text: It started at around 11pm; I was aimlessly looking through BBC iplayer contently browsing top gear, Sherlock etc looking for something to fill the volatile silence which consumed my bedroom. I bought my TV 4 months ago ish, off an ad on eBay, it was cheap for a smart tv. The remote isn’t the most amazing and the tv sometimes crashes which, as expected, comes with an older tv- but I don’t think this thing has come from the previous owner. It was a quiet night, the best way I can describe it as the quiet before a thunder storm, the gut wrenching quiet in which you know something is coming but you don’t know when, a foreboding sensation. All of a sudden my tv crashes, not exactly unheard of, I start to reboot it as usual and all comes as expected however I hear a tapping at the window, a patterned tapping which almost makes me jump out of bed- I am the sceptical type so my heart felt like it was going to leap out of my chest. I turn the light on and wait for it to go, it did after maybe 20 seconds and I assured myself it was rain coming, the weather did say scattered showers and my window was shut, along with my blackout curtains. I shook it off and returned to my tv, turning on BBC iplayer when all of a sudden the screen becomes distorted, the suggestions all scattered in disfiguring pattern with the words taken from the top suggestion spotted amongst the random colouration of different shows, the words “seeing is deceiving” in red moving In an unusual way, almost as if the words were trying to escape whatever was holding them capture. As you can imagine, I was horrified and immediately tried turning off my tv, it wouldn’t budge, trying and trying again for a good minute, hearing my heartbeat course through my eardrums, until finally the tv turned off- I again, trying to reassure myself and keep that part of my mind from overthinking at bay I turned the tv on again, holding back my stomach from turning itself outwards it turns on as normal and I was happy again. I switched on an episode of top gear and it played as normal. Now I am an insomniac and I really struggle to go to sleep at night, I try to drown myself with boring stuff to help me sleep as part of my routine and at this point, maybe 11:30/11:45pm I was not tired, like, at all. Sitting bolt upright in bed I get the urge to go to sleep, which is unfamiliar, and if this happens I would usually thank the lord and try go to sleep but for some reason, my gut kept telling me not too, this time I listened to that but I just couldn’t help it and I shouldn’t have fallen asleep but I did, still completely upright in bed I passed out I don’t remember what time but god, god I shouldn’t have fallen asleep with the tv still playing. When I woke up, it was maybe 4am, still that quiet, still, humid darkness outside my bedroom that I had grown familiar with, I was confused and out of it and realised was still sitting upright (absolutely unheard of, I never sleep upright- not on planes, cars, chairs, anything) the glaze over my eyes started to fade and a horrible realisation came over my body and I started to tremble, my organs in my body swilling around in there like they were in a rollercoaster, instead of top gear still playing, there in my tv, was a face, staring at me. A face I can best describe as human, however the features were pervert and warped in a way a child would draw a human, not quite right but with the intention of looking like a human, it’s smile was too wide, blonde hair sprouting out like a scientist, glaring black eyes that were not level nor the same shape staring into mine, I knew it was looking at me, analysing me; with the same red words bouncing around the screen “seeing is deceiving” I leapt up and scrambled looking for the remote, bedsheets flying through the air, clothes going every way possible until I spotted it, underneath that window which made the tapping noise. All while that thing, that creature, analysing and evaluating me through the screen. I grabbed the remote, breathless and exhausted frantically turning the tv off. It is now 5:30am while I wright this, I haven’t turned my tv back on and I want to burn it. I don’t know what to do, that gut curdling feeling hasn’t left my system and my parents will look at me like my last brain cell has left if I try to explain to them what’s just happened. But for some reason, deep down, that thing wants me, I don’t know what for, but it wants me, and I feel like it’s already advanced; I just don’t know what into yet.