Cerita Pendek Mind-Bending Imagination & Novel Detective

On April Fools' Day, Seth Sterling, the campus heartthrob whom I have a crush on, invites me to a karaoke lounge bar to have some fun. But when I arrive at the private room, I find out that all three of my roommates, who I'm enemies with, are there. One of my roommates is about to leave when she pauses in her tracks and turns back to look at us. "Did you guys see the words floating in the air?" The next thing we know, the lights go out in the private room. A scream rings out afterward. When the lights are back on, the roommate who has spoken up earlier is gone. "Where did she go?" I swap looks with the other two roommates quietly. Then, I stand up and pretend to look for the missing roommate when in reality, I'm trying to sneak glances at the live comments in the air. The commenters are cheering with each other. "I told you so! Someone in their dorm can see us!" "No wonder the male lead keeps flaking out on the female lead! A filthy slut who's capable of seeing the live comments must be seducing him this whole time!" "Let's kill her! That way, she won't be able to affect the lovey-dovey relationship between the leads!" Kill? Did my roommate disappear because she could see the live comments? I tremble violently at the thought. My first reaction is to open the door and get out of this place. But that's when the live comments grow more agitated. "Hang on! Someone else in this room can see us!" "We must find her!"

When I picked my son up from school, he told me he hadn’t been able to fall asleep during naptime. He said he’d seen someone who wasn’t dressed like the teachers walking around the classroom, staring at each child while they slept. I had access to the classroom cameras and checked them regularly throughout the day, so I figured it was just his imagination and didn’t think much of it. Then Vivian’s mom, whose daughter was in the same class, suddenly messaged me privately. “Vivian said she saw a teacher she didn’t recognize watching her sleep at noon. It scared her. But I checked the security footage, and no one entered the classroom during naptime.” “I noticed David opened his eyes at one point, so I wanted to ask if he mentioned seeing anything.” My heart skipped a beat. I immediately pulled up the classroom footage again. After watching it carefully and confirming I hadn’t missed anything, I was just about to reply to Vivian’s mom when the class group chat suddenly blew up. “My child said there was a teacher he didn’t know walking around the classroom while they were sleeping. How are you people running this place?” The teacher immediately responded, insisting nothing like that had happened, and posted the security footage in the group chat. But then the parents of five other children began chiming in one after another. “My kid said the same thing. He saw a teacher he didn’t recognize.” “Then... what exactly is going on?”

It's 11:30 pm. Home alone, I decide to order some takeout. When the map shows the delivery guy is zero miles away, I receive a call from him. I pick up, only to hear unsettling silence from the other end. I hang up, annoyed. The next moment, the guy texts me, "Sorry, I'm hearing-impaired and unable to speak. I called to notify you to pick up your food as soon as possible. I can't explain things over the phone, and I apologize for that." Then comes another text. "You must've been waiting for a long time. I've left your order at your door, so please pick it up as soon as you can." Just as I prepare to open the door, I see bars of live comments—reminiscent of livestream chats—floating right before my eyes. "Don't open the door! That dude isn't a delivery guy at all! He's a murderer!" "He called you to check if you're a woman living alone!" "Seriously, why are all thriller story protagonists always so dumb? The delivery guy is obviously suspicious, yet she still wants to open the door."

I was just about to drink a soup meant to supplement my pregnancy, a frantic voice suddenly called out. "Mommy, don't drink it! It's an abortion drug. Someone's trying to harm you!" Startled, my hand jerked, and I knocked the soup over. My husband's cousin teared up, her voice choking, "B-But I cooked that soup myself as an apology…" I didn't pay her any heed, only checking the contents of the medicinal soup. There was a large amount of poison in it, enough to not just harm the baby, but even make it impossible for me to ever conceive again! "Mommy, it was me! I protected you!" I caressed my pregnant belly, listening as the child inside told me that he was the incarnation of a lucky star, sent to bring me good fortune. Because of this, we even gave him the nickname Lucky. And sure enough, under his guidance, I helped my husband secure numerous contracts. The whole family was overjoyed. I grew to love him even more, consuming precious supplements as if they were free. Within just three months, my family's assets grew tenfold, while I grew thirty pounds. Just as I stuffed the roast pork into my mouth, I heard a weak, faint voice. "Mom, don't listen to him! He was switched into your womb, and he stole my good luck! "If you continue listening to him, he'll be the death of us both after he's born!" Confused, I stopped eating. Who was I to believe, when there were two voices within my womb?

My long-term relationship has finally paid off. At the wedding venue, my fiancee, Dakota Young, has just begun sliding the ring onto my finger when her first love, Kyle Robinson, calls her all the way from the country he's currently studying in. All of my friends know of Dakota as the woman who loves me more than life itself. But this very same woman doesn't hesitate to bolt in the airport's direction with red-rimmed eyes after answering the phone call. My hand is left frozen in mid-air. That's when I suddenly start seeing live comments before my eyes. "Holy hell! I just took a glimpse at the profile picture of her first love! He looks exactly like the corpse who's delivered to my department!" "Seriously? Don't go around scaring me right now! I believe in the power of science!" "Either he has a twin, or you just got the wrong person! Stay calm!" My jaw goes slack, yet I can't utter a word after a while. I know who Kyle is. That man used to be her classmate back in college. But I also remember very clearly that he's the only child in his family…

I didn’t get into college, so I took a job driving a city bus. Once I finished training, I started working the night shift with Uncle Tim. He had always been the kind of guy who followed every rule. But that night, he wouldn’t let me pick up a single passenger. He even made me keep the bus dark the entire route. Uncle Tim died shortly after that incident. A few days later, someone told me something that made my blood run cold. Uncle Tim had actually been dead for quite some time. So who the hell had been riding with me that night?

On my first night after moving into Building 4 of Hawthorne Lane Apartments, the elevator stopped at the nonexistent thirteenth floor. My younger brother, who had been missing for three months, was kneeling outside the doors. An old apartment-number plaque hung around his neck. It read 1204. I was just about to call out to him when the red light above the elevator doors came on. A building manager in a blue uniform suddenly appeared behind me and pushed a report form into my hand. His lips lifted into a frozen smile. “No talking under the red light. If you want to live, write down a neighbor’s apartment number.” Only later did I learn the truth. The most terrifying thing about this building wasn’t the thirteenth floor. It was that behind every door lived someone waiting for me to speak.