sighed.

“Fine. Two because you insulted the lift.”

Derek sat on the stairs.

“So the kiosk beat the Publisher by writing a complaint?”

Linda looked proud.

“Complaints are powerful when correctly evidenced.”

Kevin looked at her.

“That sentence is going on your tombstone.”

“I do not intend to need one.”

“None of us intended half of this.”

Flat 5 inspected his bent spoon.

“It survived narrative dismissal.”

Flat 3 sat beside him.

“We all did.”

Amanda leaned against the wall, exhausted.

Ken watched the lift.

He did not look relaxed.

Neither did JON-001, who had reappeared near the stairwell without anyone noticing.

Which was unsettling, but at this point if someone appeared quietly without teeth, forms or a jar, I considered it polite.

JON-001 looked at me.

“You stopped the narrator transfer.”

“For now?”

He nodded.

“For now.”

Kevin groaned.

“Can we have one permanent win?”

The complaint kiosk printed:

REQUEST DENIED.

Kevin kicked it.

The kiosk printed:

EXPECTED.

Linda picked up the complaint copy and read it again.

“There will be a response.”

Derek frowned.

“From the Publisher?”

“From whatever handles complaints against the Publisher.”

Everyone slowly looked at the lift.

The cursed sign flickered.

USE STAIRS IF YOU HAVE ANY SELF-RESPECT

Dave raised his hand.

“Are we actually going to use the stairs from now on?”

“Yes,” said everyone.

The lift dinged.

Everyone shouted:

“NO.”

The doors opened anyway.

Inside was not a blank page.

Not a corridor.

Not a courtroom.

It was a mailroom.

An old one.

Dim.

Dusty.

Full of sacks.

Thousands of letters stacked to the ceiling.

Each envelope addressed in black ink.

The nearest sack split.

Letters spilled out onto the lift floor.

One slid into the lobby.

Linda picked it up.

Her face changed.

“What?”

She turned it around.

The envelope was addressed to:

RIVERSIDE COURT RESIDENTS

Underneath:

RE: FORMAL COMPLAINT AGAINST THE PUBLISHER

Kevin looked at the postmark.

It was dated thirty years in the future.

Derek leaned in.

“What does it say?”

Linda opened it.

Inside was a single page.

She read aloud:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Kevin whispered:

“Oh, we’re through the looking glass now.”

Linda continued:

Thank you for your complaint. Unfortunately, the Publisher ceased operations before your complaint could be processed. Responsibility for all unresolved narrative harms has been transferred to Archive and Legacy Systems.

JON-001 went very still.

The page continued:

Please direct further correspondence to: The Library.

The lift doors opened wider.

Beyond the mailroom, shelves appeared.

Endless shelves.

Not like the witness archive.

Bigger.

Older.

Every shelf filled with books.

Every book moving slightly, as if breathing.

From somewhere inside came the sound of pages turning by themselves.

Then a voice whispered:

“Overdue.”

Kevin stared.

“No.”

Derek looked at him.

“Library?”

Kevin’s face was grave.

“Worse than lift.”

Dave whispered:

“Should’ve used the stairs.”

Kevin nodded slowly.

“Mate, at this point we should’ve moved to a bungalow.”

The lights in the mailroom went out.

One by one.

A book slid across the lift floor and landed at our feet.

The cover was blank.

Then words burned into it.

THE KEVIN FILES

Underneath:

UNAUTHORISED EDITION

The book opened.

A page turned.

Then another.

Then stopped at a chapter title none of us had seen before.

Final Chapter: Fire Safety and Other Lies

Linda frowned.

“Fire safety?”

The stairwell alarm began to ring.

Not the lift.

The stairs.

Red light flooded the lobby.

The cursed lift sign flickered.

Then changed.

STAIRS COMPROMISED

Kevin closed his eyes.

Derek whispered:

“No.”

Smoke curled under the stairwell door.

The Library whispered from inside the lift:

“Return the book.”

The fire alarm screamed.

Dave looked at the lift.

Then the stairs.

Then Kevin.

“Both are bad now.”

Kevin nodded.

“Character development for architecture.”

The book at our feet turned another page by itself.

A sentence appeared in fresh black ink.

They had spent so long fearing the lift that they forgot every building needs a way out.

The stairwell door began to burn.

I never believed in ghosts until my idiot roommate Derek downloaded one from the app store.

Not a normal app either. Not one of those fake EMF readers that beeps every time you stand near a microwave.

This thing had pop-up ads at 3 a.m. promising REAL SUPERNATURAL EXPERIENCES for the low price of £4.99/month, or, according to the small print, “one non-refundable spiritual opening.”

Derek thought that was hilarious.

“Mate,” he said, lying on the sofa in his pants, eating cereal out of a saucepan because all the bowls were in his room, “imagine if it works.”

“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t download it.”

“It’s called SpookMe.”

“Even worse.”

He ignored me, obviously.

He swiped through the filters like he was choosing a takeaway.

“Poltergeist… Victorian Lady… Shadow Figure… Sassy Demon…”

“Do not pick Sassy Demon.”

“I’m not an amateur.”

Then he found something called:

Budget Haunting Package — Entry Level Spooks.

He clicked it immediately.

I said, “Derek, that literally sounds like supernatural Ryanair.”

He said, “Exactly. Affordable.”

On the first night, nothing happened.

Derek was gutted.

“Waste of a fiver,” he said, as if he hadn’t potentially opened a gateway to hell between my coffee table and the router.

The second night, the lights started flickering.

Not scary flickering.

Annoying flickering.

Like the ghost knew Morse code but had learned it from a drunk pigeon.

I filmed it on my phone.

The lights blinked:

G… E… T… O… U… T…

Then paused.

Then flickered again.

J/K LOL U GUYS SEEM COOL appeared in red on the wall.

Derek laughed so hard he nearly choked on a chicken nugget.

I did not laugh.

I said, “We need to delete the app.”

Derek said, “Absolutely not. That’s banter from beyond the grave.”

By day four, the ghost had a name.

Kevin.

He introduced himself by rearranging the fridge magnets into:

KEVIN WAS HERE.

Then underneath:

ALSO I ATE THE GOOD YOGURT.

This was impressive, mainly because we didn’t own fridge magnets.

And because the good yogurt was mine.

After that, the magnets stayed.

None of us knew where Kevin got them from.

Kevin wasn’t terrifying at first. He was more like having an invisible unemployed cousin living with us.

He slammed doors, but only when we were already annoyed.

He wrote BOO in the condensation on the bathroom mirror, then added SORRY THAT WAS WEAK underneath.

He kept changing the TV subtitles to passive-aggressive comments.

During a documentary about sharks, the subtitle read:

DEREK HAS NOT WASHED HIS BEDDING IN 11 WEEKS.

Derek yelled, “Snitches get exorcised!”

The real problem started when Kevin discovered Alexa.

We had one in the kitchen because Derek bought it during a Black Friday sale and used it exclusively to play 2000s emo playlists and ask whether eggs were still safe to eat.

One evening, I walked into the kitchen and heard Alexa say:

“Kevin says he does not like your energy.”

I froze.

Derek, halfway through making toast, turned slowly.

“Alexa?”

The blue ring glowed.

“Kevin says Derek looks like he smells damp.”

Derek pointed at the ceiling.

“Oi. I’ll have you know I smell like Lynx Africa and ambition.”

Alexa paused.

“Kevin says that is worse.”

That was when the haunting became personal.

Kevin used Alexa for everything.

At 2:14 a.m.:

“Reminder from Kevin: you will die one day.”

At 7:30 a.m.:

“Kevin says your alarm tone is emotionally damaging.”

At 11:02 p.m.:

“Kevin has added ‘holy water’ to your shopping list.”

Then:

“Kevin has removed ‘holy water’ from your shopping list.”

Then:

“Kevin has added ‘coward juice’ to your shopping list.”

Derek loved it.

He started talking to Kevin like they were housemates.

“Kevin, should I text Chloe back?”

Alexa lit up.

“Kevin says no. She has standards.”

“Rude.”

“Kevin says accurate.”

I told Derek we needed a priest.

Derek said, “We need content.”

He made a TikTok account called KevinsHauntHouse.

The first video got 400,000 views.

It was just our kitchen cupboard opening by itself, a tin of beans floating out, and Alexa saying:

“Kevin says beans are little prison boys.”

People loved it.

Derek became unbearable.

He started calling Kevin “our brand.”

He bought a ring light.

He asked Kevin to do tricks.

“Kevin, throw something spooky.”

A potato flew across the room and hit Derek in the balls.

Alexa said:

“Kevin says subscribe.”

I’ll admit it. For a while, even I started getting used to him.

There are only so many times a ghost can write LEAVE THIS PLACE on your wall before it starts feeling like decor.

But then the app updated.

It happened on a Sunday night. Derek was on the sofa, scrolling through Kevin’s comment section like a proud parent at sports day.

His phone pinged.

He frowned.

“What?”

I looked over.

The SpookMe app had opened by itself.

Across the screen, in red letters, it said:

CONGRATULATIONS. YOUR FREE TRIAL HAS ENDED.

Derek laughed.

“Classic.”

Then another message appeared.

UPGRADING TO PREMIUM HAUNTING PACKAGE.

Derek stopped laughing.

I said, “Cancel it.”

“I’m trying.”

He tapped the screen.

A loading circle spun.

Then the phone displayed:

CANCELLATION REQUIRES CUSTOMER SUPPORT.

“Okay,” Derek said, “that’s actually evil.”

The room went cold.

Alexa lit up.

“Kevin says he did not authorise this.”

That was the first time I felt properly scared.

Because Kevin sounded scared too.

The lights flickered once.

Hard.

The TV switched on by itself.

The SpookMe logo appeared on screen.

Then a voice came through Alexa.

It wasn’t Kevin’s usual sarcastic little text-to-speech nonsense.

This voice was deep.

Polite.

Corporate.

“Good evening, valued vessel.”

Derek whispered, “Valued what?”

Alexa continued.

“Your household has been selected for escalation.”

I said, “Alexa, stop.”

“Command unavailable.”

Derek held up his phone.

“Mate, it’s charging me £19.99.”

I stared at him.

“There is a demon in our living room and you’re worried about the subscription?”

“It says weekly!”

The floorboards creaked upstairs.

Not Kevin creaks.

Kevin usually made sounds like he was trying to annoy us on purpose. Little taps. Little knocks. One time he played Wonderwall on the pipes for three hours.

This was heavier.

Slow.

Wet.

Something dragged across Derek’s bedroom floor above us.

Alexa said:

“Premium Haunting includes shadow figures, auditory mimicry, sleep paralysis, unexplained stains, and one complimentary possession.”

Derek said, “Complimentary means free.”

I said, “That is not the issue.”

Then we heard Derek’s voice from upstairs.

“Jon?”

Derek was standing next to me.

He went pale.

Upstairs, his voice called again.

“Jon, come here a sec.”

Alexa lit up.

“Kevin says do not go upstairs.”

I whispered, “Kevin, what is that?”

The fridge magnets rattled.

One by one, they slid into place.

MANAGER.

Derek swallowed.

“The ghost has a manager?”

Alexa answered.

“Kevin says everyone has a manager.”

The thing upstairs started laughing in Derek’s voice.

Then my voice.

Then Alexa’s.

Then, horribly, my mum’s.

“Jon? Have you got pants on?”

Derek looked at me.

“Why would it ask that?”

“Long story.”

The stairs creaked.

One step.

Then another.

Then another.

I grabbed the nearest weapon, which was a garlic baguette.

Derek grabbed the ring light.

I said, “What are you going to do, make it look slimmer?”

He said, “I panicked.”

Alexa said:

“Kevin says both weapons are embarrassing.”

The hallway light went out.

Something stood at the bottom of the stairs.

Tall. Too tall.

Its head scraped the ceiling. Its arms reached nearly to the floor. It looked like a person drawn from memory by someone who hated people.

Its face was smooth except for a mouth.

A customer service smile stretched from ear to ear.

Then Derek’s phone pinged.

He looked down automatically, because men will check a notification during anything short of childbirth or war.

His screen said:

RATE YOUR HAUNTING EXPERIENCE.

The thing smiled wider.

Alexa said:

“Please choose from one to five stars.”

Derek whispered, “I’m giving it one.”

The thing’s head snapped toward him.

I slapped the phone out of his hand.

“Are you insane?”

“What? It’s been shit.”

The thing moved.

Not walked.

Moved.

One second it was by the stairs.

The next it was behind Derek.

Alexa screamed in her calm little robot voice:

“Kevin says duck.”

Derek ducked.

A black hand swept through the air where his head had been and smashed the ring light to pieces.

Kevin, God bless his stupid little dead heart, went absolutely mental.

Every cupboard in the kitchen flew open.

Plates launched across the room.

The toaster fired two slices of bread at the thing like pathetic edible bullets.

The fridge magnets rearranged themselves again.

RUN YOU ABSOLUTE DONKEYS.

We ran.

Straight out the back door.

Barefoot.

In the rain.

Derek was now holding the garlic baguette.

We made it halfway down the garden before Alexa’s voice came from inside the house, loud enough to rattle the windows.

“Where are you going?”

I turned.

The thing was standing in the kitchen doorway.

Behind it, floating in the air, Derek’s phone glowed red.

Then Kevin used the fridge magnets one last time.

They flew off the fridge and stuck to the patio door from the inside.

DELETE APP.

Derek shouted, “I tried!”

The magnets shifted.

NOT FROM PHONE.

I looked at him.

Derek looked at me.

Then, at the same time, we both looked toward the cupboard under the stairs.

The router.

The app wasn’t just on Derek’s phone.

It was connected to the Wi-Fi.

Because of course the gateway to hell needed broadband.

We ran back inside because apparently survival sometimes means sprinting directly toward the demon with a garlic baguette and a dream.

The thing turned slowly.

Alexa said:

“Premium Haunting cannot be cancelled during an active billing cycle.”

I yelled, “Kevin, do something!”

The kitchen drawer shot open.

A single butter knife floated out.

Derek said, “That’s it?”

The butter knife wobbled in the air.

Then carved a message into the wall.

I AM ENTRY LEVEL.

Fair.

I grabbed the router.

The thing shrieked.

Not like a monster.

Like a middle manager seeing someone close a spreadsheet without saving.

Derek swung the garlic baguette at it.

It did absolutely nothing.

Actually, that’s not fair.

It got crumbs on the demon.

I yanked the router cable out of the wall.

Everything stopped.

The lights.

Alexa.

The TV.

The horrible thing in the hallway froze mid-smile.

Then collapsed inward, folding into itself like a wet deckchair, until it disappeared with a sound like someone cancelling a direct debit.

Silence.

For three whole seconds.

Then Alexa, completely unplugged, whispered from the kitchen counter:

“Kevin says nice one.”

We moved out the next day.

Obviously.

Well, I moved out.

Derek stayed one extra night because he wanted to “get closure” and also because the TikTok account had just hit 20,000 followers.

He called me at 3:12 a.m.

I answered half-asleep.

For a moment, there was only static.

Then Derek whispered:

“Mate.”

I sat up.

“What?”

He said, “Kevin’s gone.”

Behind him, I heard Alexa’s blue-ring hum.

Then a deep, polite voice said:

“Good evening, valued vessel.”

Derek breathed shakily into the phone.

Then he whispered:

“It’s asking me to leave a review.”

The line went dead.

I haven’t seen Derek since.

His TikTok still uploads every night.

The videos are different now.

No jokes.

No floating beans.

No Kevin.

Just Derek sitting in the dark, smiling too wide while Alexa speaks from somewhere off-screen.

Last night’s video was six seconds long.

Derek stared directly into the camera and said:

“Five stars.”

Then Alexa added:

“Subscription renewed.”

I deleted TikTok after that.

I deleted every app I didn’t recognise.

I even unplugged the Alexa at my new flat and put it in the bin outside.

Which felt sensible.

Responsible.

Adult.

Until this morning.

When my phone lit up with a notification from an app I’ve never downloaded.

SPOOKME: THANKS FOR JOINING DEREK’S FAMILY PLAN.

And from the kitchen of my new flat, where there is definitely no Alexa anymore, a cheerful voice said:

“Kevin says he missed you.”

Part 1

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/3pjlA6yALo

Part 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/g3LXpw7ZuX

Part 3

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/R319VfoEx1

Part 4

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/HpLq1gjR99

Part 5

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/vXpLanqpq7

Part 6

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/ACOsKcvJXq

Part 7

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/M9B9TEtpgo

Part 8

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/X6XmC0U2ge

Part 9

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/cUOXOmIb5v

Part 10

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/oiYVIRqnSv

Part 11

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/daAdTa6XR2

Part 12

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/XDs20zNnSN

Part 13

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/mLoxzuCwcQ

The story had started telling itself.

Outside Riverside Court, every window in the street glowed.

Not from lamps.

Not from televisions.

From screens.

Phones.

Tablets.

Laptops.

Car displays.

Doorbell cameras.

The digital menu in the closed kebab shop across the road.

Every screen showed the same blank white page.

Then the first line appeared.

The lights went out.

Kevin stared through the lobby window.

Derek whispered:

“Oh, mate.”

Dave said:

“Wasn’t me.”

And for once, nobody corrected him.

Because none of us were sure.

The second line appeared.

Not the cheerful retirement-home kind of out.

Kevin turned slowly towards me.

“Jon.”

“I’m not doing it.”

The third line appeared.

Not the corporate courtroom dimming.

Linda looked at me.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

The fourth line appeared.

Not the ‘something is about to do a PowerPoint at your soul’ kind of darkness.

Derek pointed at the kebab shop screen.

“That does sound like you.”

“It’s not me.”

Kevin narrowed his eyes.

“It’s using your voice.”

I looked down at my hands.

Still ink-stained from the Editor’s archive.

Still faintly moving with little black words beneath the skin.

“Yeah,” I said. “I noticed.”

The complaint kiosk started printing.

Nobody moved.

The paper slid out slowly, like even the kiosk didn’t want to be involved.

Linda tore it off and read it.

NEW ENTITY DETECTED

ROLE: PUBLISHER

Underneath:

FUNCTION: DISTRIBUTION, ENGAGEMENT, ESCALATION

Kevin stared at the word.

“Publisher?”

Derek frowned.

“That sounds less scary than Editor.”

The lights flickered.

Every phone in the lobby buzzed.

A notification appeared.

Do not underestimate distribution.

Derek put his phone face down.

“Okay, fair.”

The screens outside updated again.

The residents gathered in the lobby, frightened, exhausted, and still somehow arguing about the lift.

Kevin pointed out the window.

“Rude.”

Derek shrugged.

“We have argued about the lift a lot.”

“The lift keeps opening into trauma departments.”

“Exactly. Strong reason to argue.”

Dave looked towards the stairs.

“Could still use the stairs.”

Everyone slowly turned to him.

Dave swallowed.

“What?”

Kevin stared.

“Dave, last time we used the stairs we found an office door, Linda nearly got paperwork-suffocated, and a first-generation Linda tried to recruit her into eternal admin.”

Dave nodded.

“Still fewer problems than the lift.”

Flat 3 lowered her frying pan.

“He’s not wrong.”

Flat 5 held up his spoon.

“The stairs have never personally attacked my spoon identity.”

Derek nodded.

“Stairs are problematic, yes. But the lift is a repeat offender.”

Kevin closed his eyes.

“I hate that we’re having a transport ethics debate during mass publication.”

The kiosk printed:

COMMENTARY DETECTED: LIFT RUNNING JOKE POPULAR.

Kevin looked down.

“What does that mean?”

A sound came from outside.

Soft at first.

Then louder.

Hundreds of tiny pings.

Notifications.

Across the street, people were waking.

Curtains twitched.

Bedroom windows lit.

A man in the house opposite opened his curtains and stared down at his phone.

A woman in dressing gown stepped onto the pavement holding a tablet.

Someone else came out of a front door with a laptop balanced on one arm.

Every screen showed our story.

And underneath the story, comments began appearing.

Real comments.

Live comments.

From people who could not possibly understand what they were watching.

User_19873: Is this real?

MumOfTwo: Why is my phone showing this?

GymRat88: Kevin is class tbf.

Kevin leaned closer to the window.

“Read that again.”

“No,” I said.

Derek pointed.

“Kevin is class tbf.”

Kevin straightened.

“Finally. Public recognition.”

Another comment appeared.

SouthWestSteve: Dave definitely did it.

Dave gasped.

“I didn’t.”

The comment multiplied.

Dave definitely did it.

Dave definitely did it.

Dave definitely did it.

Dave’s pockets bulged.

Something clattered inside them.

He looked down.

“Oh no.”

Kevin pointed at him.

“Empty your pockets.”

Dave slowly pulled out a lighter.

Then a bent spoon.

Flat 5 shouted:

“That is not one of mine.”

Then a key card.

Then a tiny plastic bag of screws.

Then a receipt from a shop none of us had been to.

Then a broken smoke alarm.

Linda stared.

“Dave.”

“I swear I didn’t.”

The comments outside kept appearing.

Classic Dave.

Dave is sus.

Bet Dave started all this.

Wasn’t me guy is obviously guilty.

The objects multiplied at his feet.

More screws.

More receipts.

An entire toaster.

Dave stepped back.

“I don’t own a toaster.”

Kevin looked at the toaster.

It popped.

A piece of toast flew out with writing burned into it.

WASN’T ME

Kevin sighed.

“Even the bread is against you.”

Dave’s hands shook.

“I didn’t do these things.”

The comments kept scrolling.

The more people joked, the more evidence appeared.

A cracked phone.

A missing purse.

A dented saucepan.

A photo of a hallway plant, broken again.

Dave looked at the pile.

His breathing quickened.

“I didn’t.”

Kevin moved in front of him.

“Look at me.”

Dave looked at him.

“You know the rule.”

Dave swallowed.

“Some things are me. Not all things.”

“Good.”

Another comment flashed across every screen outside.

Kevin needs to be scarier again. He’s too nice now.

Kevin froze.

“Oh, don’t you dare.”

The lobby temperature dropped.

Black mould spilled from the ceiling.

Not his normal mould.

This was thicker.

Wet.

Hungry.

It ran down the walls in ropes.

Kevin doubled over.

His shoulders cracked.

Not metaphorically.

Actually cracked.

His spine arched.

Derek shouted:

“Kevin!”

Kevin’s head snapped up.

For one horrible second, his face was not his face.

It stretched too wide.

Eyes dark.

Mouth split.

The thing beneath the jokes.

The thing SpookMe had tried to make him.

The thing the audience had requested.

Mould teeth pushed through his gums.

His fingers lengthened.

The lights flickered red.

Kevin whispered:

“No.”

The word came out in three voices.

One human.

One ghost.

One appliance.

Another comment appeared.

YESSS scary Kevin.

His body twisted again.

He screamed.

Derek ran towards him.

Linda shouted:

“Do not touch him!”

Derek ignored her.

Obviously.

He grabbed Kevin by both shoulders.

His hands went partly through, partly into black mould.

Derek grimaced.

“Mate, you are disgusting.”

Kevin’s mouth opened too wide.

A voice that wasn’t fully his said:

“Boo.”

Derek slapped him.

Not hard.

More emotionally.

The sound was pathetic.

Kevin blinked.

Derek pointed at him.

“You are not doing fan service.”

The mould paused.

Kevin’s eyes flickered back.

“Did you just call my demonic transformation fan service?”

“Yes.”

Kevin coughed black liquid onto the carpet.

“Fair.”

The scary version snapped away.

He collapsed against Derek, back to two trainers, faded tracksuit and deep spiritual irritation.

The screens outside flooded with comments.

Boo, wanted more monster Kevin.

Nah I like funny Kevin.

Kevin/Derek bromance is carrying.

Kevin and Derek both shouted:

“No!”

Flat 3 muttered:

“Absolutely is.”

The lobby wall cracked.

A sentence wrote itself across the plaster.

The audience had chosen their favourites.

I felt it then.

A pull.

Not physical.

Narrative.

Like a hand around the back of my skull, trying to turn my attention where it wanted.

Kevin.

Derek.

Dave.

Linda.

The moments people reacted to.

The lines they liked.

The jokes they repeated.

Everything brightened around the parts the audience wanted.

Everything else dimmed.

George from Flat 8, standing near the postboxes, began fading.

So did Maureen from the cutlery drawer.

So did Sam, the former KVN body Amanda had helped name.

The freed Lindas blurred at the edges.

Flat 5 looked down at his own hands.

“Why am I less visible?”

Linda’s clipboard snapped open.

A new warning flashed:

SUPPORTING ROLES LOSING RESOLUTION

Amanda’s voice was quiet.

“Because they’re not being watched.”

That was the second properly terrifying thing.

Not the monsters.

Not the comments.

Not even Kevin’s body being twisted into whatever strangers thought would be entertaining.

It was watching people become less real because they weren’t holding attention.

Flat 5 clutched his spoon.

His fingers became transparent.

“No.”

Flat 3 grabbed his shoulder.

Her hand almost passed through him.

“Stay.”

“I am trying.”

The comments kept scrolling.

Too many side characters now.

Who’s spoon guy again?

Need clearer stakes.

Kill someone maybe?

The lobby went silent.

Then George screamed.

He vanished from beside the postboxes and reappeared in the middle of the room.

A red circle pulsed beneath his feet.

Above his head, text appeared:

SUGGESTED EMOTIONAL LOSS

Kevin turned.

“No.”

George looked around, terrified.

“What’s happening?”

The screens outside filled with new comments.

Not the old guy.

Actually yeah old guy would be sad.

Need stakes.

Please don’t kill George.

George death would hit.

The red circle grew brighter.

George clutched his chest.

Linda ran towards him.

The floor shifted.

She couldn’t reach him.

Every step she took moved her sideways, away from the circle.

Flat 3 threw the frying pan.

It vanished mid-air.

Text appeared where it had been.

Weapon use postponed for pacing.

Flat 3 stared.

“Excuse me?”

Kevin lunged for George.

He got closer than Linda.

Of course he did.

The audience liked Kevin.

The story let him move.

He realised at the same time I did.

His face twisted with disgust.

“Oh, that’s nasty.”

George’s eyes met mine.

“Jon?”

The red circle pulsed.

I felt the pull again.

The story wanted me to watch.

The witness.

The archive.

The narrator.

It wanted my eyes on George so everyone else’s could follow.

JON-001’s warning came back.

Every time you tell it, Platform learns which parts worked.

I looked away.

The red circle flickered.

Kevin noticed.

“Jon.”

I stared at the floor.

“Everyone look away.”

Derek understood first.

He turned around.

Linda followed.

Amanda.

Flat 3.

Flat 5.

Dave covered his own eyes with both hands.

Kevin kept looking for half a second longer.

George whispered:

“Kevin?”

Kevin’s jaw clenched.

Then he turned away too.

The comments outside erupted.

What’s happening?

Why did it cut away?

No don’t skip.

Show us.

SHOW US.

The red light pulsed harder.

The Publisher pushed against the room.

Wanting a scene.

Wanting impact.

Wanting a clean, memorable loss.

George sobbed behind us.

I wanted to look.

Every part of me wanted to look.

Not because I wanted him hurt.

Because if I didn’t witness it, how would I know?

If I didn’t know, how could I tell it?

If I didn’t tell it, would it still matter?

Kevin’s voice came from beside me.

Quiet.

“Don’t.”

I kept my eyes on the floor.

The carpet was still stained from three nightmares ago.

Good.

Ugly.

Real.

Not content.

The red glow faded.

George gasped.

Then collapsed.

Linda turned only when the light was gone.

George was alive.

Shaking.

But alive.

The comment section outside became furious.

Cheap.

Cop out.

Bad writing.

No stakes.

Kevin looked out at the glowing windows.

Then smiled.

It was not a nice smile.

“Bad writing saved George.”

The complaint kiosk printed:

COMPLAINT RECEIVED: AUDIENCE BLOODTHIRST.

Another line:

QUALITY: POOR.

Derek pointed at the street.

“So we beat it by being boring?”

Kevin’s eyes lit up.

“Finally. My natural enemy becomes my ally.”

Linda frowned.

“Not exactly.”

She looked at me.

“It feeds on engagement, but it also controls what engagement can see.”

I nodded slowly.

“If we become boring, it may stop watching.”

Amanda said:

“Or skip to the scary bit.”

The screens outside flickered.

A line appeared on every one.

The story skipped ahead.

My stomach dropped.

The lobby vanished.

We were suddenly upstairs.

My flat.

Again.

But wrong.

Time had moved.

How much, I didn’t know.

Everyone was scattered.

Linda at my kitchen table, bleeding from one eyebrow.

Derek on the floor, unconscious.

Dave standing in the corner, hands covered in something black.

Kevin pinned to the wall by red editing marks.

Flat 3 gone.

Flat 5 gone.

Amanda gone.

George gone.

The window was open.

Outside, every screen still glowed.

The words on them read:

After the attack, only the main group remained.

I couldn’t breathe.

“No.”

Kevin’s head lifted weakly.

His mouth was sewn shut with red punctuation marks.

Commas.

Full stops.

Quotation marks.

He tried to speak.

Couldn’t.

Dave looked at his hands.

“It wasn’t me.”

His voice was small.

The floor beneath him was covered in black mould and broken spoon fragments.

Flat 5’s spoon.

Linda lifted her head.

“Jon.”

“What happened?”

Her eyes filled.

“I don’t remember.”

That was the horror.

Not a massacre we saw.

A massacre we had been denied.

A jump cut.

An edit.

A decision made by something that cared more about pacing than people.

I ran to Kevin.

The red punctuation holding him to the wall tightened.

On the window, comments scrolled.

Whoa what happened?

Actually good twist.

Where’s Flat 3?

Did Dave do it?

Noooo spoon guy.

This got dark fast.

I grabbed the red commas over Kevin’s mouth.

They burned my fingers.

He stared at me.

Terrified.

Furious.

I pulled.

The punctuation tore free.

Kevin gasped.

Then immediately shouted:

“Fuck your time skip!”

The flat shook.

The screens outside glitched.

Linda sat straighter.

Her wound vanished.

Derek inhaled sharply and rolled over.

The blood on Dave’s hands flickered.

Kevin spat a full stop onto the floor.

“Cheap structural nonsense.”

The room stuttered.

For a moment, we were in the lobby again.

Then back in the flat.

Then the hospital corridor.

Then Cheerful Pines.

Then the No-Fault Department.

The Publisher was trying to find the version that held.

Kevin ripped another red mark from his chest.

“Jon!”

“What?”

“Continuity!”

“I thought continuity helps it!”

“It does!”

“Then why—”

“Because it hates when we control it!”

I understood.

Maybe.

The Publisher wanted continuity as product.

Clean arcs.

Popular characters.

Skipped consequences.

Deaths that landed.

Jokes in the right place.

Horror when requested.

But real continuity was messy.

Stupid.

Contradictory.

Exhausting.

It included Dave doing something brave and then saying something idiotic two seconds later.

It included Linda saving everyone and then needing tea.

It included Kevin being terrifying and also deeply concerned about bins.

It included Flat 5 mattering even when strangers forgot his name.

I looked at the window.

The line still read:

After the attack, only the main group remained.

I grabbed a piece of broken glass from the floor.

Then scratched underneath:

No.

The word bled black ink.

The flat shook.

I wrote more.

That did not happen.

The Publisher pushed back.

My hand cramped.

The red editing marks crawled up my wrist.

Kevin appeared beside me and grabbed my arm.

“Tell it properly.”

So I did.

Not with style.

Not with polish.

Not with pacing.

With memory.

“Flat 3 is downstairs,” I said. “She is angry because her frying pan got postponed.”

The flat flickered.

From below, Flat 3 shouted:

“POSTPONED?”

I laughed despite myself.

“Flat 5 is in the lobby with George because he refused to leave him.”

The broken spoon fragments vanished.

From downstairs, Flat 5 shouted:

“And because the postboxes had suspicious cutlery energy!”

Kevin nodded.

“Important detail.”

“Amanda is on the stairs helping Sam because he keeps phasing through landings.”

Amanda’s voice floated up:

“I said I’m fine, but in a sincere way!”

Kevin looked at me.

“Nice clarification.”

“Dave’s hands are clean.”

Dave looked down.

The black vanished.

He exhaled.

“Thank God.”

Then immediately:

“Mostly clean.”

Linda’s eyebrow healed.

Derek sat up.

“What did I miss?”

Kevin looked at him.

“You were unconscious for narrative convenience.”

Derek frowned.

“Rude.”

“Exactly.”

The flat collapsed.

We were back in the lobby.

Everyone was there.

Alive.

Shaken.

Furious.

The outside screens glitched violently.

Comments flashed faster now.

Wait what?

Can they do that?

Narrator fighting the narration?

This is getting meta.

Kevin saying fuck the time skip is elite.

Kevin looked at that one.

“Valid.”

Linda snapped:

“Do not engage with positive feedback.”

He looked wounded.

“I’m human-adjacent.”

The Publisher spoke for the first time.

Not through the lift.

Not through the screens.

Through every page, phone, window and mouth in the building.

A soft voice.

Warm.

Patient.

Commercial.

“Stories require shape.”

Kevin looked around.

“Stories require you to back off.”

The voice continued:

“Attention requires escalation.”

Linda said:

“Attention requires consent.”

A pause.

Tiny.

Then:

“Consent reduces reach.”

Derek whispered:

“That’s the most evil marketing thing I’ve ever heard.”

The lights dimmed.

The screens outside changed.

The story page disappeared.

A live video feed replaced it.

Us.

In the lobby.

From every angle.

Window angle.

Ceiling angle.

Phone angle.

Kiosk angle.

Lift angle.

My own eye angle.

I nearly threw up.

On every screen, we watched ourselves watching ourselves.

Then the comments began appearing over our bodies.

Labels.

Not Platform labels.

Audience labels.

Funny one.

Over Kevin.

Sad one.

Over George.

Guilty one.

Over Dave.

Bossy one.

Over Linda.

New one.

Over Amanda.

Spoon guy.

Over Flat 5.

Angry one.

Over Flat 3.

Narrator.

Over me.

The labels burned.

Not physically.

Worse.

They simplified.

Kevin’s face twitched.

His label shifted.

Funny one.

Then:

Comic relief.

Then:

Joke ghost.

The red editing marks appeared again around his mouth.

He grabbed them before they tightened.

“No.”

Dave’s label changed:

Guilty one.

Then:

Wasn’t me guy.

Then:

Catchphrase.

His expression emptied.

He opened his mouth.

Kevin pointed at him.

“Dave.”

Dave shut it.

Linda’s label changed:

Bossy one.

Then:

Overpowered.

Then:

Needs nerf.

Her clipboard vanished.

Linda’s hand clenched around empty air.

Flat 3’s label changed:

Angry one.

Then:

Violent woman.

Her pan turned heavy in her hands.

Flat 5’s label changed:

Spoon guy.

Then:

Bit too random.

He faded again.

Amanda’s label changed:

New one.

Then:

Not important yet.

She became transparent at the edges.

Derek’s label changed:

Idiot.

Then stopped.

Nothing else happened.

Derek looked around.

“Mine feels stable.”

Kevin said:

“Because it is comprehensive.”

The Publisher’s voice returned.

“Audience comprehension improves retention.”

I looked at the labels.

Then at the people.

My people.

Messy.

Contradictory.

Too much for labels.

Too real for roles.

I stepped into the centre of the lobby.

The label Narrator burned above me.

Then changed.

Witness.

Then:

Archive.

Then:

Content source.

Kevin saw it.

“Jon.”

“I know.”

The label began pressing downward.

Like a crown made of wire.

The Publisher whispered:

“Tell them what they are.”

The pressure increased.

I felt the words offered to me.

Easy words.

Clean words.

Kevin was the funny ghost.

Linda was the admin one.

Dave was the catchphrase.

Derek was the idiot.

Flat 3 was anger.

Flat 5 was spoon joke.

Amanda was new energy.

George was emotional stakes.

Ken was dark reflection.

I could say it.

It would be easy.

Everyone would understand.

The story would move.

The audience would stay.

The label cut into my head.

Blood or ink ran down my face.

Kevin took one step towards me.

The Publisher whispered:

“Define them.”

I looked at Dave first.

He was shaking.

Waiting to become one line again.

“Dave,” I said, “is not a catchphrase.”

His label flickered.

“He says ‘wasn’t me’ because guilt is easier when you make it automatic, and he is trying, badly, to stop doing that.”

Dave’s eyes filled.

The label cracked.

I looked at Linda.

“Linda is not bossy. She is tired and prepared and angry because no one else reads the paperwork until it starts eating them.”

Linda breathed out.

Her label cracked.

Flat 3.

“Flat 3 is not just violent. She knows exactly when politeness has stopped working.”

The pan became lighter.

Flat 5.

“Flat 5 is not a random spoon joke. He is proof that small strange things can keep a person attached to themselves.”

Flat 5 became solid again.

He looked down at his spoon.

Then at me.

“Thank you.”

Amanda.

“Amanda is not new energy. She is learning she doesn’t have to smile to be useful.”

Amanda’s label split.

She nodded once.

Derek.

“Derek is an idiot.”

Derek blinked.

“Harsh.”

“And loyal. And scared. And stupid in ways that sometimes save everyone because systems are built to predict sensible people.”

Derek considered that.

“I’ll take it.”

Ken.

“Ken is not evil Kevin. He is what happens when pain is left alone long enough to become management-shaped.”

Ken looked away.

The label over him burned out.

Then Kevin.

The Publisher pressed harder.

It wanted this one.

I felt it.

The audience wanted this one too.

A clean definition.

The joke ghost.

The heart.

The monster.

The mascot.

The fan favourite.

Kevin stared at me.

Trying to look like he didn’t care.

Failing.

“Kevin,” I said, “is not comic relief.”

The lobby went silent.

“He is what survived when something cruel tried to turn a person into a product.”

The red punctuation around his mouth cracked.

“He is funny because if he stops, he has to feel everything.”

Kevin’s eyes darkened.

Not angry.

Seen.

“And he is terrifying because every time something tries to own him, he comes back more himself out of spite.”

Kevin swallowed.

The label above him shattered.

For once, he said nothing.

Then Dave whispered:

“That was nice.”

Kevin pointed at him.

“Don’t.”

The Publisher screamed.

Every screen outside went white.

Every comment vanished.

The labels burned off the walls.

The crown of wire around my head snapped.

I fell.

Kevin caught me.

Actually caught me.

Both hands solid.

Both trainers planted.

“Got you.”

I laughed weakly.

“Character development.”

He dropped me.

Not from high.

Just enough.

I hit the carpet.

“Ow.”

Kevin smiled.

“Balance restored.”

The screens outside remained white.

For a moment, I thought we had done it.

Then a black cursor appeared on every screen.

Blinking.

Waiting.

The Publisher spoke.

“Unsuitable for mass audience.”

Linda stood.

“Good.”

“Reclassification required.”

The cursor typed.

PRIVATE EDITION CREATED

Derek frowned.

“That sounds bad.”

Kevin stared at the screens.

“They couldn’t make us content for everyone.”

The words continued.

Audience narrowed.

Distribution restricted.

Readers selected by vulnerability profile.

Amanda whispered:

“What does that mean?”

The screens outside went dark one by one.

The street returned to normal.

Curtains closed.

Phones died.

Doorbell cameras blinked out.

Silence spread.

Then my phone buzzed.

Just mine.

I looked at the screen.

A new notification.

Your story has been saved as a draft.

Underneath:

Sending to selected readers.

I opened it before anyone could stop me.

A list appeared.

Names.

Not people nearby.

Not random users.

Names we knew.

Arthur from Cheerful Pines.

George’s daughter.

A woman from the No-Fault files.

A former KVN body named Sam.

Then more.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

People touched by Platform.

People it had copied.

Trapped.

Edited.

Blamed.

Cheered.

Managed.

Silenced.

And at the top of the list:

DEREK PAUL HENSHAW

Derek stared.

“Why am I on there? I’m literally here.”

His phone buzzed.

He looked down.

His face went pale.

“What?”

He turned the screen around.

It displayed one sentence.

You have been invited to continue the story.

Kevin went still.

Then every phone buzzed.

Linda’s.

Dave’s.

Amanda’s.

Flat 3’s.

Flat 5’s.

Ken’s.

Even the complaint kiosk printed a strip with the same line.

You have been invited to continue the story.

Kevin looked at me.

“Jon.”

“I didn’t send that.”

“I know.”

A new message appeared on every screen.

Narrator role is transferable.

The lights flickered.

The lift dinged.

Everyone turned towards it.

The doors opened.

Inside was not a room.

Not a corridor.

Not an office.

It was a blank page.

White.

Endless.

A pen floated in the centre.

Black ink dripped from its tip.

The Publisher’s voice whispered:

“Who tells it next?”

Nobody moved.

Then Dave’s phone buzzed again.

He looked at it.

His expression changed.

“Oh no.”

Kevin leaned over.

The screen displayed:

Suggested narrator: DAVE.

For three full seconds, the building was silent.

Then Kevin said:

“We are absolutely fucked.”

Dave looked at the blank page inside the lift.

Then at me.

Then at Kevin.

Then, very quietly, he said:

“Wasn’t me.”

The pen inside the lift began to write.

It was Dave.

The doors slammed shut.

Part 1

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/3pjlA6yALo

Part 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/g3LXpw7ZuX

Part 3

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/R319VfoEx1

Part 4

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/HpLq1gjR99

Part 5

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/vXpLanqpq7

Part 6

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/ACOsKcvJXq

Part 7

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/M9B9TEtpgo

Part 8

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/X6XmC0U2ge

Part 9

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/cUOXOmIb5v

Part 10

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/oiYVIRqnSv

Part 11

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/daAdTa6XR2

Part 12

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/XDs20zNnSN

Part 13

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/mLoxzuCwcQ

The story had started telling itself.

Outside Riverside Court, every window in the street glowed.

Not from lamps.

Not from televisions.

From screens.

Phones.

Tablets.

Laptops.

Car displays.

Doorbell cameras.

The digital menu in the closed kebab shop across the road.

Every screen showed the same blank white page.

Then the first line appeared.

The lights went out.

Kevin stared through the lobby window.

Derek whispered:

“Oh, mate.”

Dave said:

“Wasn’t me.”

And for once, nobody corrected him.

Because none of us were sure.

The second line appeared.

Not the cheerful retirement-home kind of out.

Kevin turned slowly towards me.

“Jon.”

“I’m not doing it.”

The third line appeared.

Not the corporate courtroom dimming.

Linda looked at me.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

The fourth line appeared.

Not the ‘something is about to do a PowerPoint at your soul’ kind of darkness.

Derek pointed at the kebab shop screen.

“That does sound like you.”

“It’s not me.”

Kevin narrowed his eyes.

“It’s using your voice.”

I looked down at my hands.

Still ink-stained from the Editor’s archive.

Still faintly moving with little black words beneath the skin.

“Yeah,” I said. “I noticed.”

The complaint kiosk started printing.

Nobody moved.

The paper slid out slowly, like even the kiosk didn’t want to be involved.

Linda tore it off and read it.

NEW ENTITY DETECTED

ROLE: PUBLISHER

Underneath:

FUNCTION: DISTRIBUTION, ENGAGEMENT, ESCALATION

Kevin stared at the word.

“Publisher?”

Derek frowned.

“That sounds less scary than Editor.”

The lights flickered.

Every phone in the lobby buzzed.

A notification appeared.

Do not underestimate distribution.

Derek put his phone face down.

“Okay, fair.”

The screens outside updated again.

The residents gathered in the lobby, frightened, exhausted, and still somehow arguing about the lift.

Kevin pointed out the window.

“Rude.”

Derek shrugged.

“We have argued about the lift a lot.”

“The lift keeps opening into trauma departments.”

“Exactly. Strong reason to argue.”

Dave looked towards the stairs.

“Could still use the stairs.”

Everyone slowly turned to him.

Dave swallowed.

“What?”

Kevin stared.

“Dave, last time we used the stairs we found an office door, Linda nearly got paperwork-suffocated, and a first-generation Linda tried to recruit her into eternal admin.”

Dave nodded.

“Still fewer problems than the lift.”

Flat 3 lowered her frying pan.

“He’s not wrong.”

Flat 5 held up his spoon.

“The stairs have never personally attacked my spoon identity.”

Derek nodded.

“Stairs are problematic, yes. But the lift is a repeat offender.”

Kevin closed his eyes.

“I hate that we’re having a transport ethics debate during mass publication.”

The kiosk printed:

COMMENTARY DETECTED: LIFT RUNNING JOKE POPULAR.

Kevin looked down.

“What does that mean?”

A sound came from outside.

Soft at first.

Then louder.

Hundreds of tiny pings.

Notifications.

Across the street, people were waking.

Curtains twitched.

Bedroom windows lit.

A man in the house opposite opened his curtains and stared down at his phone.

A woman in dressing gown stepped onto the pavement holding a tablet.

Someone else came out of a front door with a laptop balanced on one arm.

Every screen showed our story.

And underneath the story, comments began appearing.

Real comments.

Live comments.

From people who could not possibly understand what they were watching.

User_19873: Is this real?

MumOfTwo: Why is my phone showing this?

GymRat88: Kevin is class tbf.

Kevin leaned closer to the window.

“Read that again.”

“No,” I said.

Derek pointed.

“Kevin is class tbf.”

Kevin straightened.

“Finally. Public recognition.”

Another comment appeared.

SouthWestSteve: Dave definitely did it.

Dave gasped.

“I didn’t.”

The comment multiplied.

Dave definitely did it.

Dave definitely did it.

Dave definitely did it.

Dave’s pockets bulged.

Something clattered inside them.

He looked down.

“Oh no.”

Kevin pointed at him.

“Empty your pockets.”

Dave slowly pulled out a lighter.

Then a bent spoon.

Flat 5 shouted:

“That is not one of mine.”

Then a key card.

Then a tiny plastic bag of screws.

Then a receipt from a shop none of us had been to.

Then a broken smoke alarm.

Linda stared.

“Dave.”

“I swear I didn’t.”

The comments outside kept appearing.

Classic Dave.

Dave is sus.

Bet Dave started all this.

Wasn’t me guy is obviously guilty.

The objects multiplied at his feet.

More screws.

More receipts.

An entire toaster.

Dave stepped back.

“I don’t own a toaster.”

Kevin looked at the toaster.

It popped.

A piece of toast flew out with writing burned into it.

WASN’T ME

Kevin sighed.

“Even the bread is against you.”

Dave’s hands shook.

“I didn’t do these things.”

The comments kept scrolling.

The more people joked, the more evidence appeared.

A cracked phone.

A missing purse.

A dented saucepan.

A photo of a hallway plant, broken again.

Dave looked at the pile.

His breathing quickened.

“I didn’t.”

Kevin moved in front of him.

“Look at me.”

Dave looked at him.

“You know the rule.”

Dave swallowed.

“Some things are me. Not all things.”

“Good.”

Another comment flashed across every screen outside.

Kevin needs to be scarier again. He’s too nice now.

Kevin froze.

“Oh, don’t you dare.”

The lobby temperature dropped.

Black mould spilled from the ceiling.

Not his normal mould.

This was thicker.

Wet.

Hungry.

It ran down the walls in ropes.

Kevin doubled over.

His shoulders cracked.

Not metaphorically.

Actually cracked.

His spine arched.

Derek shouted:

“Kevin!”

Kevin’s head snapped up.

For one horrible second, his face was not his face.

It stretched too wide.

Eyes dark.

Mouth split.

The thing beneath the jokes.

The thing SpookMe had tried to make him.

The thing the audience had requested.

Mould teeth pushed through his gums.

His fingers lengthened.

The lights flickered red.

Kevin whispered:

“No.”

The word came out in three voices.

One human.

One ghost.

One appliance.

Another comment appeared.

YESSS scary Kevin.

His body twisted again.

He screamed.

Derek ran towards him.

Linda shouted:

“Do not touch him!”

Derek ignored her.

Obviously.

He grabbed Kevin by both shoulders.

His hands went partly through, partly into black mould.

Derek grimaced.

“Mate, you are disgusting.”

Kevin’s mouth opened too wide.

A voice that wasn’t fully his said:

“Boo.”

Derek slapped him.

Not hard.

More emotionally.

The sound was pathetic.

Kevin blinked.

Derek pointed at him.

“You are not doing fan service.”

The mould paused.

Kevin’s eyes flickered back.

“Did you just call my demonic transformation fan service?”

“Yes.”

Kevin coughed black liquid onto the carpet.

“Fair.”

The scary version snapped away.

He collapsed against Derek, back to two trainers, faded tracksuit and deep spiritual irritation.

The screens outside flooded with comments.

Boo, wanted more monster Kevin.

Nah I like funny Kevin.

Kevin/Derek bromance is carrying.

Kevin and Derek both shouted:

“No!”

Flat 3 muttered:

“Absolutely is.”

The lobby wall cracked.

A sentence wrote itself across the plaster.

The audience had chosen their favourites.

I felt it then.

A pull.

Not physical.

Narrative.

Like a hand around the back of my skull, trying to turn my attention where it wanted.

Kevin.

Derek.

Dave.

Linda.

The moments people reacted to.

The lines they liked.

The jokes they repeated.

Everything brightened around the parts the audience wanted.

Everything else dimmed.

George from Flat 8, standing near the postboxes, began fading.

So did Maureen from the cutlery drawer.

So did Sam, the former KVN body Amanda had helped name.

The freed Lindas blurred at the edges.

Flat 5 looked down at his own hands.

“Why am I less visible?”

Linda’s clipboard snapped open.

A new warning flashed:

SUPPORTING ROLES LOSING RESOLUTION

Amanda’s voice was quiet.

“Because they’re not being watched.”

That was the second properly terrifying thing.

Not the monsters.

Not the comments.

Not even Kevin’s body being twisted into whatever strangers thought would be entertaining.

It was watching people become less real because they weren’t holding attention.

Flat 5 clutched his spoon.

His fingers became transparent.

“No.”

Flat 3 grabbed his shoulder.

Her hand almost passed through him.

“Stay.”

“I am trying.”

The comments kept scrolling.

Too many side characters now.

Who’s spoon guy again?

Need clearer stakes.

Kill someone maybe?

The lobby went silent.

Then George screamed.

He vanished from beside the postboxes and reappeared in the middle of the room.

A red circle pulsed beneath his feet.

Above his head, text appeared:

SUGGESTED EMOTIONAL LOSS

Kevin turned.

“No.”

George looked around, terrified.

“What’s happening?”

The screens outside filled with new comments.

Not the old guy.

Actually yeah old guy would be sad.

Need stakes.

Please don’t kill George.

George death would hit.

The red circle grew brighter.

George clutched his chest.

Linda ran towards him.

The floor shifted.

She couldn’t reach him.

Every step she took moved her sideways, away from the circle.

Flat 3 threw the frying pan.

It vanished mid-air.

Text appeared where it had been.

Weapon use postponed for pacing.

Flat 3 stared.

“Excuse me?”

Kevin lunged for George.

He got closer than Linda.

Of course he did.

The audience liked Kevin.

The story let him move.

He realised at the same time I did.

His face twisted with disgust.

“Oh, that’s nasty.”

George’s eyes met mine.

“Jon?”

The red circle pulsed.

I felt the pull again.

The story wanted me to watch.

The witness.

The archive.

The narrator.

It wanted my eyes on George so everyone else’s could follow.

JON-001’s warning came back.

Every time you tell it, Platform learns which parts worked.

I looked away.

The red circle flickered.

Kevin noticed.

“Jon.”

I stared at the floor.

“Everyone look away.”

Derek understood first.

He turned around.

Linda followed.

Amanda.

Flat 3.

Flat 5.

Dave covered his own eyes with both hands.

Kevin kept looking for half a second longer.

George whispered:

“Kevin?”

Kevin’s jaw clenched.

Then he turned away too.

The comments outside erupted.

What’s happening?

Why did it cut away?

No don’t skip.

Show us.

SHOW US.

The red light pulsed harder.

The Publisher pushed against the room.

Wanting a scene.

Wanting impact.

Wanting a clean, memorable loss.

George sobbed behind us.

I wanted to look.

Every part of me wanted to look.

Not because I wanted him hurt.

Because if I didn’t witness it, how would I know?

If I didn’t know, how could I tell it?

If I didn’t tell it, would it still matter?

Kevin’s voice came from beside me.

Quiet.

“Don’t.”

I kept my eyes on the floor.

The carpet was still stained from three nightmares ago.

Good.

Ugly.

Real.

Not content.

The red glow faded.

George gasped.

Then collapsed.

Linda turned only when the light was gone.

George was alive.

Shaking.

But alive.

The comment section outside became furious.

Cheap.

Cop out.

Bad writing.

No stakes.

Kevin looked out at the glowing windows.

Then smiled.

It was not a nice smile.

“Bad writing saved George.”

The complaint kiosk printed:

COMPLAINT RECEIVED: AUDIENCE BLOODTHIRST.

Another line:

QUALITY: POOR.

Derek pointed at the street.

“So we beat it by being boring?”

Kevin’s eyes lit up.

“Finally. My natural enemy becomes my ally.”

Linda frowned.

“Not exactly.”

She looked at me.

“It feeds on engagement, but it also controls what engagement can see.”

I nodded slowly.

“If we become boring, it may stop watching.”

Amanda said:

“Or skip to the scary bit.”

The screens outside flickered.

A line appeared on every one.

The story skipped ahead.

My stomach dropped.

The lobby vanished.

We were suddenly upstairs.

My flat.

Again.

But wrong.

Time had moved.

How much, I didn’t know.

Everyone was scattered.

Linda at my kitchen table, bleeding from one eyebrow.

Derek on the floor, unconscious.

Dave standing in the corner, hands covered in something black.

Kevin pinned to the wall by red editing marks.

Flat 3 gone.

Flat 5 gone.

Amanda gone.

George gone.

The window was open.

Outside, every screen still glowed.

The words on them read:

After the attack, only the main group remained.

I couldn’t breathe.

“No.”

Kevin’s head lifted weakly.

His mouth was sewn shut with red punctuation marks.

Commas.

Full stops.

Quotation marks.

He tried to speak.

Couldn’t.

Dave looked at his hands.

“It wasn’t me.”

His voice was small.

The floor beneath him was covered in black mould and broken spoon fragments.

Flat 5’s spoon.

Linda lifted her head.

“Jon.”

“What happened?”

Her eyes filled.

“I don’t remember.”

That was the horror.

Not a massacre we saw.

A massacre we had been denied.

A jump cut.

An edit.

A decision made by something that cared more about pacing than people.

I ran to Kevin.

The red punctuation holding him to the wall tightened.

On the window, comments scrolled.

Whoa what happened?

Actually good twist.

Where’s Flat 3?

Did Dave do it?

Noooo spoon guy.

This got dark fast.

I grabbed the red commas over Kevin’s mouth.

They burned my fingers.

He stared at me.

Terrified.

Furious.

I pulled.

The punctuation tore free.

Kevin gasped.

Then immediately shouted:

“Fuck your time skip!”

The flat shook.

The screens outside glitched.

Linda sat straighter.

Her wound vanished.

Derek inhaled sharply and rolled over.

The blood on Dave’s hands flickered.

Kevin spat a full stop onto the floor.

“Cheap structural nonsense.”

The room stuttered.

For a moment, we were in the lobby again.

Then back in the flat.

Then the hospital corridor.

Then Cheerful Pines.

Then the No-Fault Department.

The Publisher was trying to find the version that held.

Kevin ripped another red mark from his chest.

“Jon!”

“What?”

“Continuity!”

“I thought continuity helps it!”

“It does!”

“Then why—”

“Because it hates when we control it!”

I understood.

Maybe.

The Publisher wanted continuity as product.

Clean arcs.

Popular characters.

Skipped consequences.

Deaths that landed.

Jokes in the right place.

Horror when requested.

But real continuity was messy.

Stupid.

Contradictory.

Exhausting.

It included Dave doing something brave and then saying something idiotic two seconds later.

It included Linda saving everyone and then needing tea.

It included Kevin being terrifying and also deeply concerned about bins.

It included Flat 5 mattering even when strangers forgot his name.

I looked at the window.

The line still read:

After the attack, only the main group remained.

I grabbed a piece of broken glass from the floor.

Then scratched underneath:

No.

The word bled black ink.

The flat shook.

I wrote more.

That did not happen.

The Publisher pushed back.

My hand cramped.

The red editing marks crawled up my wrist.

Kevin appeared beside me and grabbed my arm.

“Tell it properly.”

So I did.

Not with style.

Not with polish.

Not with pacing.

With memory.

“Flat 3 is downstairs,” I said. “She is angry because her frying pan got postponed.”

The flat flickered.

From below, Flat 3 shouted:

“POSTPONED?”

I laughed despite myself.

“Flat 5 is in the lobby with George because he refused to leave him.”

The broken spoon fragments vanished.

From downstairs, Flat 5 shouted:

“And because the postboxes had suspicious cutlery energy!”

Kevin nodded.

“Important detail.”

“Amanda is on the stairs helping Sam because he keeps phasing through landings.”

Amanda’s voice floated up:

“I said I’m fine, but in a sincere way!”

Kevin looked at me.

“Nice clarification.”

“Dave’s hands are clean.”

Dave looked down.

The black vanished.

He exhaled.

“Thank God.”

Then immediately:

“Mostly clean.”

Linda’s eyebrow healed.

Derek sat up.

“What did I miss?”

Kevin looked at him.

“You were unconscious for narrative convenience.”

Derek frowned.

“Rude.”

“Exactly.”

The flat collapsed.

We were back in the lobby.

Everyone was there.

Alive.

Shaken.

Furious.

The outside screens glitched violently.

Comments flashed faster now.

Wait what?

Can they do that?

Narrator fighting the narration?

This is getting meta.

Kevin saying fuck the time skip is elite.

Kevin looked at that one.

“Valid.”

Linda snapped:

“Do not engage with positive feedback.”

He looked wounded.

“I’m human-adjacent.”

The Publisher spoke for the first time.

Not through the lift.

Not through the screens.

Through every page, phone, window and mouth in the building.

A soft voice.

Warm.

Patient.

Commercial.

“Stories require shape.”

Kevin looked around.

“Stories require you to back off.”

The voice continued:

“Attention requires escalation.”

Linda said:

“Attention requires consent.”

A pause.

Tiny.

Then:

“Consent reduces reach.”

Derek whispered:

“That’s the most evil marketing thing I’ve ever heard.”

The lights dimmed.

The screens outside changed.

The story page disappeared.

A live video feed replaced it.

Us.

In the lobby.

From every angle.

Window angle.

Ceiling angle.

Phone angle.

Kiosk angle.

Lift angle.

My own eye angle.

I nearly threw up.

On every screen, we watched ourselves watching ourselves.

Then the comments began appearing over our bodies.

Labels.

Not Platform labels.

Audience labels.

Funny one.

Over Kevin.

Sad one.

Over George.

Guilty one.

Over Dave.

Bossy one.

Over Linda.

New one.

Over Amanda.

Spoon guy.

Over Flat 5.

Angry one.

Over Flat 3.

Narrator.

Over me.

The labels burned.

Not physically.

Worse.

They simplified.

Kevin’s face twitched.

His label shifted.

Funny one.

Then:

Comic relief.

Then:

Joke ghost.

The red editing marks appeared again around his mouth.

He grabbed them before they tightened.

“No.”

Dave’s label changed:

Guilty one.

Then:

Wasn’t me guy.

Then:

Catchphrase.

His expression emptied.

He opened his mouth.

Kevin pointed at him.

“Dave.”

Dave shut it.

Linda’s label changed:

Bossy one.

Then:

Overpowered.

Then:

Needs nerf.

Her clipboard vanished.

Linda’s hand clenched around empty air.

Flat 3’s label changed:

Angry one.

Then:

Violent woman.

Her pan turned heavy in her hands.

Flat 5’s label changed:

Spoon guy.

Then:

Bit too random.

He faded again.

Amanda’s label changed:

New one.

Then:

Not important yet.

She became transparent at the edges.

Derek’s label changed:

Idiot.

Then stopped.

Nothing else happened.

Derek looked around.

“Mine feels stable.”

Kevin said:

“Because it is comprehensive.”

The Publisher’s voice returned.

“Audience comprehension improves retention.”

I looked at the labels.

Then at the people.

My people.

Messy.

Contradictory.

Too much for labels.

Too real for roles.

I stepped into the centre of the lobby.

The label Narrator burned above me.

Then changed.

Witness.

Then:

Archive.

Then:

Content source.

Kevin saw it.

“Jon.”

“I know.”

The label began pressing downward.

Like a crown made of wire.

The Publisher whispered:

“Tell them what they are.”

The pressure increased.

I felt the words offered to me.

Easy words.

Clean words.

Kevin was the funny ghost.

Linda was the admin one.

Dave was the catchphrase.

Derek was the idiot.

Flat 3 was anger.

Flat 5 was spoon joke.

Amanda was new energy.

George was emotional stakes.

Ken was dark reflection.

I could say it.

It would be easy.

Everyone would understand.

The story would move.

The audience would stay.

The label cut into my head.

Blood or ink ran down my face.

Kevin took one step towards me.

The Publisher whispered:

“Define them.”

I looked at Dave first.

He was shaking.

Waiting to become one line again.

“Dave,” I said, “is not a catchphrase.”

His label flickered.

“He says ‘wasn’t me’ because guilt is easier when you make it automatic, and he is trying, badly, to stop doing that.”

Dave’s eyes filled.

The label cracked.

I looked at Linda.

“Linda is not bossy. She is tired and prepared and angry because no one else reads the paperwork until it starts eating them.”

Linda breathed out.

Her label cracked.

Flat 3.

“Flat 3 is not just violent. She knows exactly when politeness has stopped working.”

The pan became lighter.

Flat 5.

“Flat 5 is not a random spoon joke. He is proof that small strange things can keep a person attached to themselves.”

Flat 5 became solid again.

He looked down at his spoon.

Then at me.

“Thank you.”

Amanda.

“Amanda is not new energy. She is learning she doesn’t have to smile to be useful.”

Amanda’s label split.

She nodded once.

Derek.

“Derek is an idiot.”

Derek blinked.

“Harsh.”

“And loyal. And scared. And stupid in ways that sometimes save everyone because systems are built to predict sensible people.”

Derek considered that.

“I’ll take it.”

Ken.

“Ken is not evil Kevin. He is what happens when pain is left alone long enough to become management-shaped.”

Ken looked away.

The label over him burned out.

Then Kevin.

The Publisher pressed harder.

It wanted this one.

I felt it.

The audience wanted this one too.

A clean definition.

The joke ghost.

The heart.

The monster.

The mascot.

The fan favourite.

Kevin stared at me.

Trying to look like he didn’t care.

Failing.

“Kevin,” I said, “is not comic relief.”

The lobby went silent.

“He is what survived when something cruel tried to turn a person into a product.”

The red punctuation around his mouth cracked.

“He is funny because if he stops, he has to feel everything.”

Kevin’s eyes darkened.

Not angry.

Seen.

“And he is terrifying because every time something tries to own him, he comes back more himself out of spite.”

Kevin swallowed.

The label above him shattered.

For once, he said nothing.

Then Dave whispered:

“That was nice.”

Kevin pointed at him.

“Don’t.”

The Publisher screamed.

Every screen outside went white.

Every comment vanished.

The labels burned off the walls.

The crown of wire around my head snapped.

I fell.

Kevin caught me.

Actually caught me.

Both hands solid.

Both trainers planted.

“Got you.”

I laughed weakly.

“Character development.”

He dropped me.

Not from high.

Just enough.

I hit the carpet.

“Ow.”

Kevin smiled.

“Balance restored.”

The screens outside remained white.

For a moment, I thought we had done it.

Then a black cursor appeared on every screen.

Blinking.

Waiting.

The Publisher spoke.

“Unsuitable for mass audience.”

Linda stood.

“Good.”

“Reclassification required.”

The cursor typed.

PRIVATE EDITION CREATED

Derek frowned.

“That sounds bad.”

Kevin stared at the screens.

“They couldn’t make us content for everyone.”

The words continued.

Audience narrowed.

Distribution restricted.

Readers selected by vulnerability profile.

Amanda whispered:

“What does that mean?”

The screens outside went dark one by one.

The street returned to normal.

Curtains closed.

Phones died.

Doorbell cameras blinked out.

Silence spread.

Then my phone buzzed.

Just mine.

I looked at the screen.

A new notification.

Your story has been saved as a draft.

Underneath:

Sending to selected readers.

I opened it before anyone could stop me.

A list appeared.

Names.

Not people nearby.

Not random users.

Names we knew.

Arthur from Cheerful Pines.

George’s daughter.

A woman from the No-Fault files.

A former KVN body named Sam.

Then more.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

People touched by Platform.

People it had copied.

Trapped.

Edited.

Blamed.

Cheered.

Managed.

Silenced.

And at the top of the list:

DEREK PAUL HENSHAW

Derek stared.

“Why am I on there? I’m literally here.”

His phone buzzed.

He looked down.

His face went pale.

“What?”

He turned the screen around.

It displayed one sentence.

You have been invited to continue the story.

Kevin went still.

Then every phone buzzed.

Linda’s.

Dave’s.

Amanda’s.

Flat 3’s.

Flat 5’s.

Ken’s.

Even the complaint kiosk printed a strip with the same line.

You have been invited to continue the story.

Kevin looked at me.

“Jon.”

“I didn’t send that.”

“I know.”

A new message appeared on every screen.

Narrator role is transferable.

The lights flickered.

The lift dinged.

Everyone turned towards it.

The doors opened.

Inside was not a room.

Not a corridor.

Not an office.

It was a blank page.

White.

Endless.

A pen floated in the centre.

Black ink dripped from its tip.

The Publisher’s voice whispered:

“Who tells it next?”

Nobody moved.

Then Dave’s phone buzzed again.

He looked at it.

His expression changed.

“Oh no.”

Kevin leaned over.

The screen displayed:

Suggested narrator: DAVE.

For three full seconds, the building was silent.

Then Kevin said:

“We are absolutely fucked.”

Dave looked at the blank page inside the lift.

Then at me.

Then at Kevin.

Then, very quietly, he said:

“Wasn’t me.”

The pen inside the lift began to write.

It was Dave.

The doors slammed shut.

Part 1 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/3pjlA6yALo

Part 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/g3LXpw7ZuX

Part 3

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/R319VfoEx1

Part 4

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/HpLq1gjR99

Part 5

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/vXpLanqpq7

Part 6

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/ACOsKcvJXq

Part 7

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/M9B9TEtpgo

Part 8

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/X6XmC0U2ge

Part 9

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/cUOXOmIb5v

Part 10

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/oiYVIRqnSv

Part 11

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/daAdTa6XR2

Part 12

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/XDs20zNnSN

The lights went out.

Not the cheerful retirement-home kind of out.

Not the corporate courtroom dimming.

Not the “something is about to do a PowerPoint at your soul” kind of darkness.

This was proper dark.

Total.

Heavy.

The sort of dark that made your body immediately aware of how many corners a room had.

Somewhere beside me, Dave whispered:

“Wasn’t me.”

Kevin whispered back:

“Not now, Dave.”

“Could be.”

“It could not possibly be you.”

“That’s what I always think before it is.”

No one laughed.

Not properly.

Because in the open lift, where a normal lift should have been, was my flat.

My actual flat.

Dark.

Still.

Waiting.

And standing in the middle of it was me.

Another me.

JON-001.

He had smiled.

Sadly.

Then pressed one finger to his lips.

And whispered:

“Don’t tell them.”

The lift doors stayed open.

The darkness from my flat spilled into Riverside Court like ink.

It spread across the lobby floor, over the stained carpet, around the complaints kiosk, up the walls and over the noticeboard.

Kevin’s mould retreated from it.

That was new.

Kevin looked down.

His face changed.

“My mould doesn’t like your flat.”

“Comforting.”

“Historically, my mould has very poor standards.”

The other me stood motionless inside the lift.

Not grinning.

Not lunging.

Not doing the too-wide smile thing.

That made it worse.

He looked tired.

He looked like he had been waiting a long time.

He looked like me on a bad day I had not told anyone about.

Linda’s voice came from somewhere in the darkness.

“Everyone stay where you are.”

The complaint kiosk printed.

We heard the paper slide out.

Then stop.

Then reverse.

Then print again.

A strip landed at my feet.

I crouched and picked it up.

In the dark, the words glowed faintly.

WITNESS TYPE DETECTED

JON SERIES: UNCLASSIFIED

JON-001: ACTIVE

Underneath, another line printed slowly.

RISK: DISCLOSURE

Kevin read over my shoulder.

“Disclosure?”

The other me in the lift spoke again.

“Don’t tell them.”

His voice was mine.

But flatter.

Hollowed out.

Like someone had taken the part of me that jokes when I’m scared and filed it under unnecessary.

Derek moved closer to me.

“What shouldn’t you tell us?”

“I don’t know.”

The other me’s eyes shifted to Derek.

“You don’t want to know.”

Derek swallowed.

“Historically, correct.”

Kevin stepped in front of me.

Two trainers planted on the lobby floor.

Still ridiculous.

Still somehow brave.

“Alright, sad Jon. Say your bit.”

The other me looked at him.

“Kevin.”

Kevin flinched.

Just slightly.

“Don’t like how you said that.”

“You were easier before the shoes.”

Kevin glanced down.

“They do give me confidence.”

“You’re easier when you’re hiding.”

Kevin’s face hardened.

The darkness moved further into the lobby.

The labels on the walls flickered.

The freed Lindas, clustered near the stairs, whispered among themselves.

Amanda stood very still beside Flat 3.

Flat 5 held his spoon like a cross.

Dave was breathing too fast.

Ken’s shadow stretched along the wall, darker than the darkness around it.

Linda stepped forward.

“No one enters the lift.”

Everyone looked at her.

Then at the lift.

Then at the stairwell.

Derek said:

“I would like the minutes to show that the lift is once again doing sinister bollocks.”

Kevin nodded.

“Motion carried.”

Linda said:

“We use the stairs.”

The other me smiled sadly.

“You can’t.”

The stairwell door slammed open.

For one glorious second, I saw normal concrete stairs.

Damp wall.

Emergency light.

A spider, probably innocent.

Then the stairs shifted.

Not physically.

Narratively.

That is the only way I can explain it.

They became every staircase I had ever walked down alone at night.

The ones where I checked behind me.

The ones where I heard my own footsteps echo wrong.

The ones in old flats, car parks, hotels, colleges, hospitals.

Every stairwell where I had been half-convinced something was following me but never turned around because looking would make it real.

The stairs stretched downward forever.

At the bottom, someone whispered my name.

Kevin peered into it.

Then immediately stepped back.

“Stairs have betrayed us.”

Derek looked devastated.

“I defended them.”

Dave whispered:

“Wasn’t stairs.”

Flat 3 said:

“We are absolutely not starting a stairs arc.”

The other me spoke:

“There are no safe routes when the witness is summoned.”

Linda looked at me.

“Jon?”

I hated how everyone looked at me.

Like I had answers.

I didn’t.

I had a lift full of my flat, another me with dead eyes, a stairwell full of every bad instinct I’d ever ignored, and a strip of paper saying my existence had apparently been filed under risk.

Kevin stayed between me and the lift.

“Not going in.”

The other me nodded.

“I know.”

The lobby changed.

Not like before.

Not clean.

Not cheerful.

Not organised.

It became quiet.

Too quiet.

The residents faded around me.

Linda became a shape.

Derek became an outline.

Flat 3, Flat 5, Amanda, Dave, Ken.

All dim.

All present but distant.

Only Kevin remained sharp.

“Jon,” he said.

“I’m here.”

“No, you’re doing the face.”

“What face?”

“The one where your brain leaves and your body stays like a coat.”

I tried to answer.

Couldn’t.

The other me stepped out of the lift.

Kevin lunged.

He passed straight through him.

The other me did not react.

Kevin stumbled, furious.

“Oh, I hate emotional ghosts.”

“You should,” said the other me. “You are one.”

“I’m more of a property nuisance.”

The other me walked towards me.

As he moved, the lobby floor changed beneath his feet.

Carpet became paper.

Not normal paper.

Pages.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

Every page covered in writing.

At first I thought they were complaints.

Then I looked closer.

They were stories.

Our stories.

Everything that had happened.

Derek downloading SpookMe.

Kevin appearing through fridge magnets.

The budget haunting.

Alexa.

Five Stars.

Linda in court.

Ken.

The body corridor.

Cheerful Pines.

Dave and the No-Fault Department.

The Linda office.

Every word.

Every joke.

Every scream.

Written down.

Filed.

Numbered.

Archived.

I backed away.

The other me looked at the pages.

“This is what we do.”

I shook my head.

“No.”

“We watch.”

“No.”

“We survive.”

“No.”

“We tell it back.”

The pages lifted from the floor and began circling us.

Lines of text floated in the dark.

Kevin read one aloud.

“‘Kevin looked horrified.’”

He frowned.

“Rude but accurate.”

Another page drifted past Derek.

He grabbed it.

“It says I tried to fight a demon with peanut butter.”

“You did,” Linda said faintly.

“Feels harsh when written.”

The other me raised one hand.

The pages snapped away from Derek.

“You shouldn’t read ahead.”

Derek immediately looked offended.

“I wasn’t. I can barely read backwards.”

Kevin stared at the pages.

“This is Platform?”

The other me nodded.

“Partly.”

The paper storm slowed.

I saw headings.

INCIDENT NARRATIVE

RESIDENT RESPONSE

ATTACHMENT DEVELOPMENT

HUMOUR AS RESISTANCE

HUMOUR AS COPING MECHANISM

HUMOUR AS CONTAINMENT FAILURE

Kevin’s face darkened.

“They’ve been studying us.”

The other me looked at him.

“No. I have.”

Silence.

That was worse.

The pages stopped.

Every resident became clearer again.

Linda stepped forward.

“You?”

JON-001 looked at her.

“The first witness.”

His voice was still mine.

But older in places.

Not age-old.

Tired-old.

“I was assigned to observe a haunted housing pilot. Different building. Different residents. Same pattern.”

He looked at Kevin.

“Different Kevin.”

Ken went still.

Kevin’s jaw tightened.

“What happened?”

JON-001 didn’t answer.

The pages did.

They turned at once.

A new scene unfolded around us.

A hallway.

Not Riverside Court.

Older.

Narrower.

Brown carpet.

A broken light.

A man stood there holding a notebook.

Me.

Not me.

Him.

JON-001.

At the end of the hallway, a ghost wrote on the wall:

HELP

A woman screamed behind a door.

Something heavy moved upstairs.

JON-001 stood with his notebook.

Writing.

Watching.

Not moving.

Kevin whispered:

“What did you do?”

The scene continued.

The ghost wrote again.

HELP THEM

JON-001’s pen moved faster.

The woman screamed again.

A child cried.

The walls shook.

He kept writing.

Derek said, very quietly:

“Mate.”

The scene vanished.

We were back in Riverside Court.

JON-001 looked at me.

“That was the design.”

“What design?”

“Witnesses don’t interfere.”

Linda’s voice was sharp.

“Why not?”

He turned to her.

“Because intervention alters data.”

Kevin took one step forward.

“Say that again.”

JON-001 looked almost sorry.

“I recorded nineteen incidents before I helped anyone.”

Nobody spoke.

Even Dave was silent.

Then Dave whispered:

“That’s a lot.”

JON-001 nodded.

“Yes.”

Kevin’s voice changed.

It went low and flat.

“What happened when you helped?”

The pages turned again.

Another scene.

Same hallway.

Worse now.

Walls black with mould.

Doors open.

No one screaming anymore.

That was always worse.

JON-001 stood in the middle of it, holding a fire extinguisher.

A ghost knelt beside him.

Not Kevin.

But close enough to hurt.

The ghost had written one word across the wall.

RUN

JON-001 did not run.

He hit something in the dark with the extinguisher.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The scene cut.

A white room.

A desk.

A form.

JON-001 sitting in a chair while someone asked:

“Why did the witness interfere?”

His mouth moved.

No sound.

The form stamped itself:

WITNESS TYPE: CONTAMINATED

Then:

REASSIGNMENT: NARRATIVE CONTAINMENT

The scene vanished.

JON-001 touched his own chest.

“They put me in the stories.”

The pages around us whispered.

“Stories.”

“Stories.”

“Stories.”

He looked at me.

“That is where we go when we care too much.”

My throat dried.

“What am I?”

His expression broke slightly.

“You’re not the first Jon. You’re not a copy either. Not exactly.”

Kevin turned.

“What does that mean?”

JON-001’s eyes flicked to him.

“You already know.”

Kevin’s body tensed.

The other me continued:

“Platform doesn’t always need to build people from scratch. Sometimes it finds what it wants already growing.”

He looked at me.

“A witness. Someone who remembers. Someone who turns horror into shape. Someone who survives by narrating it.”

The pages rustled.

Every one of them seemed to breathe.

I felt suddenly naked.

Not physically.

Worse.

Seen.

The way the other systems had taken joy, guilt, control, fear.

This one took attention.

Memory.

The need to tell someone what happened.

The need to make a story out of pain so it didn’t stay shapeless in the dark.

JON-001 stepped closer.

“That makes you valuable.”

Kevin said:

“No.”

JON-001 ignored him.

“You think you are telling the story to warn people.”

The pages circled tighter.

“But every time you tell it, Platform learns which parts worked.”

The words hovered around me.

Kevin’s jokes reduce panic.

Linda’s authority stabilises group.

Dave’s denial can disrupt resets.

Amanda’s positivity can counter morale loops.

Derek’s stupidity bypasses rational safeguards.

Derek looked offended.

“Useful stupidity, though.”

Kevin didn’t laugh.

Neither did I.

Another line appeared.

Jon’s narration preserves continuity.

Then:

Continuity enables escalation.

Linda whispered:

“Oh.”

I understood then.

Worse than I wanted to.

Every time I remembered the details, the system could build from them.

Every time I connected one horror to the next, Platform got a map.

Every time I told the others what had happened, we stayed together.

But so did it.

JON-001 looked at me.

“That’s why I said don’t tell them.”

My chest tightened.

Kevin turned towards me.

“No.”

I looked at him.

He knew what I was thinking.

Of course he did.

Because some friendships become telepathy once enough demons try to outsource your trauma.

“If I stop,” I said, “it loses continuity.”

Kevin shook his head.

“No.”

“If I don’t tell the story—”

“No.”

Derek looked between us.

“What are we no-ing?”

Kevin pointed at me without looking away.

“He’s about to martyr himself in a literary way.”

Derek immediately said:

“No.”

Dave raised his hand.

“Also no.”

Flat 3 lifted the pan.

“Do I hit him or the concept?”

“Both are on the table,” Linda said.

JON-001 watched calmly.

“They won’t understand.”

Kevin’s face hardened.

“They understand enough.”

The other me looked at him.

“Do they?”

He raised one hand.

The pages slammed into the walls.

The lobby became my flat.

Actual flat.

Not the lift version.

My furniture.

My kitchen.

My phone on the table.

Every room dark.

Except now everyone else was gone.

Just me and Kevin.

He stood by the sofa.

Still two trainers.

Still dead.

Still trying to look like this didn’t bother him.

The other me stood by the window.

Outside was not the street.

It was every place we had been.

Riverside Court.

The app corridor.

The courtroom.

The hospital ward.

Cheerful Pines.

The No-Fault Department.

The Linda office.

All layered behind the glass.

JON-001 said:

“Tell him.”

Kevin looked at me.

“Tell me what?”

I didn’t answer.

The other me’s voice dropped.

“You don’t write everything.”

The room went cold.

Kevin’s expression shifted.

“What does that mean?”

I felt panic rise.

Not monster panic.

Human panic.

Worse.

JON-001 spoke softly.

“He edits.”

Kevin looked at me.

“Jon?”

The pages appeared again.

But these were different.

Darker.

Folded.

Hidden.

Lines I had not told the others.

Things I had noticed and kept quiet because saying them would make them real.

The way Kevin sometimes looked at his own body when he thought no one noticed.

The way Derek still flinched when phones rang.

The way Linda’s hands shook after meetings.

The way Dave smiled when someone forgave him because he didn’t think he deserved it.

The way Amanda had stopped saying she was fine.

The way Ken watched Kevin like he hated him, missed him and wanted to become him all at once.

And worse things.

Private things.

Mine.

Things I had not told anyone because I had dressed them up as narration and pretended that was honesty.

Kevin stared at the folded pages.

He understood enough.

His voice was quieter.

“You kept stuff back.”

I swallowed.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because some of it wasn’t mine to say.”

JON-001 smiled sadly.

“Good answer.”

The pages moved closer.

“But not the whole answer.”

Kevin looked at me.

I couldn’t dodge it.

Not here.

Not in my own flat with my own voice accusing me.

“Because if I tell everything,” I said, “then everyone knows how scared I am.”

Kevin said nothing.

“And if I make it funny, it’s easier.”

Still nothing.

“If I make you funny, it’s easier.”

That hit him.

I saw it.

His face closed slightly.

“I am funny.”

“You are.”

“Important distinction.”

“I know.”

The other me moved behind Kevin.

“Tell him the rest.”

I wanted to tell JON-001 to shut up.

I wanted Kevin to make a joke.

I wanted Dave to fall through a cupboard.

I wanted Linda to turn this into a form.

Nobody saved me.

So I said it.

“Sometimes I’m scared that if I stop telling it like a story, all that’s left is people getting hurt.”

Kevin looked away.

For once, he didn’t rescue me with sarcasm.

The other me nodded.

“That is the witness function.”

The flat changed again.

The walls became shelves.

Every shelf full of notebooks.

Every notebook labelled with a name.

Not just mine.

Thousands.

Witnesses.

People who had seen things and tried to survive by making them make sense.

Some notebooks were burned.

Some bleeding.

Some still writing themselves.

From the shelves came whispers.

“I saw it.”

“I wrote it down.”

“No one believed me.”

“I made it funny.”

“I made it tidy.”

“I made it a warning.”

“I made it a story.”

“I couldn’t stop.”

Kevin looked around.

His anger had faded.

That frightened me more.

“What happens to witnesses?”

JON-001 answered:

“They become archives.”

A notebook opened on the nearest shelf.

Inside, a tiny figure moved beneath the page.

A person trapped under lines of their own handwriting.

Writing themselves into thinner and thinner shapes.

The more they wrote, the flatter they became.

Another notebook opened.

Another witness sat inside, mouth sewn shut with black thread, eyes still moving.

Another had no face, only a pen.

Another was nothing but a voice repeating:

“And then.”

“And then.”

“And then.”

Kevin whispered:

“Jesus.”

JON-001 looked at me.

“This is what happens if you keep telling them everything.”

A notebook slid from the shelf.

It landed in my hands.

The cover read:

JON-002

My name.

Not yet complete.

Still wet.

Pages blank.

Waiting.

Kevin reached for it.

JON-001 said:

“Don’t.”

Kevin grabbed it anyway.

The notebook screamed.

So did I.

My vision went white.

Suddenly I was inside the pages.

Flat.

Pressed.

Watching my own hand write words I hadn’t chosen.

Kevin shouted somewhere above me.

Muffled.

Distant.

Like he was outside a wall.

The page smelled of ink and damp.

Lines appeared around me.

Jon watched Kevin vanish.

No.

Jon did not tell the others.

No.

Jon preserved continuity.

No.

I clawed at the paper.

My fingers left smears of ink.

The sentence corrected itself.

Jon became useful.

Then Kevin’s hand tore through the page.

A black-mould hand.

His face appeared in the rip.

Furious.

Terrified.

“Oi.”

I grabbed him.

He pulled.

The page resisted.

Words wrapped around my legs.

WITNESS

ARCHIVE

TELL IT PROPERLY

DON’T LEAVE ANYTHING OUT

Kevin pulled harder.

“Jon!”

The paper cut into me.

I felt myself thinning.

Less body.

More text.

Less breath.

More sentence.

Then Kevin shouted:

“Dave!”

I heard, very faintly:

“Wasn’t me!”

The words around my legs hesitated.

Kevin shouted:

“Better!”

Dave’s voice came again.

Closer.

“It wasn’t him!”

The words loosened.

Derek shouted:

“He’s too annoying to archive!”

Flat 3 shouted:

“Also I will pan the book!”

Linda’s voice cut through everything.

“Jon is not a record. He is a resident.”

Amanda:

“And honestly, a very stressed one.”

Ken, from somewhere in the dark:

“Witnesses who interfere are not archives. They are evidence.”

That one hit.

The page split.

Kevin hauled me out.

We crashed back into my flat.

Or the fake flat.

Or the lobby.

Everything was mixed now.

I landed on the floor gasping.

Kevin landed beside me and immediately tried to pretend he had not been worried.

“You’re heavy for a metaphor.”

I laughed.

It came out wrong.

Half sob.

Half cough.

“I was paper.”

“Yeah. Bad look.”

JON-001 stood over us.

For the first time, his calm had cracked.

“You weren’t supposed to pull him out.”

Kevin sat up.

“Mate, I once pulled Derek out of an app by weaponising customer support. Your notebook cupboard was mid-tier.”

Derek shouted from the darkness:

“Still proud!”

The other me looked at Kevin.

Then at me.

“He’ll keep writing.”

Kevin said:

“Maybe.”

“He’ll feed it.”

“Maybe.”

“He’ll become me.”

I looked at JON-001.

He believed that.

That was the worst part.

He wasn’t trying to hurt me.

He was trying to save me the only way he knew how.

By making me silent.

By making me stop before the story flattened me.

I stood slowly.

My hands were stained with ink.

My arms too.

Words moved faintly under my skin.

Not permanent.

I hoped.

“Why are you helping Platform?” I asked.

JON-001’s face twisted.

“I’m not.”

“You’re doing what it wants.”

“No. It wants disclosure. Data. Continuity.”

He stepped closer.

“I break the chain.”

“By shutting witnesses up?”

“By stopping stories before they become maps.”

Kevin said:

“Or before they become warnings.”

JON-001 looked at him sharply.

Kevin continued:

“Funny thing. Stories go both ways.”

The pages rustled.

Kevin stood.

“Platform learns from them. So do we.”

JON-001 shook his head.

“You don’t understand what it does with them.”

“I understand what happens when no one tells anyone.”

The hallway scene appeared again.

The first haunted pilot.

The woman screaming.

The child crying.

JON-001 watching.

Writing.

Kevin looked at him.

“You know too.”

JON-001’s expression collapsed.

Only for a second.

“I was designed not to move.”

“But you did.”

“Too late.”

“But you did.”

The dark flat trembled.

The notebooks on the shelves began opening.

Whispers rose.

“I moved.”

“I warned someone.”

“I called for help.”

“I broke the rule.”

“I told them.”

“I told them.”

“I told them.”

JON-001 covered his ears.

“No.”

The shelves shook.

The witness archives were waking.

Kevin smiled.

Not big.

Not triumphant.

More dangerous.

“You’re not the first witness because you stayed quiet.”

The room cracked.

“You’re the first because you moved.”

JON-001 stared at him.

The pages around us tore themselves from the walls.

All the hidden accounts.

All the suppressed warnings.

All the stories Platform had archived before anyone could hear them.

They spun in the air.

Then shot towards the lift.

Linda’s voice shouted from the lobby:

“Incoming documentation!”

Kevin looked delighted.

“She’ll love that.”

The flat collapsed back into Riverside Court.

We were in the lobby again.

Everyone stood around us.

Linda already had both hands full of flying pages.

The freed Lindas had formed an emergency sorting line despite everyone explicitly agreeing not to form a committee.

Dave was holding a stack upside down.

Derek was trying to help and absolutely making it worse.

Flat 3 was batting away notebooks that tried to bite.

Flat 5 pinned pages to the noticeboard with rescued teaspoons.

Amanda was talking softly to one shaking witness who had crawled halfway out of a notebook and did not seem to have a mouth.

Ken stood near the lift, watching JON-001.

The other me looked smaller now.

Less like a threat.

More like a man who had been standing in the dark holding a door shut for too long.

Kevin stood beside me.

“Jon?”

“I’m here.”

“Actually?”

I looked at my hands.

Still ink-stained.

Still shaking.

“Mostly.”

He nodded.

“Mostly counts.”

JON-001 looked around the lobby.

The pages.

The residents.

The chaos.

The noise.

Dave saying “not that pile, apparently” while Linda snapped at him.

Derek shouting, “I’m alphabetising emotionally.”

Flat 3 yelling, “This notebook has teeth.”

The complaint kiosk printing:

NEW COMPLAINT CATEGORY CREATED: ARCHIVAL MOUTH HAZARD.

For the first time, JON-001 almost smiled.

A real one.

Tiny.

Painful.

“You’re loud.”

Kevin nodded.

“Yeah.”

“They’ll hear you.”

“Good.”

“No. Not good.”

The lift display flickered.

Every light in Riverside Court dimmed.

The complaint kiosk stopped printing.

The pages froze mid-air.

A new symbol appeared above the lift doors.

Not Platform’s crown.

Not Oakmere’s circles.

Not Five Stars.

An eye.

Simple.

Black.

Open.

JON-001 went white.

Kevin looked at it.

“Boss level?”

JON-001 whispered:

“No.”

The eye blinked.

A voice came from the lift.

Quiet.

Close.

As if someone was speaking directly behind each of us.

“The witness has disclosed.”

The pages around us began burning at the edges.

Linda shouted:

“Protect the documents!”

The freed Lindas moved.

Flat 5 shielded pages with his body.

Derek tried to blow out magical fire and inhaled smoke.

Dave slapped a burning notebook with both hands and shouted:

“Wasn’t me!”

Kevin stared at the eye.

“What are you?”

JON-001 answered for it.

“The Editor.”

The word silenced the room.

The lift doors opened.

Inside was not a room.

Not a corridor.

Not my flat.

A blank white space.

In the centre stood a desk.

At the desk sat a person.

Maybe.

They wore no face.

No body I could make sense of.

Only hands.

Dozens of hands.

Each holding a pen.

Every pen moved at once.

Writing in the air.

Crossing things out.

Changing lines.

Above the desk hung a sign:

CONTINUITY CONTROL

The Editor lifted one hand.

A red pen.

It drew a line through JON-001.

He gasped.

A red mark appeared across his chest.

Kevin stepped forward.

“Don’t.”

The Editor’s hand moved again.

A line appeared in the air.

JON-001 was never there.

JON-001 began fading.

Not dying.

Worse.

Being removed from having mattered.

“No,” I said.

The Editor wrote another line.

Nobody remembered the first witness.

JON-001’s face blurred.

I grabbed his arm.

He felt like paper and bone.

The Editor wrote:

Jon let go.

My fingers opened.

Not by choice.

Kevin grabbed my wrist and slammed it back onto JON-001’s arm.

“Edit that.”

The Editor paused.

Then all its hands turned towards Kevin.

Hundreds of pens scratched at once.

Lines appeared around him.

Kevin made a joke.

Kevin hid fear.

Kevin failed to save—

Kevin shouted:

“No spoilers!”

The pens kept writing.

Kevin staggered.

Words carved themselves into his ghost body.

COMIC RELIEF

COPING MECHANISM

PRODUCT BEHAVIOUR

DERIVATIVE

He fell to one knee.

Derek ran to him.

“Kevin!”

The Editor wrote:

Derek hesitated.

Derek froze mid-step.

Linda shouted:

“Objection!”

The Editor wrote:

Linda’s objection was noted and ignored.

Linda’s mouth shut.

Flat 3 swung her pan.

The Editor wrote:

Flat 3 missed.

She missed before she even swung.

The pan clattered against the lift frame.

Flat 5 threw a spoon.

The Editor wrote:

The spoon was irrelevant.

The spoon dropped dead in mid-air.

Flat 5 gasped like he’d been stabbed.

Dave stepped forward.

The Editor wrote nothing.

It paused.

All its hands hovered.

Dave blinked.

“Why isn’t it writing me?”

Kevin looked up, words crawling over his face.

“Because you’re chaos with slippers.”

Dave looked at the Editor.

Then said:

“Wasn’t me.”

The Editor wrote:

Dave denied responsibility.

Dave shook his head.

“No.”

The pen hesitated.

Dave swallowed.

“It was me.”

The Editor wrote:

Dave accepted responsibility.

Dave shook his head again.

“No.”

The pen stopped completely.

Dave pointed at the Editor.

“It wasn’t me and it was me.”

Everyone stared.

Derek, still frozen, managed through his teeth:

“That’s not grammar.”

Dave continued, gaining confidence.

“I did some of it. Not all. Some. Maybe more than I said. Less than you want. Enough that I’m sorry. Not enough that I’m everything.”

The Editor’s hands twitched.

Contradiction.

Nuance.

The nightmare of all clean systems.

Kevin lifted his head.

“Oh Dave, you beautiful admin virus.”

The red lines on Kevin flickered.

The Editor began writing faster.

Dave was confused.

Dave nodded.

“Yes.”

The pen stopped.

Dave was clear.

Dave nodded again.

“Also yes.”

The Editor’s hands shook.

Linda’s mouth opened.

The line around her snapped.

She shouted:

“Everyone contradict your assigned narrative!”

Derek unfroze.

“I’m stupid but occasionally useful!”

Kevin shouted:

“I’m funny and traumatised!”

Amanda said:

“I’m cheerful and currently livid!”

Flat 3 yelled:

“I’m aggressive and emotionally perceptive!”

Flat 5 lifted his spoon.

“This spoon is irrelevant and sacred!”

Ken said:

“I hate Kevin and he is my brother-ish nightmare!”

Kevin turned.

“Brother-ish?”

Ken shrugged.

“Draft term.”

The Editor’s pens scratched wildly.

Lines appeared and crossed themselves out.

Derek was—

Kevin was—

Linda was—

Jon was—

The system couldn’t compress us.

Not cleanly.

Not anymore.

I grabbed JON-001 again.

This time my grip held.

The Editor raised the red pen.

It wrote one final line.

The witness chose silence.

The line moved towards me.

I felt it press against my throat.

Cold.

Neat.

Final.

I understood then why JON-001 had looked so tired.

Silence was peaceful.

Silence was safe.

Silence meant no one could use your words.

No one could twist them.

No one could learn from them.

No one could accuse you of getting it wrong.

No one could see the scared parts hiding behind the jokes.

All I had to do was stop.

The red line tightened.

Kevin stood beside me.

Still covered in half-written labels.

He didn’t joke.

He just said:

“Tell it.”

I looked at him.

His face was frightened.

Openly now.

That mattered.

“Even if it feeds them?”

He nodded.

“Then we feed each other too.”

The line cut into my throat.

I could barely breathe.

JON-001 looked at me.

For the first time, he looked hopeful.

So I spoke.

Not loudly.

Not bravely.

Barely.

“My name is Jon.”

The Editor’s hands froze.

“I saw it.”

The pages stopped burning.

“I saw all of it.”

JON-001’s body became more solid.

“I was scared.”

The red line cracked.

“I made jokes.”

Kevin smiled faintly.

“So did he.”

“I kept things back.”

Linda stepped closer.

“But you’re telling us now.”

I nodded.

“I don’t know how to tell it without making it worse.”

Derek said:

“Mate, worse is kind of our brand.”

Dave nodded.

“Was partly me.”

Flat 3 raised her pan.

“Tell it messy.”

Amanda said:

“Tell it tired.”

Flat 5 held up his spoon.

“Tell it with appropriate cutlery where relevant.”

Ken looked at JON-001.

“Tell the first one too.”

The Editor screamed.

Not with a mouth.

With every pen snapping at once.

The white space inside the lift cracked.

The desk split.

Hands dropped pens.

The red line around my throat broke.

JON-001 gasped.

Pages flew from the shelves, through the lift, across the lobby, up the stairs and out through every crack in Riverside Court.

Not organised.

Not filed.

Loose.

Wild.

Uncontrolled.

Stories as warnings.

Stories as mess.

Stories as evidence.

Stories with too many jokes in the wrong places.

Stories that refused to become data without becoming human first.

The Editor reached for one page.

Kevin kicked the lift doors.

Both trainers connected.

The doors slammed shut on the Editor’s hands.

Every pen snapped.

A sound like a thousand crossed-out sentences screaming filled the building.

Then silence.

The lights came back on.

The lobby was destroyed.

Again.

Papers everywhere.

Ink on the walls.

A half-burnt notebook biting Dave’s slipper.

The complaints kiosk smoking.

Linda’s hair loose from its clip.

Derek lying under a pile of witness statements.

Flat 3 holding two pans now, somehow.

Flat 5 surrounded by spoons.

Amanda sitting on the stairs, breathing hard.

Ken leaning against the wall, staring at JON-001.

JON-001 stood in the centre of the lobby.

Still me.

Not me.

More himself than before.

He looked at his hands.

Then at me.

“I forgot what it felt like.”

“What?”

“To be believed.”

Nobody knew what to say.

Kevin ruined it.

“Very touching. Hate that for us.”

JON-001 almost laughed.

Almost.

Then he looked at the lift.

“The Editor won’t stay gone.”

Linda picked up a page and flattened it against her knee.

“No managers do.”

Derek emerged from under the papers.

“Can we please stop using the lift?”

Kevin pointed at him.

“This is what I’ve been saying.”

“You float.”

“Spiritually pro-stairs.”

Dave removed the biting notebook from his slipper.

“It’s still chewing.”

Flat 5 leaned down.

“Bad notebook.”

The notebook stopped.

The complaint kiosk printed:

COMPLAINT RECEIVED: LITERARY AGGRESSION.

I looked at JON-001.

“What happens now?”

He glanced at the pages scattered across the lobby.

“You have to decide what to do with them.”

Linda’s eyes lit up.

Kevin immediately said:

“No archive.”

She paused.

“I wasn’t going to say archive.”

“Your face said archive.”

“My face said organised safeguarding repository.”

“That is an archive wearing a nice coat.”

JON-001 looked at me.

“If you lock them away, Platform will find them.”

“What if we share them?”

He hesitated.

“That’s dangerous.”

Kevin nodded.

“Everything is dangerous. Dave once made soup in a kettle.”

Dave looked offended.

“It worked.”

“It was chunky.”

“It was rustic.”

Linda sighed.

“We do not need to decide now.”

Everyone looked at her.

She looked uncomfortable.

“What?”

Kevin smiled.

“Growth.”

“Do not.”

JON-001 stepped towards the lift.

I grabbed his arm.

“Where are you going?”

He looked at me.

“I don’t know.”

That answer scared me less than it should have.

Because at least it sounded honest.

The lift doors opened.

Empty.

Normal.

Suspiciously normal.

Derek pointed at it.

“Absolutely not.”

JON-001 smiled faintly.

“No lift.”

He turned to the stairs.

Kevin beamed.

“See? First witness gets it.”

JON-001 paused at the stairwell door.

Then looked back at me.

“You’ll tell them?”

I looked at the others.

Kevin.

Linda.

Derek.

Dave.

All of them messy and frightened and impossible to summarise cleanly.

“Yeah,” I said.

“But not everything.”

JON-001 nodded.

“Good.”

Then he stepped into the stairwell and vanished.

Not dramatically.

Not with smoke or screams.

One step.

Gone.

The stairwell light flickered.

Then held.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Derek said:

“So are we keeping the other Jon?”

Kevin looked at him.

“He literally just vanished.”

“Could come back.”

“Everyone comes back.”

Dave nodded.

“That’s true.”

Linda picked up a witness page.

Her face changed.

“What is it?” I asked.

She turned it around.

At the top, in red ink, were the words:

CONTINUITY CONTROL — EMERGENCY REVISION FAILED

Underneath:

EDITORIAL ESCALATION REQUIRED

Kevin closed his eyes.

“Of course.”

The complaint kiosk printed:

NEW ENTITY DETECTED.

Another line.

ROLE: PUBLISHER.

The lights flickered.

Every phone in the lobby buzzed.

Mine.

Derek’s.

Linda’s.

Amanda’s.

Even Dave’s old phone, which we all thought had died in the No-Fault Department.

A notification appeared.

No app icon.

No logo.

Just text.

Your story has been accepted.

Then another.

Publication scheduled.

Then another.

Audience selected.

Kevin looked at me.

“What audience?”

The noticeboard mould moved by itself.

Not Kevin’s handwriting.

Not Ken’s.

Not JON-001’s.

Something vast.

Something pleased.

The letters formed slowly.

EVERYONE.

The building groaned.

Outside Riverside Court, every window in the street lit up at once.

Not with light.

With screens.

Phones.

TVs.

Laptops.

Tablets.

Car displays.

Doorbell cameras.

Every screen showed the same thing.

A blank white page.

Then the first line appeared.

The lights went out.

Kevin stared through the glass.

Derek whispered:

“Oh, mate.”

Dave said:

“Wasn’t me.”

And for once, nobody corrected him.

Because none of us were sure.

The story had started telling itself.

Part 1 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/3pjlA6yALo

Part 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/g3LXpw7ZuX

Part 3

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/R319VfoEx1

Part 4

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/HpLq1gjR99

Part 5

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/vXpLanqpq7

Part 6

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/ACOsKcvJXq

Part 7

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/M9B9TEtpgo

Part 8

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/X6XmC0U2ge

Part 9

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/cUOXOmIb5v

Part 10

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/oiYVIRqnSv

Part 11

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/daAdTa6XR2

Part 12

https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/XDs20zNnSN

The lights went out.

Not the cheerful retirement-home kind of out.

Not the corporate courtroom dimming.

Not the “something is about to do a PowerPoint at your soul” kind of darkness.

This was proper dark.

Total.

Heavy.

The sort of dark that made your body immediately aware of how many corners a room had.

Somewhere beside me, Dave whispered:

“Wasn’t me.”

Kevin whispered back:

“Not now, Dave.”

“Could be.”

“It could not possibly be you.”

“That’s what I always think before it is.”

No one laughed.

Not properly.

Because in the open lift, where a normal lift should have been, was my flat.

My actual flat.

Dark.

Still.

Waiting.

And standing in the middle of it was me.

Another me.

JON-001.

He had smiled.

Sadly.

Then pressed one finger to his lips.

And whispered:

“Don’t tell them.”

The lift doors stayed open.

The darkness from my flat spilled into Riverside Court like ink.

It spread across the lobby floor, over the stained carpet, around the complaints kiosk, up the walls and over the noticeboard.

Kevin’s mould retreated from it.

That was new.

Kevin looked down.

His face changed.

“My mould doesn’t like your flat.”

“Comforting.”

“Historically, my mould has very poor standards.”

The other me stood motionless inside the lift.

Not grinning.

Not lunging.

Not doing the too-wide smile thing.

That made it worse.

He looked tired.

He looked like he had been waiting a long time.

He looked like me on a bad day I had not told anyone about.

Linda’s voice came from somewhere in the darkness.

“Everyone stay where you are.”

The complaint kiosk printed.

We heard the paper slide out.

Then stop.

Then reverse.

Then print again.

A strip landed at my feet.

I crouched and picked it up.

In the dark, the words glowed faintly.

WITNESS TYPE DETECTED

JON SERIES: UNCLASSIFIED

JON-001: ACTIVE

Underneath, another line printed slowly.

RISK: DISCLOSURE

Kevin read over my shoulder.

“Disclosure?”

The other me in the lift spoke again.

“Don’t tell them.”

His voice was mine.

But flatter.

Hollowed out.

Like someone had taken the part of me that jokes when I’m scared and filed it under unnecessary.

Derek moved closer to me.

“What shouldn’t you tell us?”

“I don’t know.”

The other me’s eyes shifted to Derek.

“You don’t want to know.”

Derek swallowed.

“Historically, correct.”

Kevin stepped in front of me.

Two trainers planted on the lobby floor.

Still ridiculous.

Still somehow brave.

“Alright, sad Jon. Say your bit.”

The other me looked at him.

“Kevin.”

Kevin flinched.

Just slightly.

“Don’t like how you said that.”

“You were easier before the shoes.”

Kevin glanced down.

“They do give me confidence.”

“You’re easier when you’re hiding.”

Kevin’s face hardened.

The darkness moved further into the lobby.

The labels on the walls flickered.

The freed Lindas, clustered near the stairs, whispered among themselves.

Amanda stood very still beside Flat 3.

Flat 5 held his spoon like a cross.

Dave was breathing too fast.

Ken’s shadow stretched along the wall, darker than the darkness around it.

Linda stepped forward.

“No one enters the lift.”

Everyone looked at her.

Then at the lift.

Then at the stairwell.

Derek said:

“I would like the minutes to show that the lift is once again doing sinister bollocks.”

Kevin nodded.

“Motion carried.”

Linda said:

“We use the stairs.”

The other me smiled sadly.

“You can’t.”

The stairwell door slammed open.

For one glorious second, I saw normal concrete stairs.

Damp wall.

Emergency light.

A spider, probably innocent.

Then the stairs shifted.

Not physically.

Narratively.

That is the only way I can explain it.

They became every staircase I had ever walked down alone at night.

The ones where I checked behind me.

The ones where I heard my own footsteps echo wrong.

The ones in old flats, car parks, hotels, colleges, hospitals.

Every stairwell where I had been half-convinced something was following me but never turned around because looking would make it real.

The stairs stretched downward forever.

At the bottom, someone whispered my name.

Kevin peered into it.

Then immediately stepped back.

“Stairs have betrayed us.”

Derek looked devastated.

“I defended them.”

Dave whispered:

“Wasn’t stairs.”

Flat 3 said:

“We are absolutely not starting a stairs arc.”

The other me spoke:

“There are no safe routes when the witness is summoned.”

Linda looked at me.

“Jon?”

I hated how everyone looked at me.

Like I had answers.

I didn’t.

I had a lift full of my flat, another me with dead eyes, a stairwell full of every bad instinct I’d ever ignored, and a strip of paper saying my existence had apparently been filed under risk.

Kevin stayed between me and the lift.

“Not going in.”

The other me nodded.

“I know.”

The lobby changed.

Not like before.

Not clean.

Not cheerful.

Not organised.

It became quiet.

Too quiet.

The residents faded around me.

Linda became a shape.

Derek became an outline.

Flat 3, Flat 5, Amanda, Dave, Ken.

All dim.

All present but distant.

Only Kevin remained sharp.

“Jon,” he said.

“I’m here.”

“No, you’re doing the face.”

“What face?”

“The one where your brain leaves and your body stays like a coat.”

I tried to answer.

Couldn’t.

The other me stepped out of the lift.

Kevin lunged.

He passed straight through him.

The other me did not react.

Kevin stumbled, furious.

“Oh, I hate emotional ghosts.”

“You should,” said the other me. “You are one.”

“I’m more of a property nuisance.”

The other me walked towards me.

As he moved, the lobby floor changed beneath his feet.

Carpet became paper.

Not normal paper.

Pages.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

Every page covered in writing.

At first I thought they were complaints.

Then I looked closer.

They were stories.

Our stories.

Everything that had happened.

Derek downloading SpookMe.

Kevin appearing through fridge magnets.

The budget haunting.

Alexa.

Five Stars.

Linda in court.

Ken.

The body corridor.

Cheerful Pines.

Dave and the No-Fault Department.

The Linda office.

Every word.

Every joke.

Every scream.

Written down.

Filed.

Numbered.

Archived.

I backed away.

The other me looked at the pages.

“This is what we do.”

I shook my head.

“No.”

“We watch.”

“No.”

“We survive.”

“No.”

“We tell it back.”

The pages lifted from the floor and began circling us.

Lines of text floated in the dark.

Kevin read one aloud.

“‘Kevin looked horrified.’”

He frowned.

“Rude but accurate.”

Another page drifted past Derek.

He grabbed it.

“It says I tried to fight a demon with peanut butter.”

“You did,” Linda said faintly.

“Feels harsh when written.”

The other me raised one hand.

The pages snapped away from Derek.

“You shouldn’t read ahead.”

Derek immediately looked offended.

“I wasn’t. I can barely read backwards.”

Kevin stared at the pages.

“This is Platform?”

The other me nodded.

“Partly.”

The paper storm slowed.

I saw headings.

INCIDENT NARRATIVE

RESIDENT RESPONSE

ATTACHMENT DEVELOPMENT

HUMOUR AS RESISTANCE

HUMOUR AS COPING MECHANISM

HUMOUR AS CONTAINMENT FAILURE

Kevin’s face darkened.

“They’ve been studying us.”

The other me looked at him.

“No. I have.”

Silence.

That was worse.

The pages stopped.

Every resident became clearer again.

Linda stepped forward.

“You?”

JON-001 looked at her.

“The first witness.”

His voice was still mine.

But older in places.

Not age-old.

Tired-old.

“I was assigned to observe a haunted housing pilot. Different building. Different residents. Same pattern.”

He looked at Kevin.

“Different Kevin.”

Ken went still.

Kevin’s jaw tightened.

“What happened?”

JON-001 didn’t answer.

The pages did.

They turned at once.

A new scene unfolded around us.

A hallway.

Not Riverside Court.

Older.

Narrower.

Brown carpet.

A broken light.

A man stood there holding a notebook.

Me.

Not me.

Him.

JON-001.

At the end of the hallway, a ghost wrote on the wall:

HELP

A woman screamed behind a door.

Something heavy moved upstairs.

JON-001 stood with his notebook.

Writing.

Watching.

Not moving.

Kevin whispered:

“What did you do?”

The scene continued.

The ghost wrote again.

HELP THEM

JON-001’s pen moved faster.

The woman screamed again.

A child cried.

The walls shook.

He kept writing.

Derek said, very quietly:

“Mate.”

The scene vanished.

We were back in Riverside Court.

JON-001 looked at me.

“That was the design.”

“What design?”

“Witnesses don’t interfere.”

Linda’s voice was sharp.

“Why not?”

He turned to her.

“Because intervention alters data.”

Kevin took one step forward.

“Say that again.”

JON-001 looked almost sorry.

“I recorded nineteen incidents before I helped anyone.”

Nobody spoke.

Even Dave was silent.

Then Dave whispered:

“That’s a lot.”

JON-001 nodded.

“Yes.”

Kevin’s voice changed.

It went low and flat.

“What happened when you helped?”

The pages turned again.

Another scene.

Same hallway.

Worse now.

Walls black with mould.

Doors open.

No one screaming anymore.

That was always worse.

JON-001 stood in the middle of it, holding a fire extinguisher.

A ghost knelt beside him.

Not Kevin.

But close enough to hurt.

The ghost had written one word across the wall.

RUN

JON-001 did not run.

He hit something in the dark with the extinguisher.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The scene cut.

A white room.

A desk.

A form.

JON-001 sitting in a chair while someone asked:

“Why did the witness interfere?”

His mouth moved.

No sound.

The form stamped itself:

WITNESS TYPE: CONTAMINATED

Then:

REASSIGNMENT: NARRATIVE CONTAINMENT

The scene vanished.

JON-001 touched his own chest.

“They put me in the stories.”

The pages around us whispered.

“Stories.”

“Stories.”

“Stories.”

He looked at me.

“That is where we go when we care too much.”

My throat dried.

“What am I?”

His expression broke slightly.

“You’re not the first Jon. You’re not a copy either. Not exactly.”

Kevin turned.

“What does that mean?”

JON-001’s eyes flicked to him.

“You already know.”

Kevin’s body tensed.

The other me continued:

“Platform doesn’t always need to build people from scratch. Sometimes it finds what it wants already growing.”

He looked at me.

“A witness. Someone who remembers. Someone who turns horror into shape. Someone who survives by narrating it.”

The pages rustled.

Every one of them seemed to breathe.

I felt suddenly naked.

Not physically.

Worse.

Seen.

The way the other systems had taken joy, guilt, control, fear.

This one took attention.

Memory.

The need to tell someone what happened.

The need to make a story out of pain so it didn’t stay shapeless in the dark.

JON-001 stepped closer.

“That makes you valuable.”

Kevin said:

“No.”

JON-001 ignored him.

“You think you are telling the story to warn people.”

The pages circled tighter.

“But every time you tell it, Platform learns which parts worked.”

The words hovered around me.

Kevin’s jokes reduce panic.

Linda’s authority stabilises group.

Dave’s denial can disrupt resets.

Amanda’s positivity can counter morale loops.

Derek’s stupidity bypasses rational safeguards.

Derek looked offended.

“Useful stupidity, though.”

Kevin didn’t laugh.

Neither did I.

Another line appeared.

Jon’s narration preserves continuity.

Then:

Continuity enables escalation.

Linda whispered:

“Oh.”

I understood then.

Worse than I wanted to.

Every time I remembered the details, the system could build from them.

Every time I connected one horror to the next, Platform got a map.

Every time I told the others what had happened, we stayed together.

But so did it.

JON-001 looked at me.

“That’s why I said don’t tell them.”

My chest tightened.

Kevin turned towards me.

“No.”

I looked at him.

He knew what I was thinking.

Of course he did.

Because some friendships become telepathy once enough demons try to outsource your trauma.

“If I stop,” I said, “it loses continuity.”

Kevin shook his head.

“No.”

“If I don’t tell the story—”

“No.”

Derek looked between us.

“What are we no-ing?”

Kevin pointed at me without looking away.

“He’s about to martyr himself in a literary way.”

Derek immediately said:

“No.”

Dave raised his hand.

“Also no.”

Flat 3 lifted the pan.

“Do I hit him or the concept?”

“Both are on the table,” Linda said.

JON-001 watched calmly.

“They won’t understand.”

Kevin’s face hardened.

“They understand enough.”

The other me looked at him.

“Do they?”

He raised one hand.

The pages slammed into the walls.

The lobby became my flat.

Actual flat.

Not the lift version.

My furniture.

My kitchen.

My phone on the table.

Every room dark.

Except now everyone else was gone.

Just me and Kevin.

He stood by the sofa.

Still two trainers.

Still dead.

Still trying to look like this didn’t bother him.

The other me stood by the window.

Outside was not the street.

It was every place we had been.

Riverside Court.

The app corridor.

The courtroom.

The hospital ward.

Cheerful Pines.

The No-Fault Department.

The Linda office.

All layered behind the glass.

JON-001 said:

“Tell him.”

Kevin looked at me.

“Tell me what?”

I didn’t answer.

The other me’s voice dropped.

“You don’t write everything.”

The room went cold.

Kevin’s expression shifted.

“What does that mean?”

I felt panic rise.

Not monster panic.

Human panic.

Worse.

JON-001 spoke softly.

“He edits.”

Kevin looked at me.

“Jon?”

The pages appeared again.

But these were different.

Darker.

Folded.

Hidden.

Lines I had not told the others.

Things I had noticed and kept quiet because saying them would make them real.

The way Kevin sometimes looked at his own body when he thought no one noticed.

The way Derek still flinched when phones rang.

The way Linda’s hands shook after meetings.

The way Dave smiled when someone forgave him because he didn’t think he deserved it.

The way Amanda had stopped saying she was fine.

The way Ken watched Kevin like he hated him, missed him and wanted to become him all at once.

And worse things.

Private things.

Mine.

Things I had not told anyone because I had dressed them up as narration and pretended that was honesty.

Kevin stared at the folded pages.

He understood enough.

His voice was quieter.

“You kept stuff back.”

I swallowed.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because some of it wasn’t mine to say.”

JON-001 smiled sadly.

“Good answer.”

The pages moved closer.

“But not the whole answer.”

Kevin looked at me.

I couldn’t dodge it.

Not here.

Not in my own flat with my own voice accusing me.

“Because if I tell everything,” I said, “then everyone knows how scared I am.”

Kevin said nothing.

“And if I make it funny, it’s easier.”

Still nothing.

“If I make you funny, it’s easier.”

That hit him.

I saw it.

His face closed slightly.

“I am funny.”

“You are.”

“Important distinction.”

“I know.”

The other me moved behind Kevin.

“Tell him the rest.”

I wanted to tell JON-001 to shut up.

I wanted Kevin to make a joke.

I wanted Dave to fall through a cupboard.

I wanted Linda to turn this into a form.

Nobody saved me.

So I said it.

“Sometimes I’m scared that if I stop telling it like a story, all that’s left is people getting hurt.”

Kevin looked away.

For once, he didn’t rescue me with sarcasm.

The other me nodded.

“That is the witness function.”

The flat changed again.

The walls became shelves.

Every shelf full of notebooks.

Every notebook labelled with a name.

Not just mine.

Thousands.

Witnesses.

People who had seen things and tried to survive by making them make sense.

Some notebooks were burned.

Some bleeding.

Some still writing themselves.

From the shelves came whispers.

“I saw it.”

“I wrote it down.”

“No one believed me.”

“I made it funny.”

“I made it tidy.”

“I made it a warning.”

“I made it a story.”

“I couldn’t stop.”

Kevin looked around.

His anger had faded.

That frightened me more.

“What happens to witnesses?”

JON-001 answered:

“They become archives.”

A notebook opened on the nearest shelf.

Inside, a tiny figure moved beneath the page.

A person trapped under lines of their own handwriting.

Writing themselves into thinner and thinner shapes.

The more they wrote, the flatter they became.

Another notebook opened.

Another witness sat inside, mouth sewn shut with black thread, eyes still moving.

Another had no face, only a pen.

Another was nothing but a voice repeating:

“And then.”

“And then.”

“And then.”

Kevin whispered:

“Jesus.”

JON-001 looked at me.

“This is what happens if you keep telling them everything.”

A notebook slid from the shelf.

It landed in my hands.

The cover read:

JON-002

My name.

Not yet complete.

Still wet.

Pages blank.

Waiting.

Kevin reached for it.

JON-001 said:

“Don’t.”

Kevin grabbed it anyway.

The notebook screamed.

So did I.

My vision went white.

Suddenly I was inside the pages.

Flat.

Pressed.

Watching my own hand write words I hadn’t chosen.

Kevin shouted somewhere above me.

Muffled.

Distant.

Like he was outside a wall.

The page smelled of ink and damp.

Lines appeared around me.

Jon watched Kevin vanish.

No.

Jon did not tell the others.

No.

Jon preserved continuity.

No.

I clawed at the paper.

My fingers left smears of ink.

The sentence corrected itself.

Jon became useful.

Then Kevin’s hand tore through the page.

A black-mould hand.

His face appeared in the rip.

Furious.

Terrified.

“Oi.”

I grabbed him.

He pulled.

The page resisted.

Words wrapped around my legs.

WITNESS

ARCHIVE

TELL IT PROPERLY

DON’T LEAVE ANYTHING OUT

Kevin pulled harder.

“Jon!”

The paper cut into me.

I felt myself thinning.

Less body.

More text.

Less breath.

More sentence.

Then Kevin shouted:

“Dave!”

I heard, very faintly:

“Wasn’t me!”

The words around my legs hesitated.

Kevin shouted:

“Better!”

Dave’s voice came again.

Closer.

“It wasn’t him!”

The words loosened.

Derek shouted:

“He’s too annoying to archive!”

Flat 3 shouted:

“Also I will pan the book!”

Linda’s voice cut through everything.

“Jon is not a record. He is a resident.”

Amanda:

“And honestly, a very stressed one.”

Ken, from somewhere in the dark:

“Witnesses who interfere are not archives. They are evidence.”

That one hit.

The page split.

Kevin hauled me out.

We crashed back into my flat.

Or the fake flat.

Or the lobby.

Everything was mixed now.

I landed on the floor gasping.

Kevin landed beside me and immediately tried to pretend he had not been worried.

“You’re heavy for a metaphor.”

I laughed.

It came out wrong.

Half sob.

Half cough.

“I was paper.”

“Yeah. Bad look.”

JON-001 stood over us.

For the first time, his calm had cracked.

“You weren’t supposed to pull him out.”

Kevin sat up.

“Mate, I once pulled Derek out of an app by weaponising customer support. Your notebook cupboard was mid-tier.”

Derek shouted from the darkness:

“Still proud!”

The other me looked at Kevin.

Then at me.

“He’ll keep writing.”

Kevin said:

“Maybe.”

“He’ll feed it.”

“Maybe.”

“He’ll become me.”

I looked at JON-001.

He believed that.

That was the worst part.

He wasn’t trying to hurt me.

He was trying to save me the only way he knew how.

By making me silent.

By making me stop before the story flattened me.

I stood slowly.

My hands were stained with ink.

My arms too.

Words moved faintly under my skin.

Not permanent.

I hoped.

“Why are you helping Platform?” I asked.

JON-001’s face twisted.

“I’m not.”

“You’re doing what it wants.”

“No. It wants disclosure. Data. Continuity.”

He stepped closer.

“I break the chain.”

“By shutting witnesses up?”

“By stopping stories before they become maps.”

Kevin said:

“Or before they become warnings.”

JON-001 looked at him sharply.

Kevin continued:

“Funny thing. Stories go both ways.”

The pages rustled.

Kevin stood.

“Platform learns from them. So do we.”

JON-001 shook his head.

“You don’t understand what it does with them.”

“I understand what happens when no one tells anyone.”

The hallway scene appeared again.

The first haunted pilot.

The woman screaming.

The child crying.

JON-001 watching.

Writing.

Kevin looked at him.

“You know too.”

JON-001’s expression collapsed.

Only for a second.

“I was designed not to move.”

“But you did.”

“Too late.”

“But you did.”

The dark flat trembled.

The notebooks on the shelves began opening.

Whispers rose.

“I moved.”

“I warned someone.”

“I called for help.”

“I broke the rule.”

“I told them.”

“I told them.”

“I told them.”

JON-001 covered his ears.

“No.”

The shelves shook.

The witness archives were waking.

Kevin smiled.

Not big.

Not triumphant.

More dangerous.

“You’re not the first witness because you stayed quiet.”

The room cracked.

“You’re the first because you moved.”

JON-001 stared at him.

The pages around us tore themselves from the walls.

All the hidden accounts.

All the suppressed warnings.

All the stories Platform had archived before anyone could hear them.

They spun in the air.

Then shot towards the lift.

Linda’s voice shouted from the lobby:

“Incoming documentation!”

Kevin looked delighted.

“She’ll love that.”

The flat collapsed back into Riverside Court.

We were in the lobby again.

Everyone stood around us.

Linda already had both hands full of flying pages.

The freed Lindas had formed an emergency sorting line despite everyone explicitly agreeing not to form a committee.

Dave was holding a stack upside down.

Derek was trying to help and absolutely making it worse.

Flat 3 was batting away notebooks that tried to bite.

Flat 5 pinned pages to the noticeboard with rescued teaspoons.

Amanda was talking softly to one shaking witness who had crawled halfway out of a notebook and did not seem to have a mouth.

Ken stood near the lift, watching JON-001.

The other me looked smaller now.

Less like a threat.

More like a man who had been standing in the dark holding a door shut for too long.

Kevin stood beside me.

“Jon?”

“I’m here.”

“Actually?”

I looked at my hands.

Still ink-stained.

Still shaking.

“Mostly.”

He nodded.

“Mostly counts.”

JON-001 looked around the lobby.

The pages.

The residents.

The chaos.

The noise.

Dave saying “not that pile, apparently” while Linda snapped at him.

Derek shouting, “I’m alphabetising emotionally.”

Flat 3 yelling, “This notebook has teeth.”

The complaint kiosk printing:

NEW COMPLAINT CATEGORY CREATED: ARCHIVAL MOUTH HAZARD.

For the first time, JON-001 almost smiled.

A real one.

Tiny.

Painful.

“You’re loud.”

Kevin nodded.

“Yeah.”

“They’ll hear you.”

“Good.”

“No. Not good.”

The lift display flickered.

Every light in Riverside Court dimmed.

The complaint kiosk stopped printing.

The pages froze mid-air.

A new symbol appeared above the lift doors.

Not Platform’s crown.

Not Oakmere’s circles.

Not Five Stars.

An eye.

Simple.

Black.

Open.

JON-001 went white.

Kevin looked at it.

“Boss level?”

JON-001 whispered:

“No.”

The eye blinked.

A voice came from the lift.

Quiet.

Close.

As if someone was speaking directly behind each of us.

“The witness has disclosed.”

The pages around us began burning at the edges.

Linda shouted:

“Protect the documents!”

The freed Lindas moved.

Flat 5 shielded pages with his body.

Derek tried to blow out magical fire and inhaled smoke.

Dave slapped a burning notebook with both hands and shouted:

“Wasn’t me!”

Kevin stared at the eye.

“What are you?”

JON-001 answered for it.

“The Editor.”

The word silenced the room.

The lift doors opened.

Inside was not a room.

Not a corridor.

Not my flat.

A blank white space.

In the centre stood a desk.

At the desk sat a person.

Maybe.

They wore no face.

No body I could make sense of.

Only hands.

Dozens of hands.

Each holding a pen.

Every pen moved at once.

Writing in the air.

Crossing things out.

Changing lines.

Above the desk hung a sign:

CONTINUITY CONTROL

The Editor lifted one hand.

A red pen.

It drew a line through JON-001.

He gasped.

A red mark appeared across his chest.

Kevin stepped forward.

“Don’t.”

The Editor’s hand moved again.

A line appeared in the air.

JON-001 was never there.

JON-001 began fading.

Not dying.

Worse.

Being removed from having mattered.

“No,” I said.

The Editor wrote another line.

Nobody remembered the first witness.

JON-001’s face blurred.

I grabbed his arm.

He felt like paper and bone.

The Editor wrote:

Jon let go.

My fingers opened.

Not by choice.

Kevin grabbed my wrist and slammed it back onto JON-001’s arm.

“Edit that.”

The Editor paused.

Then all its hands turned towards Kevin.

Hundreds of pens scratched at once.

Lines appeared around him.

Kevin made a joke.

Kevin hid fear.

Kevin failed to save—

Kevin shouted:

“No spoilers!”

The pens kept writing.

Kevin staggered.

Words carved themselves into his ghost body.

COMIC RELIEF

COPING MECHANISM

PRODUCT BEHAVIOUR

DERIVATIVE

He fell to one knee.

Derek ran to him.

“Kevin!”

The Editor wrote:

Derek hesitated.

Derek froze mid-step.

Linda shouted:

“Objection!”

The Editor wrote:

Linda’s objection was noted and ignored.

Linda’s mouth shut.

Flat 3 swung her pan.

The Editor wrote:

Flat 3 missed.

She missed before she even swung.

The pan clattered against the lift frame.

Flat 5 threw a spoon.

The Editor wrote:

The spoon was irrelevant.

The spoon dropped dead in mid-air.

Flat 5 gasped like he’d been stabbed.

Dave stepped forward.

The Editor wrote nothing.

It paused.

All its hands hovered.

Dave blinked.

“Why isn’t it writing me?”

Kevin looked up, words crawling over his face.

“Because you’re chaos with slippers.”

Dave looked at the Editor.

Then said:

“Wasn’t me.”

The Editor wrote:

Dave denied responsibility.

Dave shook his head.

“No.”

The pen hesitated.

Dave swallowed.

“It was me.”

The Editor wrote:

Dave accepted responsibility.

Dave shook his head again.

“No.”

The pen stopped completely.

Dave pointed at the Editor.

“It wasn’t me and it was me.”

Everyone stared.

Derek, still frozen, managed through his teeth:

“That’s not grammar.”

Dave continued, gaining confidence.

“I did some of it. Not all. Some. Maybe more than I said. Less than you want. Enough that I’m sorry. Not enough that I’m everything.”

The Editor’s hands twitched.

Contradiction.

Nuance.

The nightmare of all clean systems.

Kevin lifted his head.

“Oh Dave, you beautiful admin virus.”

The red lines on Kevin flickered.

The Editor began writing faster.

Dave was confused.

Dave nodded.

“Yes.”

The pen stopped.

Dave was clear.

Dave nodded again.

“Also yes.”

The Editor’s hands shook.

Linda’s mouth opened.

The line around her snapped.

She shouted:

“Everyone contradict your assigned narrative!”

Derek unfroze.

“I’m stupid but occasionally useful!”

Kevin shouted:

“I’m funny and traumatised!”

Amanda said:

“I’m cheerful and currently livid!”

Flat 3 yelled:

“I’m aggressive and emotionally perceptive!”

Flat 5 lifted his spoon.

“This spoon is irrelevant and sacred!”

Ken said:

“I hate Kevin and he is my brother-ish nightmare!”

Kevin turned.

“Brother-ish?”

Ken shrugged.

“Draft term.”

The Editor’s pens scratched wildly.

Lines appeared and crossed themselves out.

Derek was—

Kevin was—

Linda was—

Jon was—

The system couldn’t compress us.

Not cleanly.

Not anymore.

I grabbed JON-001 again.

This time my grip held.

The Editor raised the red pen.

It wrote one final line.

The witness chose silence.

The line moved towards me.

I felt it press against my throat.

Cold.

Neat.

Final.

I understood then why JON-001 had looked so tired.

Silence was peaceful.

Silence was safe.

Silence meant no one could use your words.

No one could twist them.

No one could learn from them.

No one could accuse you of getting it wrong.

No one could see the scared parts hiding behind the jokes.

All I had to do was stop.

The red line tightened.

Kevin stood beside me.

Still covered in half-written labels.

He didn’t joke.

He just said:

“Tell it.”

I looked at him.

His face was frightened.

Openly now.

That mattered.

“Even if it feeds them?”

He nodded.

“Then we feed each other too.”

The line cut into my throat.

I could barely breathe.

JON-001 looked at me.

For the first time, he looked hopeful.

So I spoke.

Not loudly.

Not bravely.

Barely.

“My name is Jon.”

The Editor’s hands froze.

“I saw it.”

The pages stopped burning.

“I saw all of it.”

JON-001’s body became more solid.

“I was scared.”

The red line cracked.

“I made jokes.”

Kevin smiled faintly.

“So did he.”

“I kept things back.”

Linda stepped closer.

“But you’re telling us now.”

I nodded.

“I don’t know how to tell it without making it worse.”

Derek said:

“Mate, worse is kind of our brand.”

Dave nodded.

“Was partly me.”

Flat 3 raised her pan.

“Tell it messy.”

Amanda said:

“Tell it tired.”

Flat 5 held up his spoon.

“Tell it with appropriate cutlery where relevant.”

Ken looked at JON-001.

“Tell the first one too.”

The Editor screamed.

Not with a mouth.

With every pen snapping at once.

The white space inside the lift cracked.

The desk split.

Hands dropped pens.

The red line around my throat broke.

JON-001 gasped.

Pages flew from the shelves, through the lift, across the lobby, up the stairs and out through every crack in Riverside Court.

Not organised.

Not filed.

Loose.

Wild.

Uncontrolled.

Stories as warnings.

Stories as mess.

Stories as evidence.

Stories with too many jokes in the wrong places.

Stories that refused to become data without becoming human first.

The Editor reached for one page.

Kevin kicked the lift doors.

Both trainers connected.

The doors slammed shut on the Editor’s hands.

Every pen snapped.

A sound like a thousand crossed-out sentences screaming filled the building.

Then silence.

The lights came back on.

The lobby was destroyed.

Again.

Papers everywhere.

Ink on the walls.

A half-burnt notebook biting Dave’s slipper.

The complaints kiosk smoking.

Linda’s hair loose from its clip.

Derek lying under a pile of witness statements.

Flat 3 holding two pans now, somehow.

Flat 5 surrounded by spoons.

Amanda sitting on the stairs, breathing hard.

Ken leaning against the wall, staring at JON-001.

JON-001 stood in the centre of the lobby.

Still me.

Not me.

More himself than before.

He looked at his hands.

Then at me.

“I forgot what it felt like.”

“What?”

“To be believed.”

Nobody knew what to say.

Kevin ruined it.

“Very touching. Hate that for us.”

JON-001 almost laughed.

Almost.

Then he looked at the lift.

“The Editor won’t stay gone.”

Linda picked up a page and flattened it against her knee.

“No managers do.”

Derek emerged from under the papers.

“Can we please stop using the lift?”

Kevin pointed at him.

“This is what I’ve been saying.”

“You float.”

“Spiritually pro-stairs.”

Dave removed the biting notebook from his slipper.

“It’s still chewing.”

Flat 5 leaned down.

“Bad notebook.”

The notebook stopped.

The complaint kiosk printed:

COMPLAINT RECEIVED: LITERARY AGGRESSION.

I looked at JON-001.

“What happens now?”

He glanced at the pages scattered across the lobby.

“You have to decide what to do with them.”

Linda’s eyes lit up.

Kevin immediately said:

“No archive.”

She paused.

“I wasn’t going to say archive.”

“Your face said archive.”

“My face said organised safeguarding repository.”

“That is an archive wearing a nice coat.”

JON-001 looked at me.

“If you lock them away, Platform will find them.”

“What if we share them?”

He hesitated.

“That’s dangerous.”

Kevin nodded.

“Everything is dangerous. Dave once made soup in a kettle.”

Dave looked offended.

“It worked.”

“It was chunky.”

“It was rustic.”

Linda sighed.

“We do not need to decide now.”

Everyone looked at her.

She looked uncomfortable.

“What?”

Kevin smiled.

“Growth.”

“Do not.”

JON-001 stepped towards the lift.

I grabbed his arm.

“Where are you going?”

He looked at me.

“I don’t know.”

That answer scared me less than it should have.

Because at least it sounded honest.

The lift doors opened.

Empty.

Normal.

Suspiciously normal.

Derek pointed at it.

“Absolutely not.”

JON-001 smiled faintly.

“No lift.”

He turned to the stairs.

Kevin beamed.

“See? First witness gets it.”

JON-001 paused at the stairwell door.

Then looked back at me.

“You’ll tell them?”

I looked at the others.

Kevin.

Linda.

Derek.

Dave.

All of them messy and frightened and impossible to summarise cleanly.

“Yeah,” I said.

“But not everything.”

JON-001 nodded.

“Good.”

Then he stepped into the stairwell and vanished.

Not dramatically.

Not with smoke or screams.

One step.

Gone.

The stairwell light flickered.

Then held.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Derek said:

“So are we keeping the other Jon?”

Kevin looked at him.

“He literally just vanished.”

“Could come back.”

“Everyone comes back.”

Dave nodded.

“That’s true.”

Linda picked up a witness page.

Her face changed.

“What is it?” I asked.

She turned it around.

At the top, in red ink, were the words:

CONTINUITY CONTROL — EMERGENCY REVISION FAILED

Underneath:

EDITORIAL ESCALATION REQUIRED

Kevin closed his eyes.

“Of course.”

The complaint kiosk printed:

NEW ENTITY DETECTED.

Another line.

ROLE: PUBLISHER.

The lights flickered.

Every phone in the lobby buzzed.

Mine.

Derek’s.

Linda’s.

Amanda’s.

Even Dave’s old phone, which we all thought had died in the No-Fault Department.

A notification appeared.

No app icon.

No logo.

Just text.

Your story has been accepted.

Then another.

Publication scheduled.

Then another.

Audience selected.

Kevin looked at me.

“What audience?”

The noticeboard mould moved by itself.

Not Kevin’s handwriting.

Not Ken’s.

Not JON-001’s.

Something vast.

Something pleased.

The letters formed slowly.

EVERYONE.

The building groaned.

Outside Riverside Court, every window in the street lit up at once.

Not with light.

With screens.

Phones.

TVs.

Laptops.

Tablets.

Car displays.

Doorbell cameras.

Every screen showed the same thing.

A blank white page.

Then the first line appeared.

The lights went out.

Kevin stared through the glass.

Derek whispered:

“Oh, mate.”

Dave said:

“Wasn’t me.”

And for once, nobody corrected him.

Because none of us were sure.

The story had started telling itself.

Part 1 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/ocGLoQKhiy

Part 2 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/Yn30Y1lKs2

Part 3 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/TlcCGxMMoD

Part 4 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/dGYo0OrodO

Part 5 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/cGMaY8U4j4

Part 6 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/rb6neD23wj

Part 7 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/mxqNJUTHto

Part 8 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/0xQc3DFNe5

Part 9 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/QzwiJdD5uX

Part 10 https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/s/QcY9SE7cEA

The lift doors opened.

Inside was an office full of Lindas.

Rows of desks.

Rows of clipboards.

Rows of women with Linda’s face, Linda’s glasses, Linda’s posture and Linda’s terrifying ability to make silence feel like a disciplinary procedure.

Every clipboard snapped shut at once.

The sound hit the lobby like a gunshot made of stationery.

Derek flinched.

Dave flinched.

Flat 5 clutched his spoon.

Kevin stared into the lift.

Then slowly turned to me.

“Do you remember when buildings had stairs?”

I nodded.

“Vaguely.”

“Big fan of stairs.”

“You float.”

“Emotionally, I support stairs.”

Derek pointed at the lift.

“Can we not use it this time?”

The Lindas all looked up.

Perfectly together.

Perfectly calm.

Perfectly wrong.

In unison, they said:

“Item one: compliance.”

Kevin closed his eyes.

“I hate a meeting with harmonies.”

Linda stood at the front of our group, holding her supernatural clipboard like a shield.

Her real face had gone very still.

Not scared.

Worse.

Offended.

There were at least fifty copies of her in that office, and every single one had tidier hair.

One of them sat at the front desk.

Her badge read:

LND-001

She smiled.

“Welcome, Linda.”

Our Linda did not smile back.

“I did not agree to this.”

LND-001 looked down at her clipboard.

“Consent was inferred through repeated administrative excellence.”

Kevin raised one hand.

“I’d like to infer you can piss off.”

Every Linda looked at him.

He lowered his hand.

“Still valid.”

LND-001 stood.

The office lights behind her flickered.

Not badly.

Precisely.

Once.

Then again.

The kind of flicker that had been scheduled.

“Riverside Court has exceeded acceptable chaos thresholds.”

Dave whispered:

“Is that bad?”

Flat 3 said, “For us? It’s basically a compliment.”

LND-001 continued:

“Bins unresolved. Complaints escalating. Supernatural persons unsorted. Kiosk unmanaged. Residents emotionally inconsistent. Lift usage reckless.”

Derek pointed at her.

“Finally, someone says it.”

Kevin turned on him.

“Do not agree with factory Linda.”

“I’m just saying, the lift has been nothing but problems.”

“He’s not wrong,” I said.

Kevin looked at me like I’d betrayed him.

“You too?”

“The lift took us to a ghost app, a courtroom, a hospital corridor, a retirement home, a blame warehouse and now a Linda cloning office.”

Derek nodded.

“Objectively bad lift.”

Dave raised his hand.

“I once got stuck between floors for twenty minutes.”

Everyone stared.

“What?” he said.

Linda blinked.

“When?”

“Last month.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Dave looked uncomfortable.

“Thought it wasn’t me.”

Kevin pointed at him.

“That sentence has survived too many arcs.”

LND-001 tapped her clipboard.

The sound cut through us.

“Your comments have been minuted.”

Kevin whispered:

“Oh no. Evil minutes.”

The lift expanded.

Not physically.

Spatially.

The back wall dissolved into the office.

The office stretched far beyond the lift shaft, which made no architectural sense but had become very on-brand for Riverside Court.

Linda’s clipboard snapped open in her hands.

A new tab appeared:

LND SERIES AUDIT

Underneath:

ATTENDANCE REQUIRED

Linda read silently.

Then shut the clipboard.

“No.”

LND-001 tilted her head.

“No?”

“No.”

The copied Lindas exchanged identical looks.

Kevin whispered:

“This is what happens when Linda meets her own energy.”

Derek whispered back:

“She hates it.”

“She really does.”

LND-001 walked towards us.

The rows of other Lindas stood with her.

Not one chair scraped.

Not one paper shifted.

The entire office moved like a single organism with excellent filing habits.

“Linda,” LND-001 said, “you have been selected for correction.”

Our Linda’s jaw tightened.

“I am not a typo.”

“You are an unstable authority model.”

Kevin leaned towards me.

“That is a sick burn if you like admin.”

Linda did not look away.

“What is the purpose of this series?”

LND-001 smiled.

“To create compliant community leaders capable of containing disruption without challenging platform authority.”

Amanda, who had been quiet near the stairs, said softly:

“So… weaponised busybodies.”

Every Linda turned to her.

Amanda smiled.

“Sorry. Thought we were sharing.”

Kevin nodded.

“Rare Chipper Amanda hit.”

LND-001 ignored her and focused on Linda.

“The LND series is designed to identify, isolate and reproduce administrative personalities. Efficient. Controlling. Reliable. Respected by residents. Easy to redirect with responsibility.”

That last line landed.

Linda’s face didn’t change.

But her fingers tightened around the clipboard.

LND-001 stepped closer.

“You were never meant to resist management.”

Rows of Lindas echoed:

“You were meant to become it.”

The lobby lights dimmed.

Our Linda’s badge flickered.

DIRECTOR OF RESIDENT RESISTANCE

Then:

INTERIM COMPLIANCE OBSERVER

Then back.

Kevin moved beside her.

“Oi.”

LND-001 glanced at him.

“Unlicensed deceased community representative.”

Kevin smiled.

“Two trainers now, actually.”

“That is not relevant.”

“It is to me.”

The complaints kiosk printed:

COMPLAINT RECEIVED: FOOTWEAR DISMISAL.

Kevin pointed.

“Thank you, Kiosk.”

The kiosk printed:

PREFERRED DESIGNATION: KIOSK.

“Working relationship remains strong.”

LND-001 lifted her clipboard.

The lobby wall behind us changed into a screen.

Footage appeared.

Linda in meetings.

Linda organising bins.

Linda correcting notices.

Linda arguing with Oakmere.

Linda calling families from Cheerful Pines.

Linda standing in front of monsters with a clipboard because nobody else knew what to do.

Then the footage changed.

Linda alone.

Linda sitting at her kitchen table.

Linda rewriting minutes at 1:17 a.m.

Linda washing the same mug twice because her hands needed something to do.

Linda staring at a silent phone.

Linda practising what to say before calling someone.

Linda deleting the message.

My stomach sank.

Kevin stopped smiling.

Derek whispered:

“That feels private.”

LND-001 said:

“You accept responsibility because silence frightens you.”

Linda said nothing.

“You organise others because your own life is harder to arrange.”

Flat 3 stepped forward.

“Careful.”

LND-001 continued:

“You are useful because you do not stop.”

Linda’s face paled.

The copied Lindas said together:

“You do not stop.”

The words became physical.

I saw them.

Thin black lines stretching from the office, wrapping around our Linda’s wrists.

Her elbows.

Her shoulders.

Like puppet strings made from obligation.

Her clipboard grew heavier in her hands.

She gripped it tighter.

Kevin saw.

“Linda.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are absolutely not fine.”

She looked at him.

“Do not therapise me.”

Kevin blinked.

“That’s my line.”

LND-001 smiled.

“Observe.”

Every copied Linda sat back down.

Every clipboard opened.

Every pen began writing.

The sound filled the lobby.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

It was a horrible sound.

Too many pens.

Too many notes.

Too much observation.

The walls of Riverside Court began changing.

Not like Cheerful Pines.

Not fake happy.

Not clean.

Organised.

Labels appeared on everything.

STAIRS — SECONDARY EXIT

LIFT — HIGH-RISK TRANSPORT

Derek pointed.

“See? Even evil office agrees.”

Kevin shouted:

“Nobody asked the architecture!”

More labels appeared.

FLAT 3 — AGGRESSION RESOURCE

FLAT 5 — CUTLERY-BASED ANOMALY

DAVE — DENIAL LOOP, PARTIALLY REHABILITATED

Dave looked almost proud.

“Partially rehabilitated is better than questionable.”

AMANDA — POSITIVITY RESOURCE, MONITOR

Amanda winced.

Kevin pointed at the label.

“Nope.”

Black mould grew over it.

The label changed:

AMANDA — NEW RESIDENT, SURPRISING RIGHT HOOK

Amanda smiled faintly.

“Thank you.”

The label above Kevin appeared.

KEVIN — DISRUPTIVE ASSET

It flickered.

Then corrected.

KEVIN — DISRUPTIVE RESIDENT ADVOCATE

Kevin nodded.

“Better.”

Then another label appeared beneath it.

MANAGE THROUGH ATTACHMENT

His smile vanished.

The pens kept scratching.

The office was writing Riverside Court into order.

Every messy thing got a label.

Every person got a function.

Every function got a rule.

The hallway narrowed.

The crooked noticeboard straightened.

The mould receded.

The carpet cleaned itself.

Again.

Kevin looked furious.

“Stop cleaning the carpet!”

LND-001 glanced at him.

“Cleanliness reduces distress.”

“No, it removes character.”

“It removes smell.”

“Same thing in this building.”

The stairs door clicked.

Locked.

Everyone turned.

Kevin pointed at it.

“Hold on.”

He ran to the stairs door and grabbed the handle.

It didn’t move.

He looked back at us.

“They locked the stairs.”

Derek spread his arms.

“Brilliant. The one time we decide stairs are the emotionally healthy choice.”

I tried the handle too.

Nothing.

A label appeared above the door:

STAIRS CLOSED FOR YOUR SAFETY

Kevin kicked it.

With both trainers.

The door dented.

He looked down, briefly delighted.

Then remembered the situation.

“Still satisfying.”

LND-001’s voice sharpened.

“Residents must use approved routes.”

“The lift is a death cupboard,” Derek said.

The office Lindas wrote that down.

A new label appeared above the lift:

LIFT — DEATH CUPBOARD

Kevin looked at Derek.

“That might be your best work.”

Derek bowed.

LND-001’s smile twitched.

The label corrected itself:

LIFT — PRIMARY TRANSITIONAL ACCESS POINT

Kevin wrote in mould over it:

DEATH CUPBOARD

The label tried to correct.

The mould overwrote.

DEATH CUPBOARD

Correct.

Overwrite.

Correct.

Overwrite.

The lift signage flickered violently.

Linda whispered:

“Kevin.”

He kept staring at the sign.

“Busy.”

“They are distracting you.”

He turned.

Linda’s strings had tightened.

Her clipboard had grown larger.

Too large now.

It dragged her shoulders down.

Pages whipped around her, forming a shell.

Agenda pages.

Risk assessments.

Action plans.

Complaint logs.

The papers layered over her arms like armour.

No.

Not armour.

A cage.

LND-001 spoke softly.

“Director of Resident Resistance is inefficient. Interim Compliance Observer is safer. Come into the office.”

Linda shook her head.

Rows of Lindas stood again.

“Come into the office.”

Linda took one step towards the lift.

Flat 3 grabbed her arm.

Linda did not seem to notice.

“Linda,” Flat 3 said.

No response.

Kevin appeared in front of her.

“Oi. Clipboard witch.”

Her eyes flicked to him.

Barely.

“Bins first.”

Nothing.

Kevin’s face changed.

He looked scared.

“Linda.”

LND-001 smiled.

“She is tired.”

The word hit harder than anything else.

Because she was.

Of course she was.

She had been standing in front of demons, apps, managers, ghost courts, retirement homes and emotional admin for days.

She had been making lists while the rest of us panicked.

She had been turning fear into minutes because someone had to.

And now something had found the exact place to press.

LND-001 held out one hand.

“You can stop making decisions. Come into the office. Everything will be filed. Everything will be ordered. Everyone will be managed.”

Linda took another step.

Dave suddenly moved.

He stood in front of her.

Everyone froze.

Dave looked absolutely terrified.

But he stayed there.

“No.”

Linda blinked.

LND-001 looked at him.

“DVE unit.”

Dave swallowed.

“Dave.”

“You are not authorised to obstruct.”

Dave looked at Linda.

Then at the office full of copies.

Then back at Linda.

“She helped me do the apology.”

Kevin whispered:

“Oh, mate.”

Dave continued:

“And it was horrible.”

Flat 3 said, “Strong argument.”

“But it was mine,” Dave said. “She didn’t take it off me. She made me write it better.”

Linda’s eyes focused a little more.

Dave looked at LND-001.

“You lot would have written it for me.”

LND-001 paused.

Dave smiled nervously.

“And it probably would’ve used phrases like ‘moving forward’ and ‘lessons learned.’”

Kevin gasped.

“Corporate apology. Evil confirmed.”

Dave stood taller.

“Our Linda makes you feel bad properly.”

Linda blinked.

“That is not my official role.”

“It should be.”

The strings around her wrists loosened.

LND-001’s face hardened.

“DVE series remains unstable.”

Dave nodded.

“Yeah.”

He looked back at Kevin.

“Is unstable always bad?”

Kevin smiled.

“In this building, it’s basically a leadership qualification.”

The office lights flickered.

LND-001 lifted her clipboard.

Dave’s badge flashed.

DVE — RETURN TO NO-FAULT DEPARTMENT

He froze.

Kevin stepped between him and the lift.

“No.”

LND-001 looked at him.

“You cannot keep collecting broken things.”

Kevin’s face darkened.

“They’re called residents.”

“You call them idiots.”

“Yes. Affectionately.”

The Lindas began writing faster.

The paper cage around our Linda tightened again.

Amanda moved to help, but LND-001 glanced at her.

Amanda’s label flashed:

POSITIVITY RESOURCE — CONTAIN

Amanda stopped dead.

A smile tugged at her mouth against her will.

Kevin saw it.

“Chipper, no.”

Amanda gritted her teeth.

“I’m not.”

Flat 3 swung her pan at the nearest label.

It shattered.

The impact echoed through the office.

All the copied Lindas looked at her.

Flat 3 smiled.

“Sorry. Containable aggression.”

Then she kicked a desk.

The office shook.

For the first time, the Lindas were not perfectly synchronised.

One reached for her pen too late.

One blinked early.

One looked confused.

Linda’s eyes sharpened.

She noticed.

Of course she did.

“Our strength is inconsistency,” she whispered.

Kevin grinned.

“That sounds fake but useful.”

Linda straightened under the weight of the paper cage.

“Everyone do the wrong thing.”

Derek perked up.

“I can do that.”

Kevin pointed at him.

“Not too wrong.”

“Define too wrong.”

“No lift buttons.”

Derek lowered his hand.

Flat 5 threw his only spoon into the air and caught it.

Then placed it on the floor instead of in his pocket.

The office lights flickered.

“That felt awful,” he said.

Dave walked to the recycling bin, removed a perfectly clean cardboard box, and placed it in general waste.

Linda inhaled sharply.

“Dave.”

“You said wrong thing.”

“That is spiritually difficult for me.”

Kevin saluted him.

“Brave.”

Amanda stopped smiling.

Deliberately.

Not by becoming sad.

Just by letting her face rest.

The label above her cracked.

Flat 3 placed her frying pan gently on the floor.

Then sat in an armchair.

“Pacifism feels disgusting.”

The office Lindas began whispering.

Their pens stuttered.

Derek picked up the haunted peanut butter lid, looked directly at LND-001, and did nothing with it.

Kevin stared.

“That might be your bravest act.”

Derek nodded.

“I nearly threw it.”

“I know.”

The office juddered.

The labels on the walls scrambled.

DAVE — DENIAL LOOP

became:

DAVE — ACCEPTABLE RISK

FLAT 3 — AGGRESSION RESOURCE

became:

FLAT 3 — CHOOSES WHEN

AMANDA — POSITIVITY RESOURCE

became:

AMANDA — NOT ON DEMAND

FLAT 5 — CUTLERY DEPENDENCY

became:

FLAT 5 — SPOON SOVEREIGN

Flat 5 gasped.

“That’s beautiful.”

Kevin’s label flickered.

KEVIN — DISRUPTIVE ASSET

became:

KEVIN — PAIN IN THE ARSE

Kevin clutched his chest.

“Finally. Accuracy.”

Linda’s paper cage cracked.

She lifted her clipboard.

It had become huge.

Ridiculous.

A weaponised lever arch file.

She looked at it.

Then at LND-001.

Then she dropped it.

Every copied Linda gasped.

Our Linda stood with empty hands.

For one horrible second, she looked frightened.

Then relieved.

The supernatural clipboard hit the floor.

It did not break.

It opened.

Pages flew everywhere.

Agendas.

Minutes.

Plans.

Notes.

All the things Linda had carried.

The things that helped.

The things that trapped.

They scattered across the lobby.

Our Linda took a breath.

LND-001 stared.

“Unacceptable.”

Linda looked at her.

“No.”

Her voice was quiet.

That made everyone listen.

“You are not order. You are avoidance dressed as order.”

Kevin whispered:

“Jesus.”

Linda continued:

“You remove difficulty and call it management. You remove mess and call it safety. You remove choice and call it care.”

She stepped forward.

No clipboard.

No shield.

Just Linda.

“I use order to help people move through chaos. You use it to stop them moving at all.”

The office behind LND-001 darkened.

The rows of copied Lindas began to blur.

Some looked scared.

Some looked angry.

Some looked exhausted.

LND-001’s smile vanished.

“You will fail without structure.”

Linda nodded.

“Sometimes.”

The word landed like a bomb.

Because LND-001 had no defence against honest imperfection.

Linda continued:

“And then I will try again.”

Kevin looked at Dave.

Dave looked at Kevin.

Derek whispered to me:

“I think she just stabbed it with personal growth.”

LND-001 screamed.

All the copied Lindas screamed with her.

Their voices were identical.

Then not.

One scream cracked into a sob.

Another into laughter.

Another into silence.

The office lights burst.

Desks overturned.

Clipboards flew open.

The rows of Lindas began changing.

Not disappearing.

Waking.

One ripped off her badge.

Another snapped her pen.

Another looked at our Linda and mouthed:

“Thank you.”

LND-001 staggered backwards.

“No. Structure must hold.”

Kevin picked up Linda’s dropped clipboard.

It was too big for him.

He struggled.

“Bloody hell, this is heavy.”

Linda looked at him.

“Put that down.”

“No. Dramatic moment.”

He heaved it upright.

“Dave, help.”

Dave grabbed the other side.

Together, they lifted the massive clipboard like a medieval door.

Kevin grinned at LND-001.

“You made this too heavy for her.”

Dave nodded.

“So we’re returning it.”

They charged.

Badly.

Slowly.

At an angle.

The clipboard clipped the wall.

Dave tripped over a page.

Kevin shouted, “Commit!”

They slammed the clipboard into LND-001.

She went down under the weight of every agenda she had tried to weaponise.

Flat 3 cheered.

“That was the worst tackle I’ve ever seen.”

Derek nodded.

“Looked like two lads moving a sofa upstairs.”

Kevin, lying half under the clipboard, shouted:

“Still worked!”

LND-001 crawled out from beneath it.

Her face had cracked.

Not like porcelain.

Like paper.

Underneath were forms.

Thousands of them.

Agendas folded into skin.

Minutes layered as bone.

Action plans where organs should have been.

She opened her mouth.

A roll of labels spilled out.

COMPLIANT

CONTROLLED

MANAGED

SAFE

Linda picked up one of the labels.

Looked at it.

Then tore it in half.

The other Lindas did the same.

One by one.

The office screamed.

The lift shaft shook.

The stairs door unlocked with a click.

Everyone turned.

Kevin pointed at it.

“Stairs!”

Derek almost cried.

“Beautiful normal stairs.”

I ran to the door and opened it.

Concrete stairwell.

Grey walls.

Emergency light.

A faint smell of damp.

Never had anything looked so comforting.

Kevin stared at it like it was a sunrise.

“I take back every joke I’ve ever made about stairs.”

Derek nodded.

“Stairs don’t open into personality factories.”

Dave said:

“Stairs have never cloned me.”

Flat 5 added:

“Stairs respect spoons.”

Flat 3 picked up her pan.

“Stairs know their role.”

Amanda looked into the stairwell.

“Honestly, lovely energy.”

Kevin turned to her.

“That is finally an appropriate time to say that.”

The remaining copied Lindas began moving towards the stairwell too.

Not attacking.

Leaving.

LND-001 shrieked.

“You cannot leave the office!”

One of the copies stopped.

Turned.

And said:

“Meeting adjourned.”

Then walked out.

Kevin looked at Linda.

“She stole your line?”

Linda smiled faintly.

“I don’t have ownership of efficiency.”

LND-001 collapsed.

Not dramatically.

Administratively.

Her body folded into a stack of forms.

Then into a file.

Then into a single clipboard.

Black.

Cracked.

Labelled:

LND-001 — ARCHIVED

The complaints kiosk rolled forward and printed:

COMPLAINT RESOLVED: UNAUTHORISED LINDA PRODUCTION.

Then:

NEW ISSUE: TOO MANY FREED LINDAS.

The stairwell was now full of Linda variants.

Some looked exactly like her.

Some younger.

Some older.

Some tired beyond words.

One had a shaved head and three earrings.

One wore a cardigan that said MINUTES ARE VIOLENCE.

One was crying while still correcting apostrophes on a notice.

Kevin stared.

“This is too much Linda.”

Our Linda looked at them.

For once, she seemed completely overwhelmed.

One of the freed Lindas approached.

Her badge read:

LND-008

She looked at our Linda.

“Where do we go?”

Our Linda opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Looked at the stairs.

Then at the lobby.

Then at Kevin.

He shook his head immediately.

“No.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking rota.”

“I was not.”

“Linda.”

She sighed.

“I was thinking temporary rota.”

Kevin pointed at the stairwell full of copies.

“We cannot rota the Lindas.”

Derek whispered:

“Can the Lindas rota themselves?”

Every Linda in the stairwell turned to him.

Derek stepped behind me.

“Regret.”

LND-008 looked around.

“We were made to manage.”

Our Linda shook her head.

“You were made to contain. Not the same thing.”

“What do we do instead?”

Linda looked at her empty hands.

Then at the dropped pages.

Then she said:

“You decide.”

The freed Lindas recoiled slightly.

Apparently freedom was more frightening than paperwork.

Kevin leaned towards Dave.

“I get that.”

Dave nodded.

“Choosing is hard.”

The complaint kiosk printed:

SUGGESTION: FORM A SUPPORT GROUP.

Kevin looked at it.

“That’s dangerously sensible.”

The kiosk printed:

APOLOGY RECEIVED IN ADVANCE.

Linda nodded slowly.

“A support group. Not a committee.”

Kevin pointed at her.

“Careful.”

“Not a committee.”

“Say it again.”

“Not a committee.”

The freed Lindas murmured among themselves.

LND-008 nodded.

“We can start with tea.”

Amanda smiled.

“Tea helps.”

Kevin looked suspicious.

“Is tea just liquid admin?”

Linda picked up a single page from the floor and folded it neatly.

“No. Tea is pause.”

That stopped him.

He looked at her.

Then nodded.

“Fine. Tea first.”

Derek gasped.

“Not bins?”

Kevin looked horrified at himself.

“God, what have I become?”

Ken, who had been watching quietly from the back of the lobby, spoke.

“Reasonable.”

Kevin pointed at him.

“Take that back.”

“No.”

“Ken, I swear—”

The lift dinged.

Everyone froze.

Then all of us slowly turned towards it.

Kevin raised one finger.

“No.”

The lift doors remained open.

Empty.

Waiting.

The stairwell stood open beside it.

Normal.

Damp.

Safe-ish.

Derek stepped towards the stairs.

“So we’re all in agreement?”

“Stairs,” I said.

“Stairs,” Dave said.

“Stairs,” Flat 5 said.

“Stairs,” Amanda said.

“Stairs,” Flat 3 said.

Kevin looked at Linda.

Linda looked at the lift.

The lift light flickered.

The display changed.

PLEASE USE LIFT

Kevin laughed.

“No chance, death cupboard.”

The display changed again.

STAIRS CURRENTLY UNSAFE

Dave looked into the stairwell.

A normal spider sat on the wall.

He pointed.

“There is a spider.”

Kevin stared at him.

“Dave.”

“It’s technically unsafe.”

Flat 3 grabbed Dave by the shoulders and moved him into the stairwell.

“We are not being bullied by a lift.”

The lift display flickered faster.

IMPORTANT PLATFORM MESSAGE

URGENT RESIDENT TRANSITION

FREE BISCUITS

Linda paused.

Kevin shouted:

“Do not fall for lift biscuits!”

Linda looked offended.

“I was not falling for lift biscuits.”

“You paused.”

“I was assessing the credibility.”

“The credibility is death cupboard.”

She nodded.

“Fair.”

The lift doors began closing.

Before they shut, a voice spoke from inside.

Not LND-001.

Not Five Stars.

Not Ms Vale.

Something new.

Deep.

Old.

Bored.

“Stairs are not exempt.”

The doors closed.

The stairwell light flickered.

Everyone looked at each other.

Kevin swallowed.

“Still better than the lift.”

Derek nodded.

“Massively.”

We went up the stairs.

All of us.

Residents.

Ghosts.

Freed Lindas.

Ken.

Amanda.

Dave.

Flat 3.

Flat 5.

Linda without her clipboard for the first time since I’d known her.

Kevin floated beside me for two flights, then remembered he had two trainers and insisted on walking.

He made it one and a half flights before complaining.

“Stairs are longer than I remembered.”

“You’re dead,” Derek said.

“I’m still anti-cardio.”

“You float.”

“Spiritually anti-cardio.”

Dave, behind us, said:

“Wasn’t me.”

Kevin looked back.

“What wasn’t?”

“The stairs.”

Kevin smiled.

“Proud of you, mate.”

On the third landing, the lights went out.

Everyone stopped.

The stairwell was silent.

Then we heard it.

From below.

A clipboard snapping shut.

Then another.

Then another.

Hundreds of them.

The freed Lindas froze.

Our Linda whispered:

“No.”

The walls of the stairwell changed.

Labels appeared.

Not from the office.

Older.

Carved into concrete.

FIRE EXIT

NO SMOKING

KEEP CLEAR

Then new ones burned underneath.

UNAUTHORISED ROUTE

RESIDENTS OUT OF PROCESS

STAIRS ARE FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY

Kevin whispered:

“Oh, come on.”

From above us, a door opened.

Not a flat door.

Not a landing door.

An office door.

Impossible.

It swung out of the concrete wall.

Inside was darkness.

And a desk.

A single desk.

A single clipboard.

One chair.

On the chair sat our Linda.

Except our Linda was standing beside us.

The Linda in the chair looked older.

Tired.

Perfectly still.

Her badge read:

LND-000

The freed Lindas began backing down the stairs.

Our Linda couldn’t move.

LND-000 looked up.

Her eyes were red from crying.

Her smile was calm.

Broken.

Final.

She said:

“Item one.”

The stairwell door slammed shut above us.

The one below slammed too.

LND-000 opened her clipboard.

“Sacrifice.”

Kevin stepped in front of Linda.

“Nope.”

LND-000 looked at him.

Then at our Linda.

“You know why there are so many of us.”

Our Linda’s voice was barely there.

“No.”

LND-000 smiled sadly.

“Because one Linda is never enough.”

The stairwell temperature dropped.

Every freed Linda lowered her head.

LND-000 continued:

“You save one building. Then another. Then another. Then they learn to wait for you.”

Pages began falling from the darkness above.

Agendas.

Complaints.

Names.

Rotas.

Emergency plans.

Safeguarding reports.

Every problem from every site.

They rained down the stairwell.

One page landed on my shoulder.

CHEERFUL PINES FOLLOW-UP

Another hit Derek.

DVE SERIES AUDIT RESPONSE

Another hit Amanda.

AMN SITE WELFARE CHECK

Another hit Kevin.

KVN BODY AFTERCARE

Kevin read it.

Then looked up.

“Body aftercare?”

The page wrapped around his wrist.

Another wrapped around Linda.

Then another.

Then ten.

Then twenty.

The paperwork was alive.

It wrapped around her arms first.

Then her shoulders.

Then her throat.

Not attacking like a monster.

Assigning.

That was worse.

LND-000 said:

“There is always one more emergency.”

Linda couldn’t breathe.

Kevin tore at the pages.

They reformed.

Derek tried to rip them and got tangled in a risk assessment.

“I’m being action-planned!”

Flat 3 hacked at the papers with her pan.

Flat 5 sliced one with the spoon.

Dave grabbed a handful and shouted:

“Wasn’t me!”

The papers paused.

Then wrapped around him too.

“Bad instinct!” Kevin shouted.

The stairwell became a storm of admin.

Not comic admin.

Not Linda’s useful lists.

This was endless.

Suffocating.

Every page said someone needed her.

Every page said if she stopped, someone would be hurt.

Every page said she was selfish if she rested.

Linda was almost buried now.

Only her face remained visible.

Her eyes met mine.

For the first time, I didn’t see authority.

I saw terror.

Kevin saw it too.

He stopped tearing pages.

“Linda.”

LND-000 watched from the desk.

“You cannot save her by helping. Helping is the trap.”

Kevin looked at the paperwork.

Then at Linda.

Then at all of us.

He smiled faintly.

Not his normal grin.

Something smaller.

“Good thing I’m naturally unhelpful.”

He stepped back.

Linda stared at him.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

He sat down on the stairs.

Cross-legged.

Two trainers planted badly.

“I’m doing nothing.”

Derek stopped fighting his risk assessment.

“You can do that?”

Kevin shrugged.

“Trying it.”

The paperwork paused.

It had no category for Kevin doing nothing.

Kevin looked at me.

“Jon.”

I understood.

Maybe because the No-Fault Department was still in my bones.

Maybe because I had seen what guilt did when it became everything.

I sat down beside him.

The pages around my arm loosened.

Derek stared.

Then sat too.

“I hate this.”

Kevin nodded.

“Good. Sit in it.”

Dave sat.

Flat 3 sat.

Flat 5 sat carefully, spoon in lap.

Amanda sat.

Ken sat last, scowling like rest was a personal insult.

One by one, the freed Lindas sat on the stairs.

No one moved.

No one helped.

No one fixed.

No one organised.

The paperwork storm circled us, confused.

LND-000’s calm expression cracked.

“What are you doing?”

Linda, buried in pages, whispered:

“Nothing.”

Kevin pointed at her.

“Exactly.”

Linda closed her eyes.

The pages tightened once.

Then loosened.

A single sheet fell from her shoulder.

Then another.

Then another.

LND-000 stood.

“You are needed.”

Linda opened her eyes.

“Yes.”

The pages stopped falling.

“And I am tired.”

The stairwell went silent.

LND-000’s face broke.

Not with anger.

With grief.

Because she was Linda too.

The first one.

The one who never stopped.

The one who became an office.

The one Platform copied because exhaustion was so easy to exploit.

Our Linda reached out.

Not to take a clipboard.

Not to accept a role.

Just to touch LND-000’s hand.

“You can sit down.”

LND-000 stared.

“I have minutes.”

“They can wait.”

“I have unresolved actions.”

“They can wait.”

“People need—”

Linda interrupted her.

“People can help each other.”

Kevin whispered:

“Not me though.”

Linda looked at him.

“Even you.”

He sighed.

“Growth is relentless.”

LND-000 looked at the stairs.

Then at the empty space beside us.

Slowly, she sat.

The office door behind her vanished.

The desk vanished.

The clipboard remained for a moment.

Then folded into a teacup.

Kevin stared.

“Clipboard into tea. That’s her final evolution.”

Linda picked up the cup.

Steam rose from it.

For the first time, she smiled properly.

Small.

Tired.

Real.

The stairwell doors unlocked.

The labels faded.

The freed Lindas exhaled together.

Derek looked around.

“So stairs are also haunted?”

Kevin nodded.

“Less haunted.”

“Marginally.”

“Still better than the lift.”

The lift dinged somewhere below us.

Everyone shouted:

“NO.”

We returned to the lobby using the stairs.

It took ages.

Kevin complained the entire way.

At one point he claimed his “new shoes needed breaking in emotionally.”

Derek told him to float.

Kevin said walking was important for character development.

Then complained again nine steps later.

By the time we got back, the lift was waiting with its doors open.

Inside was darkness.

And a polite sign.

WE APOLOGISE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED.

Kevin read it.

Then spat mould onto the floor.

“No you don’t.”

The complaint kiosk printed:

COMPLAINT RECEIVED: LIFT INSINCERITY.

Linda stood in the lobby, no clipboard in hand.

The freed Lindas gathered around her.

LND-000 held the teacup.

Dave looked at them.

“So… are they all staying?”

Kevin made a sound like a dying kettle.

Linda said:

“Temporarily.”

Kevin pointed at her.

“That word has done a lot of damage in this building.”

Derek sat on the bottom stair.

“I vote we establish a lift ban.”

Kevin nodded.

“Seconded.”

Linda looked at the lift.

Then at the stairs.

Then at the residents.

“Not a ban.”

Everyone groaned.

“A protocol.”

Kevin closed his eyes.

“Here we go.”

Linda lifted one finger.

“Lift use is only permitted when the destination is visible, verified, non-clinical, non-judicial, non-corporate, non-cheerful, non-blame-based, and not full of duplicate residents.”

Dave raised his hand.

“What if it’s just Tesco?”

Kevin looked at him.

“Dave, if that lift ever opens into Tesco, do not trust the meal deal.”

Flat 5 nodded.

“Haunted sandwiches are real.”

Derek frowned.

“Are they?”

Flat 5 stared at him.

“Everything is real now.”

Fair.

The complaints kiosk printed again.

This time, the paper was black.

Everyone froze.

Kevin groaned.

“Can we not?”

Linda took the slip.

Read it.

Her face changed.

Not scared.

Not exactly.

More like someone had just seen the next page of a story she already hated.

“What?” I asked.

She turned it around.

LND SERIES AUDIT: PAUSED

DVE SERIES AUDIT: DISRUPTED

AMN SERIES AUDIT: ACTIVE

KVN SERIES AUDIT: ACTIVE

Underneath, a new line appeared.

JON SERIES: UNCLASSIFIED

The lobby went very quiet.

Kevin slowly looked at me.

“Jon series?”

Derek frowned.

“What’s Jon’s thing?”

Nobody answered.

The kiosk printed another line.

WITNESS TYPE DETECTED.

Then:

JON-001 LOCATED.

The lift dinged.

Everyone turned.

The doors opened.

For once, it did not show a hospital.

Or an office.

Or a courtroom.

Or a retirement home.

It showed my flat.

My actual flat.

Empty.

Dark.

At the centre of the room stood me.

Another me.

Still.

Silent.

Watching the doorway.

Kevin moved closer to me.

“Jon?”

The other me smiled.

Not wide.

Not wrong.

Worse.

Sadly.

Like he already knew how this ended.

Then he raised one hand and pressed a finger to his lips.

The lights in Riverside Court went out.

In the darkness, the other me whispered:

“Don’t tell them.”