The Videos That Appeared in My Phone
After moving into a new apartment, vivid nightmares bleed into reality—mysterious videos appear on her phone, her mother's voice calls from an empty hallway, and something falls from her bed that shouldn't exist.
I have always had strange experiences, and most of them are somehow connected to dreams.
When I first moved into the new apartment, I started having vivid nightmares almost immediately. Every night, I would dream of three women walking toward my bed. They wore identical dresses, and their faces were completely blurred—like someone had smeared wet paint across a photograph. There was no story, no dialogue. Just the image of them approaching, silent and slow.
Around the same time, I began waking up gasping for air. My chest would feel tight, my lungs burning, and I'd cough for a few minutes before everything returned to normal. During afternoon naps, I could feel someone pushing against my bedroom door. The sound was soft, rhythmic—like wind. But my bedroom door faced a solid wall. There were no windows. No drafts.
After about two or three weeks, my mother came home from work late—around eleven at night. I was already asleep when I heard her come in. I could hear her moving around the kitchen, eating dinner. Then, a few minutes later, I heard her walk up to my bedroom door and call my name.
"Help me with the laundry," she said.
I was barely conscious, drifting in that foggy space between sleep and waking. I mumbled something in response—probably just "okay"—and told myself I'd get up in a minute. Time felt strange. When I finally decided to get up and help, I checked my phone.
1:32 AM.
She must have finished by now, I thought. But I got up anyway and walked into the dark living room. I stood there for a moment in front of the mirrored wall, staring at my own reflection in the darkness. Then I went back to bed.
The next morning at breakfast, I asked my mother about it.
"I never called you," she said, not looking up from her coffee.
I stared at her. I had heard her voice. Clear as day. I had heard her footsteps.
But she insisted she had never come to my door.
Months passed. One night, I fell asleep while binge-watching a show on my laptop. I drifted into a dream that felt more real than most.
I was standing by a lake with a girl I didn't recognize. The sun was bright, the trees lush and green, and the colors were impossibly vivid—like someone had turned the saturation up to maximum. We were laughing, skipping stones, doing nothing in particular. Then, suddenly, I wanted to go home.
I said goodbye to the girl, but there was only one path back. It led through an abandoned hospital.
The moment I stepped onto that path, the world drained of color. Everything became grayscale—the sky, the trees, the cracked asphalt beneath my feet. The hospital loomed beside me, its windows shattered, its walls blackened by fire. Along the edge of the road were piles of discarded boxes. And among them—
Black garbage bags. Dozens of them.
Some had split open. Inside were the charred remains of infants. Tiny, blackened bodies. Some still wrapped in what might have been blankets. The smell hit me then—acrid, sickening, like burnt plastic and meat. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to run. But there was nowhere else to go. I kept walking, stepping over the bags, trying not to look down.
The road seemed to stretch forever. I walked for what felt like hours, the hospital always beside me, the bags always at my feet.
Then I woke up.
My heart was racing. I reached for my phone, intending to text my best friend about the nightmare. But when I opened my photo gallery, I froze.
There were two videos I had never taken.
The first was static. Just snow. White noise flickering across the screen, accompanied by a low hum.
The second was dark and blurry. It looked like it had been filmed extremely close to something—an object with a soft, curved shape. I watched it twice before I realized what my brain was telling me.
It looked like a closed eye.
Filmed from inches away. In the dark.
I deleted both videos immediately. My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone.
I told myself it was a glitch. A corrupted file. A dream so vivid it had warped my perception of reality.
But I knew.
I knew.
Eventually, I moved to a different bedroom. The old one was too small, and I could hear water dripping from the balcony at night—a rhythmic, maddening tap-tap-tap against the window. The new room was larger, quieter.
For about a week, I slept peacefully.
Then, one night, something fell from my headboard. I heard it hit the floor with a soft thud. Still half-asleep, I reached down to pick it up.
It was a hand.
A human hand, palm-down on the carpet, fingers slightly curled.
I was so exhausted, so deeply embedded in sleep, that my brain couldn't process what I was seeing. I looked at it for a long moment—this disembodied hand lying beside my bed—and then I simply lay back down and closed my eyes.
The next morning, I remembered.
I checked the floor. Nothing. No hand. No indentation in the carpet.
But I know what I saw.
And sometimes, when I'm falling asleep now, I still feel that soft pressure against my bedroom door. I still hear the rhythmic tapping, like fingernails against wood. And I wonder if the three women in matching dresses are still walking toward someone's bed, their faces blurred, their intentions unknown.
I wonder if the girl by the lake is still waiting for me to come back.
And I wonder what would have happened if I had opened my eyes that night, instead of going back to sleep.
---
*This is a translated and culturally adapted account. The original Chinese story has been reimagined for Western readers.*
When I first moved into the new apartment, I started having vivid nightmares almost immediately. Every night, I would dream of three women walking toward my bed. They wore identical dresses, and their faces were completely blurred—like someone had smeared wet paint across a photograph. There was no story, no dialogue. Just the image of them approaching, silent and slow.
Around the same time, I began waking up gasping for air. My chest would feel tight, my lungs burning, and I'd cough for a few minutes before everything returned to normal. During afternoon naps, I could feel someone pushing against my bedroom door. The sound was soft, rhythmic—like wind. But my bedroom door faced a solid wall. There were no windows. No drafts.
After about two or three weeks, my mother came home from work late—around eleven at night. I was already asleep when I heard her come in. I could hear her moving around the kitchen, eating dinner. Then, a few minutes later, I heard her walk up to my bedroom door and call my name.
"Help me with the laundry," she said.
I was barely conscious, drifting in that foggy space between sleep and waking. I mumbled something in response—probably just "okay"—and told myself I'd get up in a minute. Time felt strange. When I finally decided to get up and help, I checked my phone.
1:32 AM.
She must have finished by now, I thought. But I got up anyway and walked into the dark living room. I stood there for a moment in front of the mirrored wall, staring at my own reflection in the darkness. Then I went back to bed.
The next morning at breakfast, I asked my mother about it.
"I never called you," she said, not looking up from her coffee.
I stared at her. I had heard her voice. Clear as day. I had heard her footsteps.
But she insisted she had never come to my door.
Months passed. One night, I fell asleep while binge-watching a show on my laptop. I drifted into a dream that felt more real than most.
I was standing by a lake with a girl I didn't recognize. The sun was bright, the trees lush and green, and the colors were impossibly vivid—like someone had turned the saturation up to maximum. We were laughing, skipping stones, doing nothing in particular. Then, suddenly, I wanted to go home.
I said goodbye to the girl, but there was only one path back. It led through an abandoned hospital.
The moment I stepped onto that path, the world drained of color. Everything became grayscale—the sky, the trees, the cracked asphalt beneath my feet. The hospital loomed beside me, its windows shattered, its walls blackened by fire. Along the edge of the road were piles of discarded boxes. And among them—
Black garbage bags. Dozens of them.
Some had split open. Inside were the charred remains of infants. Tiny, blackened bodies. Some still wrapped in what might have been blankets. The smell hit me then—acrid, sickening, like burnt plastic and meat. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to run. But there was nowhere else to go. I kept walking, stepping over the bags, trying not to look down.
The road seemed to stretch forever. I walked for what felt like hours, the hospital always beside me, the bags always at my feet.
Then I woke up.
My heart was racing. I reached for my phone, intending to text my best friend about the nightmare. But when I opened my photo gallery, I froze.
There were two videos I had never taken.
The first was static. Just snow. White noise flickering across the screen, accompanied by a low hum.
The second was dark and blurry. It looked like it had been filmed extremely close to something—an object with a soft, curved shape. I watched it twice before I realized what my brain was telling me.
It looked like a closed eye.
Filmed from inches away. In the dark.
I deleted both videos immediately. My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone.
I told myself it was a glitch. A corrupted file. A dream so vivid it had warped my perception of reality.
But I knew.
I knew.
Eventually, I moved to a different bedroom. The old one was too small, and I could hear water dripping from the balcony at night—a rhythmic, maddening tap-tap-tap against the window. The new room was larger, quieter.
For about a week, I slept peacefully.
Then, one night, something fell from my headboard. I heard it hit the floor with a soft thud. Still half-asleep, I reached down to pick it up.
It was a hand.
A human hand, palm-down on the carpet, fingers slightly curled.
I was so exhausted, so deeply embedded in sleep, that my brain couldn't process what I was seeing. I looked at it for a long moment—this disembodied hand lying beside my bed—and then I simply lay back down and closed my eyes.
The next morning, I remembered.
I checked the floor. Nothing. No hand. No indentation in the carpet.
But I know what I saw.
And sometimes, when I'm falling asleep now, I still feel that soft pressure against my bedroom door. I still hear the rhythmic tapping, like fingernails against wood. And I wonder if the three women in matching dresses are still walking toward someone's bed, their faces blurred, their intentions unknown.
I wonder if the girl by the lake is still waiting for me to come back.
And I wonder what would have happened if I had opened my eyes that night, instead of going back to sleep.
---
*This is a translated and culturally adapted account. The original Chinese story has been reimagined for Western readers.*