Clinging tightly to her sleeping husband in the d3:ad of night, the wife was frozen with shock when his phone lit up with a text message from his own number—”I’m coming home”—followed by the sound of a key turning in the lock
PART I: THE PITCH-BLACK SHADOWS AND TIME’S SURRENDER
In a certain poor city, where rows of level-four tenement houses were tightly compressed within the stifling atmosphere of sweltering summer nights, life drifted by through the wear and tear of earning a living and heavy, soaking drops of grueling sweat. That small alleyway at midnight sank into an eerie, overwhelming silence, broken only by the dry, rhythmic whir of a creaking electric fan and the chirping of insects outside a desolate vacant lot.
Inside the cramped rented room, the damp, mottled lime walls radiated a pungent odor of old cement and earth moisture following a sudden rain shower. The wife tossed and turned on the rickety wooden bed, her wide-open eyes staring into the pitch-black void of the ceiling above. Sleep seemed to have abandoned her hours ago, leaving behind an empty mind burdened with constant, nagging anxieties about tomorrow’s exhausting burdens.
Beside her, her husband was fast asleep. He lay turned away from her, his broad, sturdy back radiating familiar warmth after a long day of exhaustion from night-shift work at an industrial zone on the city’s edge. Out of habit, the wife inched closer, wrapping her arms tightly around his solid waist, burying her face into his broad back to seek a shred of safety amidst this precarious world.
The sensation of holding her life partner of many years calmed her heart somewhat. His breathing was steady and deep, exhaling the rhythmic cadence typical of someone deeply immersed in exhausted slumber. She gently closed her eyes, relaxing her body, telling herself that all the storms out there stopped behind this tightly locked door.
Yet, this world has never allowed mortals to find peace for too long.
PART II: THE TOXIC BLUE LIGHT AND THE MESSAGE FROM BEYOND
Just as the thick darkness was swallowing every sound, the cell phone resting on the small plastic stool beside the bedside suddenly rang out with a short, sharp beep.
The blue light from the phone screen flashed, cutting across the dark like a knife tearing through a silent curtain. Initially, the wife merely intended to reach out and power down or flip the phone face down to avoid disturbing her husband’s sleep. However, the blinding light from the screen cast against the corner of her eye, revealing a text notification from the most familiar name: Beloved Husband.
Her heart skipped a beat. She squinted at the words displayed crystal clear on the screen, the chilling light casting across her face as it grew increasingly pale with astonishment:
“Did you lock the door properly? I’m coming home soon.”
Time in the room seemed to freeze. The blood drained from her body in a split second.
She lowered her head to look down at the man lying right beside her. His arms were still embracing her, or more accurately, she was clinging tightly to him. That back was still warm, that chest still heaved with a heartbeat, and his breath still blew steadily into the dark space. He was asleep. Fast asleep, showing no sign of someone who had just picked up a phone to text, nor any possibility of having just stepped outside.
Then… what was that recent text message? Who was the one sending that question in the dead of night?
Panic began to engulf her mind like a tightly wound spring compressed to its absolute limit. A cold shiver ran down her spine, and cold sweat poured profusely across her forehead. She wanted to call out to her husband, wanted to shake the man beside her hard to seek protection, but her throat was choked tight, unable to utter even a faint groan.
And then, before she could regain her composure to figure out what hellish thing was happening, a sound painfully real rang out from the living room outside, piercing through the thin wooden door.
Clack… click… creak…
It was the sound of metal keys slipping into the main door lock, turning carefully once, then the sound of the latch snapping open. Someone was unlocking the door and entering the house!
PART III: THE BEDFELLOW WITH A MONSTER’S FACE
The wife’s entire body trembled like a leaf. Overwhelming terror gripped her chest, making her feel as though she were sinking to the bottom of a deep sea with no way out.
If the person outside in the living room was using keys to unlock and enter… that meant her actual husband, who had been working the night shift since early evening, had finally come home.
But if the person outside the main door was her husband… then who was the one lying right on this bed, the one wrapping his arms around her waist, pressing his body against hers in the darkness for the past few hours… who on earth was he?!
A dark, morbid, and utterly terrifying thought flashed through her mind, making her nearly faint on the spot. This man was not her husband. He was an impostor, some gruesome entity that had sneaked into the rental room while she carelessly forgot to lock the door earlier that afternoon, or… he had quietly lain in wait here beforehand, waiting for nightfall to disguise himself as her life partner.
But how could he completely mimic her husband’s warmth, scent, and breathing to such perfection? How could he lie beside her through the entire long night without revealing a single flaw except for a fateful text message?!
Just as her panic reached its peak, the man lying beside her suddenly stirred.
His broad back moved. He slowly turned around to face her. In the pitch-black darkness, the impostor’s eyes opened, gleaming with a cold, bizarre, and utterly cruel light. He did not snore, nor did he sound drowsy like someone waking from a daze. His gaze drilled deep into the wife’s pale, sweat-soaked face with a mocking, distorted, and morbid half-smile.
The arms wrapping tightly around her waist suddenly grew immensely heavy, resembling an iron shackle digging deep into her flesh.
— “What are you looking at, my love?” – a deep, raspy voice emerged from the stranger’s throat.
That was not her husband’s voice. Try as he might to mimic it, that pitch still carried the chill, ruggedness, and distortion of something not belonging to the human world.
The wife froze like a stone statue. She wanted to scream, wanted to bolt away, but her legs were completely paralyzed.
Right at that moment, from the living room outside, heavy footsteps approached the bedroom door. Keys dropped with a clatter onto the floor, accompanied by a familiar, tired yet warm voice echoing in the quiet space:
— “Honey! I’m back from my shift… Why is the front door wide open like this? Did you forget to lock up before falling asleep?”
That was her husband’s real voice. Her flesh-and-blood husband, taking weary steps after a hard day’s labor to return to their poor, modest shelter.
PART IV: THE BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL IN THE SMALL ROOM
The impostor lying on the bed heard the footsteps outside the door, a flash of malicious light gleaming in his eyes. He showed no panic at all. On the contrary, the corners of his mouth stretched wider into a hair-raising grin.
— “Your husband is back,” – the figure whispered right beside her ear, his freezing breath blowing against her auricle and sending goosebumps across her entire body. – “Would you like to guess… who your real husband is?”
— “You… who are you? Get away…” – the wife stammered out broken words, her hands struggling to push the stranger’s chest away, but his strength was terrifyingly massive, like a bronze wall blocking all resistance.
From the hallway, the bedroom door handle turned gently.
Creak…
The bedroom door slowly cracked open. Faint yellow light from the living room poured in, illuminating a corner of the room and revealing the silhouette of a man standing dazed at the threshold—her actual husband, with a fatigued face and a dust-stained leather briefcase in his hand.
— “Honey, what’s wrong?” – the real husband spoke up in surprise upon seeing his wife lying rigidly on the bed with wide-open eyes full of terror.
And right before the husband could step into the room to flip the light switch, the impostor on the bed suddenly lunged forward with terrifying speed like a predatory beast.
A sharp metallic glint flashed in the dark—a dagger hidden beneath the pillow all along. The impostor did not rush toward the wife; instead, he aimed straight for the bedroom doorway where the husband had just appeared, delivering a fatal strike.
— “Watch out!!” – the wife screamed with all her remaining strength, her voice tearing through the silent rented room.
The sudden warning saved the husband’s life by a hair’s breadth. By natural reflex, the husband recoiled backward, dodging the razor-sharp blade that grazed his shoulder, tearing a large chunk of his shirt and plunging deep into the wooden doorframe.
— “What kind of bastard are you?!” – the husband yelled in panic, swinging his heavy leather briefcase straight into the attacker’s face.
The cramped room instantly transformed into a bloody and chaotic battlefield. The impostor lunged into a struggle with the husband. Despite the element of surprise, the savage aggression and extraordinary strength of the stranger pushed the husband onto the defensive repeatedly. Sounds of blows, clattering and breaking objects echoed, shaking the entire poor tenement neighborhood.
Neighbors in adjacent rooms began hearing the loud commotion, shouts of “Thief! Murder!” ringing out piercingly. Lights in neighboring rooms flickered on one by one, doors swung open aggressively accompanied by swearing, shouts urging one another to call the police echoing through every narrow pathway.
Realizing the disadvantage as the crowd of neighbors swarmed in, the impostor released his grip on the husband, who was breathing heavily while clutching his shoulder wound. He whipped around, darting swiftly through the room window which had been pre-primed and pried open, vanishing deep into the jet-black night of the shantytown like a nightmare dissolving into thin air.
PART V: DAWN UPON THE ASHES OF FEAR
The police arrived shortly after. Distinct sirens wailed, shattering the quiet night sky of the poor city. Police officers inspected the crime scene, seized the blood-stained dagger left embedded in the wooden doorframe, and took statements from the couple, who were still recovering from the horrifying nightmare.
The small rented room suddenly grew crowded with law enforcement and flashlights from professional cameras. The husband sat on a plastic stool, his shoulder wound temporarily bandaged, his eyes still lingering with panic at the thought of life and death being separated by a hair’s breadth.
The wife sat hugging her knees in the corner of the bed, her blank gaze fixed straight at the cell phone whose screen was still glowing on the table. The text message “Did you lock the door properly? I’m coming home soon” remained intact right there, serving as a chilling reminder of the fragile boundary between loved ones and demons.
Through initial investigations, police discovered the intruder was a dangerous wanted fugitive specializing in scaling walls and breaching panels in poor tenement districts to commit theft and eliminate victims if discovered. He had broken into the room since early evening, hiding in a secluded corner and even using the husband’s phone—which he had picked up—to send probing texts, testing the victim’s nerves before striking.
When the first rays of dawn began to break at the edge of the poor street, dispelling the dense fog and making up for the gloomy atmosphere of the previous night, life out there resumed its bustling rhythm.
Yet inside that small rented room, the couple understood that from now on, whenever night fell and the sound of a rattling door lock echoed, the haunting memory of the bedfellow wearing human skin would forever remain an indelible scar deep within their minds.
