Yandere Stream

For a few long seconds, nobody spoke.

Not Kai. Not Luna. Not Derek. Even the chat seemed to lose its ability to joke.

Daniel’s question echoed through the apartment.

"Mr. Mercer... why are you inside Apartment 7B?"

Kai felt as though the floor had shifted beneath him.

"...What?"

His own voice sounded distant, almost detached.

"I said..." Daniel took a shaky breath. "Why are you in 7B?"

"I’m not."

Kai slowly looked around his apartment as though seeing it for the first time.

"My lease says 7A."

"I know what your lease says," Daniel replied, sounding utterly exhausted. "And that’s exactly why I’m calling."

A loud bang echoed through Daniel’s end of the line, followed by muffled voices. Someone shouted for a master key, while another barked an order Kai couldn’t make out.

A few seconds later, Daniel came back.

"Mr. Mercer..."

"...Can you tell me exactly where you’re standing?"

Kai frowned.

"My living room."

"No." Daniel hesitated. "I mean... describe your apartment."

Kai glanced around the room, suddenly aware of every familiar detail.

"My desk is against the window. The kitchen’s on the left. The hallway goes toward my bedroom. The bathroom’s on the right. The bookshelf is beside the hallway."

Silence.

Daniel didn’t answer.

For several long seconds, Kai heard nothing except faint breathing through the speaker.

"...That’s impossible."

Kai’s heart skipped a beat.

"What?"

"That layout..." Daniel’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. "...That’s 7B."

Every hair on Kai’s arms stood on end.

"No."

"It can’t be."

"My apartment has always looked like this."

"I know."

"No, you don’t understand."

Kai laughed nervously.

"I’ve lived here for almost two years."

"I know."

"I’ve streamed here."

"I know."

"I’ve had deliveries."

"I know."

"My neighbors know where I live."

"I know."

Each answer came without hesitation, and somehow that made them even more unsettling.

Daniel fell silent again before speaking in a voice that carried genuine fear.

"...Mr. Mercer."

"...Apartment 7A has never had a hallway."

The words struck harder than any threat Kai had heard all night.

His eyes drifted toward the hallway stretching into darkness.

The hallway he’d walked through every day. The hallway where he’d carried laundry baskets, stubbed his toe more times than he could count, and even repainted because he’d hated the original beige walls.

The hallway that...

According to Daniel...

Didn’t exist.

His breathing grew uneven.

"That’s not funny."

"I’m not joking."

Kai slowly turned toward the bookshelf.

Toward the maintenance shaft.

Toward the impossible gap hidden behind it.

Nothing about tonight felt disconnected anymore.

Everything connected.

The hallway.

The hidden space.

The old floor plans.

Apartment 7B.

His phone buzzed.

A message from Derek appeared on the screen.

Don’t tell him anything else.

Before Kai could even read it twice, Luna spoke.

"Kai."

"...Yeah?"

"I need you to ask Daniel something."

"What?"

"What color are your bedroom walls?"

Kai blinked.

"What?"

"The walls."

"...They’re gray."

"No."

Daniel answered before Kai could continue.

Kai froze.

Daniel sounded completely certain.

"They’re blue."

Kai actually laughed.

It was short, nervous, and completely disbelieving.

"My bedroom is gray."

"It was painted blue."

"No."

"It still is."

Kai frowned.

"I literally slept in it yesterday."

"Then go look."

Silence settled over the apartment.

Daniel hadn’t argued.

He hadn’t tried to convince him.

He’d simply invited Kai to prove him wrong.

Kai slowly turned toward the hallway.

The bedroom waited at the end.

Its door stood half-open, exactly where it always had.

Every instinct told him not to move.

Luna’s voice came softly through his headset.

"You don’t have to."

"I know."

Kai swallowed.

"But now I have to know."

The words tasted bitter.

Curiosity.

Again.

Always curiosity.

Every mystery tonight had lured him somewhere he shouldn’t go.

Every answer had only created another question.

He hated himself for it.

Yet he couldn’t stop.

He took one careful step.

The hardwood floor creaked beneath his foot.

Then another.

The hallway suddenly felt much longer than it had that morning.

His flashlight swept across familiar details—the crooked picture frame he’d never bothered straightening, the dent in the wall from when he’d dropped the vacuum cleaner, and the light switch beside the bathroom.

Everything looked exactly as it always had.

Somehow, that made Daniel’s words even worse.

Kai reached the bedroom door and rested one hand against the frame.

"Luna."

"I’m here."

"If this room is blue..."

His voice barely existed anymore.

"...I’m moving."

A tiny laugh escaped her.

Brief.

Soft.

Genuine.

"I’ll help you pack."

The warmth in her voice steadied him just enough to push the door open.

The bedroom came into view.

Exactly as he’d left it.

An unmade bed.

A chair buried beneath laundry.

Computer boxes stacked neatly in the corner.

Gray walls.

Kai let out a long breath.

"See?"

"They’re gray."

Relief flooded his chest.

For one glorious second, reality won.

"I’m telling you," he said into the phone. "They’re gr—"

The word died in his throat.

His flashlight drifted across the wall beside the closet.

Something caught the edge of the beam.

Barely visible beneath the gray paint...

was another color.

Blue.

Not a reflection.

Not a shadow.

Paint.

The gray wasn’t the original wall.

It was a newer coat painted over an older one, uneven enough that patches of faded blue bled through beneath it.

Kai stepped closer.

His heartbeat thundered in his ears.

Someone had repainted the room.

Recently.

Very recently.

He reached out.

His fingertips brushed the wall.

The paint felt wrong.

Not wet.

But softer than it should have been.

As though it hadn’t fully cured.

His stomach twisted.

Slowly, he rubbed his thumb across the surface.

Gray paint flaked away.

Beneath it...

The original wall was unmistakably blue.

Behind him, Daniel whispered through the phone,

"...That’s Apartment 7B."

Kai barely heard him.

His attention had shifted to something else.

There was writing beneath the fresh coat of paint.

The letters were only partially visible where the gray had begun to peel.

He scraped away another small section.

Then another.

More words appeared.

Not printed.

Handwritten.

The same sentence repeated over and over in hundreds of overlapping lines, as though someone had spent days covering the entire wall before desperately trying to hide it beneath fresh paint.

Kai cleared away enough to read the first complete sentence.

His blood turned to ice.

It wasn’t a warning.

It wasn’t a threat.

It was a plea.

Please don’t stream again.