It all started with a short story that had no ending.
My name is Evelyn. I'm a kindergarten teacher, an only child, and I'm supposed to be getting married next month.
My fiancé, Daniel, is finishing up a project in the suburbs. He's been staying near the site for weeks to "focus," which apparently means his phone has become a one-way street.
I'd sent him three messages since dinner—about the wedding flowers, about a kid at school, about nothing at all. None of them had been read.
The "Delivered" icons sat there, gray and mocking.
Until he moves back, the apartment is a tomb of silence.
After work, I rarely have the energy to exist in the real world. Most nights, I end up in bed, scrolling through short stories on my phone—one after another—until my eyes blur and the blue light becomes my only company.
It's a hollow compensation for the silence on the other side of the bed.
That night was no different.
I was exhausted—eyes burning, thoughts moving like sludge—but the idea of actually sleeping felt wrong. Too quiet. Too final. So I lay there, the screen inches from my face, drowning in fiction.
The stories were trash. Predictable setups. Recycled twists. But my thumb kept moving on its own, dragging the page up in a trance-like rhythm. I wasn't even choosing anymore; I was just waiting to be distracted.
That was when one title stopped me cold: "I'm a Live-in Helper. I Never Met My Employer—Until One Day…"
First-person. No gimmicks. No author name—just the platform's logo at the top. That should have been my first warning.
The story was unnervingly simple. The rules were listed plainly, like a manual:
Daytime: The house is empty. She cleans.
Night (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.): Stay in your room. Door shut. Never open it.
Every morning, the house looked destroyed—furniture overturned, dishes shattered, things broken with a senseless, violent rage. She cleaned until sunset, then locked herself in again. Same cycle. Over and over.
I kept reading, my breath shallow. At midnight in the story, the noise outside her door became unbearable. Scratching. Dragging. Something heavy was breathing on the other side of the wood.
She hesitated. Then, her fingers tightened around the doorknob—
The story cut off abruptly. The screen flickered twice before plunging into darkness. Just before the blackness swallowed everything, I saw a space composed of countless lines, eerily twisting and overlapping. There was nothing solid there—only a dizzying, half-formed sense of fakery.
Immediately, an advertisement popped up. "Watch a 10-second ad to continue reading."
The same old trick. I frowned with impatience, but clicked the ad anyway.
Applying for live-in helper. Available to arrive tomorrow night.
I frowned. I hadn't posted anything. Hadn't searched for help. Hadn't even whispered the word "helper" to my phone.
A few seconds passed. Another line faded in: Willing to pay you $100 to move in.
My heart gave a strange, dull thud. It made no sense. I was the one who was supposed to be paying.
I stayed frozen, my thumb hovering. Then, the final line shimmered into existence: [CLICK CONFIRM TO FINALIZE CONTRACT]
Outside my window, the digital clock flipped to 12:00 a.m. I hadn't touched the screen. I hadn't said a word. But the "Confirm" button was already glowing, pulsing with a slow, rhythmic light—like a heartbeat that had already decided for me.