horror story: the shadow in the search results 👁️

okay I wasn't going to post this but.

Kang Suhyeon was a new hire on the marketing team. first time pulling an all-nighter, 11:30pm, empty office, rain starting outside. she was prepping a presentation about their online shopping site's 'Popular Items' page. totally normal work stuff.

then she noticed something in the traffic data.

every single friday night, from 11:45pm to 3:15am, the Popular Items page got these MASSIVE traffic spikes. like, the rest of the site would go quiet, but that one page? visitor counts going insane. and the weird part. not a single purchase. ever. just people (?) refreshing the same page hundreds of times from the same IP.

she checked the live visitor count out of curiosity. should've been like 50 people at that hour.

it said 1,291.

and it was 11:43pm. two minutes before the anomaly window started.

she opened the live traffic monitor and watched the numbers climb. 1,300. 1,350. 1,500.

then the monitor flickered. all the lights in the office cut out and came back on.

when the screen returned, the Popular Items page was still open. but the product photos were wrong. every single image had a shadow in it. shaped like a person. standing in front of the products. and they were MOVING. like, slowly touching the items.

she tried to navigate away. mouse didn't work. keyboard didn't work. the screen just started auto-scrolling through every product, one by one. each shadow was different. some tall, some short. none of them had faces.

then the screen went black.

white text appeared.

"We see what you are selling. We are always watching."

screen went back to normal after that. shadows gone. products fine.

she tried to close the laptop and get out. and that's when she saw it in the monitor reflection. herself. and behind her. someone standing there.

she spun around. empty office.

but in the monitor. it was still there.

she grabbed her bag and ran. elevator wouldn't come. took the emergency stairs.

halfway down, her phone rang. no caller ID.

"Suhyeon, are you still in the office?"

strange man's voice.

"security team. we detected an anomaly in the system. did you access the Popular Items page?"

"yeah, why?"

"what time did you start?"

"like... 30 minutes ago?"

"do you know what time it is right now?"

she checked her phone.

3:16am.

she had been sitting at that page for over THREE HOURS and it felt like nothing. 11:45 to 3:15. the exact window from the data.

then footsteps from above. someone coming down the stairs.

"is that the security team?" she called out.

no answer. just the footsteps getting closer.

she ran. used her phone as a flashlight. and on the wall, she saw a shadow. not hers. taller. longer limbs. wrong.

she made it to the lobby. looked through the glass doors to outside.

someone was standing in the rain looking at the building.

it was her. herself. soaking wet, staring back.

the outside-her mouthed something.

"don't go back."

then her phone rang again. same number.

"Suhyeon, please come back to the office. the Popular Items page isn't finished yet."

she hung up and pushed through the doors. the other her was already gone.

---

next morning at work, everything was normal. nobody mentioned any system issues. she checked with security. nobody had called her the night before. nobody.

then the presentation started.

she's showing her slides. Popular Items page comes up on the projector. everyone's looking at the screen.

only she could see it. the faint shadows in every product photo. and behind each of her colleagues sitting in the conference room. a dark figure standing there.

all of them looking at her.

smiling.

after that day, every friday night, Suhyeon stays alone in the office and refreshes the Popular Items page. 11:45pm to 3:15am.

because that's what they want.

they started as shadows inside a screen. then reflections in a monitor. soon they'll be standing behind you.

just like they're standing behind you right now.

do you see it?

the shadow.

behind you.