The Darkness Abounds

James Mercer had always considered himself a rational man. At thirty-four, he worked as an insurance adjuster - a job that rewarded cold calculation over flights of fancy. He lived alone in a modest one-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a 1970s brick complex, the kind with popcorn ceilings and plumbing that groaned in the night. It was ordinary. Safe. Predictable.

Until the Tuesday it wasn't.

The first sign came at 6:17 AM, as James stood shaving before work. The bathroom lights flickered - not the dramatic strobe of horror movies, but a subtle dimming that made his reflection waver in the medicine cabinet mirror. Just a brownout, he thought. The building was old.

Then his reflection blinked.

James froze, razor hovering mid-stroke. His own blue eyes stared back from the glass, but... wrong. The pupils seemed larger, blacker, the way eyes look in dim light. Except the lights were back to full brightness now.

"Jesus," he muttered, touching his face. The reflection mimicked him perfectly.

A drop of blood welled where his hand had trembled. The reflection smiled.

James dropped the razor into the sink with a clatter. When he looked again, his face was normal - pale from too many office hours, stubble flecked with shaving cream, a tiny cut on his jaw. The eyes were just eyes.

"Get it together, Mercer," he told himself aloud. The sound of his own voice in the empty apartment made his skin prickle.

That night, sleep wouldn't come. James lay staring at his ceiling, listening to the building's nocturnal symphony - the hum of the refrigerator, the occasional car passing outside, the drip of the kitchen faucet he kept meaning to fix. Then, just as he finally drifted off, it came:

"You're not alone here."

The whisper brushed against his ear like a physical thing, warm and wet. James bolted upright, fumbling for the lamp. The sudden light revealed his empty bedroom, the closet door slightly ajar as always, the streetlight casting familiar shadows through the blinds.

But the sheets next to him were rumpled. As if someone had just been lying there.

For three nights running, the pattern repeated. Flickering lights. Whispers in the dark. Once, he woke to find his bedroom door open when he distinctly remembered closing it. The hallway beyond yawned black, and for a heart-stopping moment, James could have sworn something moved in the darkness - a suggestion of a shape taller than any man.

By Friday, sleep deprivation had etched itself into his face. His coworker, Lisa, commented over coffee in the breakroom.

"Rough week?" she asked, eyeing the purple crescents beneath his eyes.

James stirred three sugars into his coffee. "Not sleeping well."

"Insomnia?"

"Something like that." He forced a smile. "Probably just stress."

Lisa didn't look convinced. "You know, my cousin had sleep problems. Turned out it was carbon monoxide. You should get a detector if you don't—"

A crash from James's cubicle made them both jump. They found his desk lamp shattered on the floor, the bulb blown out in a spiderweb of broken glass. His computer monitor flickered erratically, casting stuttering light across the papers on his desk.

"That's... odd," Lisa said, bending to pick up a piece of the lamp. "Did you have it near the edge?"

James didn't answer. He was staring at his keyboard, where a single key pulsed with faint light. The 'D'.

Over the weekend, the phenomena escalated. The temperature in his apartment dropped inexplicably, his breath fogging even as the thermostat read 72 degrees. The whispers came more frequently, sometimes in his own voice. On Sunday morning, he found his refrigerator emptied, every item neatly placed on the counter. The milk carton felt warm to the touch.

The final straw came Sunday night. Exhausted, James had fallen asleep on his couch watching an old baseball game. He woke to the TV playing static, that hissing gray snow filling the dark living room. The clock read 3:17 AM.

Something was sitting in the armchair across from him.

James's breath caught in his chest. The shape was man-sized but indistinct, like a shadow given density. It didn't move, didn't speak, but James could feel its attention like physical pressure.

Then the smoke detector screamed to life.

The piercing beep made James flinch. When he looked back, the chair was empty. The detector stopped as suddenly as it had started, leaving only the whisper of the AC and the hammering of James's heart.

He didn't sleep again that night. Instead, he sat at his kitchen table with every light blazing, drinking coffee gone cold, staring at the notepad where he'd been documenting each incident. The page was nearly full.

As dawn painted the sky gray outside his window, James made a decision. He picked up his phone and dialed a number he hadn't called in years - his older brother, Mark, who'd spent a decade as a paranormal investigator before burning out.

It rang three times before a groggy voice answered. "James? Do you know what time—"

"I think something's in my apartment," James interrupted, his voice raw. "And I think it's getting stronger."

The silence on the line stretched. When Mark finally spoke, his voice had lost all traces of sleep. "Tell me everything. From the beginning."

As James spoke, the kitchen light above him flickered once, twice, then went out entirely. In the sudden gloom, the refrigerator door creaked open on its own.

The darkness, it seemed, was listening.