Body Flicker Novels & Stories

he said. She looked at him more carefully. "You know the routine?" "I watched the showcase on Friday. The transition between the first and second sections has a half-beat delay. You're trying to close it." She was quiet for a moment. "You watched the showcase." "I was there. You were good." He said it without decoration, the way someone stated a fact they had no particular investment in, and then he shifted his folder under his arm. "I'll find somewhere else." "The transition is in the left formation," she said, before she had decided to say it. "The timing is right but the angle of the entry is creating a visual lag. It reads as a delay but it's actually a positioning problem."

I whisper, trying to explain to my mind what I might be seeing. She ignores me and looks at the words on the screen. After about five seconds, the screen disappears. She again presses a button, but this time a yellow one. Three beeps sound out, and multiple lights begin to flash over me. As they flash, they change color and grow in brightness until I have to shut my eyes. As soon as my eyes close, my other senses begin to focus on what is happening to my body.

Then, without warning, the screen blinked to black for a fraction of a second long enough to feel wrong. When the image returned, the figure was closer. The time stamp was gone now. The frame trembled slightly, as if the camera or the person watching was breathing. Another blink. Closer still. Close enough to see the faint rise and fall of something that might have been breath. The static returned in short bursts, each one revealing the figure nearer, until the screen showed only darkness where its face should be. The final burst came with sound soft, deliberate, just on the edge of a whisper but the words couldn’t be understood.

Even when she wasn’t with him, she felt his shadow trailing behind — sharp, silent, vigilant. She took another sip of her tea, now gone cold. “Get a grip, Lily,” she whispered to herself. “You’re home. You’re fine.” The TV suddenly flickered. Once. Then again. Lily blinked, frowning. Static rolled across the screen for a heartbeat — a brief, jagged crackle — before the show resumed. Her gaze drifted to the lamp beside the couch. The light dimmed, flickered, then steadied again. She swallowed hard.

I could be at a photoshoot and find myself in a car, or in my living room and find myself standing at a hotel hallway, with no or vague memory of how I got there. And there was something else. Before my blacking out, before that… skip, there'd always be some kind of glitch. Every time it'd flicker at the edge of my vision, like a programme coming undone. There was always something there–red, fiery, heat so much it made my skin prickle, dotted with monstrous shapes and screeches. But anytime I turned, I would find nothing. Everything would be normal, untouched. I'd just find myself turning and looking around with fear while everyone surrounding me went on with life.

Just a quiet betrayal as my body decides the floor is closer than I am prepared for. Hands reach for me. Too many. Too late. The room tilts sharply now, the edges blurring. The fluorescent lights smear into white streaks. Someone is shouting. Or maybe whispering. I cannot tell. My ears ring. A low, steady tone like a machine powering down. The body does not negotiate. The thought is clear. Detached. Almost curious. The lights flicker. Once. Twice. Then the screens go black. Emergency power hums in, a dull mechanical growl replacing the silence.

Aggravating several times more. Unfortunately for what's going on, I gradually and circumspectly open my eyes, not quickly understanding that my hands are covering my ears in a vain effort to stifle the irritating buzzing, and out of nowhere the incredible white glow just goes off. In any case, before my internal discussion could celebrate that my eyes would essentially not be damaged from now on, something basically the same as a movie screen appears before me in which only a succession of dark images is valued and therefore Thus, the hum changes into the clamor made by the reels of film projectors.

The image that had formed from nothing was one of me, crying hard, and sobbing and there were two holes in my neck, two bloody holes. The image became solid with each passing second and, in a minute, it felt like I could actually touch it. I scampered away on the floor, going as far from it as I could, and then it began to flicker like a broken video game or a video game with a problem. I could also liken it to the white and black TV with those lines flickering around it in Elias’ room. It was all very horrible. It looked solid like a real body but still managed to give that sensation that it was just on a screen, and then another one started to form, close to me, and I screamed, immediately

I sat where he guided me, still and focused, a reminder of the control that I couldn’t grasp. “Tell me if you notice anything at all,” he added. I nodded. There was a pause. Then… something… faint. Barely there. Like a flicker behind my eyes. I stiffened. “What was that?” I said immediately. “What did you notice?” the doctor asked. “I…” I frowned. “It was… light. It flickered behind my eyes, a little light. It wasn’t clear or defined… I don’t know how to explain it. But it was there for a second before it was gone.”