It started with a whisper in the rear-view mirror.
Not the kind you hear, exactly — more the kind that curls under your skin and waits. Dean adjusted the mirror. Empty backseat. Just trees blurring past. Just the heat.
He pressed the accelerator harder. The fence post came out of nowhere.
The car jerked sideways. Gravel hissed. He came to a stop leaning against the steering wheel, sweating.
That’s when the weight hit him.
Heavy. Inside his arms. Inside his legs.
He blinked. Swallowed. Blinked again.
Had he taken too much?
He’d counted. Four at first. Then another ten. Then the rest. Ninety-five little white pills. Concerta. Time-release. Easy.
He’d wanted clarity. Instead, the world rippled like a heat mirage.
And then they came.
Shadow people.
They stood outside the car. Still as poles. Watching. No eyes. Just outlines. Shivering in place.
Dean tried to move. Couldn’t.
A flash of red and blue lights.
He was being pulled.
Voices above him. Cool hands on his neck. Straps across his chest.
“Can you tell us what you took?” one asked.
He couldn’t remember how mouths worked. He tried to explain the pills, but the words got stuck in syrup.
“They’re here,” he whispered.
The paramedic leaned in. “What’s here, mate?”
“The shadows.”
The other paramedic frowned. “GCS dropping. Push fluids.”
They didn’t see them. That meant they were already too far in.
Inside the ambulance, the light strobed. A hand brushed his forehead. He flinched.
“They’re inside now,” Dean muttered.
They strapped a mask over his face.
The shadow people crept into the corners. Hung from the ceiling. Melted into the white coats.
His body buzzed like static.
Then the voice.
Not outside.
Inside.
“This was not the exit you were promised.”
His stomach lurched. The drip burned. His chest pulsed.
“Still hypertensive,” someone said. “Pushing Versed.”
His eyelids grew heavy.
But not the shadows. They grew sharp.
He dreamed of strings.
Twelve of them, glowing, snaking into his arms.
Each one a different colour. Each one holding him down.
Red for his heart. Blue for his blood. Yellow for something he didn’t know the name of.
They sang.
You wanted to be free. Now you’re nothing but lines.
One of them snapped.
He screamed.
When he woke, he was in a room with humming walls and blinking machines.
Sunlight leaked through a high window.
The shadows were gone.
A nurse leaned over him. “You’re lucky.”
He tried to speak. His tongue was sand.
“Don’t try to talk yet. You were out for three days. But you’re here.”
She smiled gently. “You made it.”
He nodded, or thought he did.
But behind her shoulder, in the corner of the ceiling, something moved.
A dark outline. Watching.
Still.
Nilay Kumar Sarker is a writer, researcher, and occasional eavesdropper who blends real-life strangeness with speculative imagination. When not collecting medical oddities and urban folklore, he crafts flash fiction and narrative nonfiction that explores the surreal edge of everyday life. His work often blurs the lines between humor and horror, fact and fable.
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