Light Starvation

FIELD NOTES — UNDATED

I don’t know when I got here.

Time doesn’t behave normally. My watch stopped on entry. My phone battery died before I thought to conserve it. The lights, though—those I can measure.

The fluorescent lights flicker. They always have. At first, I thought it was random. Bad wiring. Old building. But randomness doesn’t repeat this cleanly. So I started tracking it.

DAY 1

Lights hum. Buzzing constant. Flicker occurs once every few minutes—barely perceptible. Less than a blink. Darkness too short to matter.

I count steps between flickers. No pattern yet. I sleep against the wall. The carpet smells damp, like mold and static.

DAY 4

Flicker frequency is increasing. I counted 14 flickers in one hour.

Measured darkness duration by closing one eye and counting heartbeats. Average blackout: 0.23 seconds per minute. I write this down because something feels wrong when the lights go out. Not fear—anticipation. Like the space is waiting.

DAY 7

The flickers are regular now. Every 60 seconds. Always. Darkness lasts the same length every time. I walk during the light. I stop during the dark. I don’t know why I do this. Instinct.

I tested it once—kept walking during the flicker. Something brushed the back of my calf. I didn’t turn around.

DAY 9

New realization. The darkness isn’t passive; it has weight.

During the 0.23 seconds, the air pressure changes. My ears pop slightly. The hum stops—not fades—stops. Silence sharp enough to hurt. Then the lights come back.

I started marking the walls with a pen. Something is closer than it was yesterday.

DAY 12

Darkness duration is increasing. 0.8 seconds. I can count it now.

“One—”

Lights back. Enough time for movement.

I measured the distance between markings again. The thing in the dark—whatever it is—covers more ground than it should. It doesn’t move during the light, only during the absence.

DAY 14

I hear it now. Not clearly. A sound like fabric sliding over carpet. Slow. Careful.

I tested something else today. I stood perfectly still in the darkness. When the lights came back on, the sound stopped. The distance between us did not increase. It learned.

DAY 17

Darkness duration: 3 seconds. That’s long enough for terror to bloom. Long enough for breath to hitch. Long enough for something tall to reposition itself.

I hear it breathing now—not lungs, not exactly. More like air being forced through something that isn’t shaped correctly, it doesn’t rush; it waits.

DAY 19

I’m exhausted. The flickers don’t wake me anymore. My body reacts before my mind does. I freeze every minute on instinct.

I tried running. The darkness kept pace.

I stopped.

It stopped closer.

DAY 21

I can feel it behind me during the light now.

Not touching.

Just present.

Like a shadow that hasn’t been allowed to exist yet. I don’t turn around. I won’t give it that.

DAY 24

Darkness duration: 5 seconds. I don’t bother counting anymore.

I hear it breathing clearly now—slow, wet, patient. I know what happens next. At some point, the darkness will last longer than the light. At some point, it won’t need the flicker anymore. I’m writing faster because the hum is changing. The lights are dimmer.

The pauses between flickers are shorter.

If anyone finds this journal—

Don’t watch the lights.

Don’t count the flickers.

And when the darkness lasts longer than a breath— run before it learns how to move in the light.