I crouched in the crawl space: my knees clicking like dry sticks. This house was a trap. It was not a trap of spikes or pits. It was a trap of soft colors and clean lines. My name is Arlo. I am a Level Three Shadow. In my world: you scare or you die. If I do not get a scream by Friday: the Boss will fold me up like a card table and toss me into the void.
I checked my supply line. My bucket of goat blood was fresh. My rusted chains were oiled for a sharp: metallic clack. I needed a win. My heart felt like a panicked pufferfish in my chest. If I failed here: I was not just a bad demon. I was nothing.
I waited for the target. Elena walked into the kitchen. She wore a white robe that looked like a cloud. She was holding a cup of tea. This was the moment. I squeezed through the floorboards: letting a thick: red puddle of blood leak onto her expensive wood floor. I did not just let it sit there. I made it bubble. I made it smoke. I gave it a smell like a wet dog in a fire.
Elena stopped. She did not scream. She did not drop her tea. She bent down and touched the blood with her finger.
“Sy!” she called out. Her voice was bright and sharp. “Sy: come look at this! The floor is doing that thing again!”
Sy ran in. He was wearing glasses that cost more than my soul. He looked at the bubbling: stinking red mess on his floor. He did not look scared. He looked excited.
“Oh: wow:” Sy said. He knelt down next to the puddle. “The way the red hits the oak is so raw. It is so honest. It has this: industrial: bleeding-heart vibe. Elena: we should seal this. We could put a glass box over it and make it a feature.”
“It is very avant-garde:” Elena whispered. She looked at the blood with love. “It feels like the house is crying. It is so chic.”
I stayed under the boards: my jaw hitting the dirt. I had given them my best gore. I had spent three hours brewing that blood. They did not see a monster. They saw a floor choice. A coldness started in my chest. It was the feeling of being invisible while standing right in front of someone.
I did not give up. A survivalist knows when to switch tactics. If blood did not work: sound would. People hate noise. They hate the sound of things breaking in the dark.
That night: I waited until the moon was high. The house was quiet. I crept into the hallway. I took my heavy: rusted chains and threw them against the wall. *Clack. Crash. Screech.* I moaned. I made a sound like a thousand dying birds. I scratched at the wallpaper until my fingers bled. I wanted them to feel the dread. I wanted them to check under the bed and find only the dark.
The light flickered on. Elena stood there: her eyes wide. Finally: I thought. Here comes the fear.
“Sy: wake up!” she shouted.
Sy stumbled out: rubbing his eyes. He looked at the deep: jagged scratches on the wall. He looked at the chains piled on the rug.
“The texture:” Sy whispered. He touched the shredded wallpaper. “Look at the rhythm of the tears: Elena. It is so brave. It says: I am here: and I am broken. It is the perfect contrast to the velvet sofa.”
“And the metal!” Elena grabbed the chains. She draped them over a lamp. “The rust is such a beautiful: earthy orange. It grounds the room. It makes the space feel lived-in. Like a factory that became a home.”
They started talking about “visual weight” and “negative space.” They did not even look for me. I was standing in the corner: my shadow long and jagged. I was a nightmare. I was a killer from the dark. But to them: I was just a free decorator.
I felt a stinging in my eyes. It was not the smoke. It was the realization that I did not exist. Not really. You only exist if you can touch the world. If you can change someone’s pulse. I was pouring my hate and my pain into this house: and they were using it to fill a void in their catalog.
I had one more move. The Big One.
I went to the center of the living room. I pulled the darkness from my own skin. I turned myself into a tall: faceless shape of pure black. I let out a scream that should have cracked the windows. I made the air turn ice cold. I let the smell of a rotting grave fill the air. I put everything I was into that moment. My fear of the void. My need to be seen. My entire: miserable life.
Elena and Sy walked in. They stood in the freezing: stinking dark.
“It is a statement piece:” Elena said. Her voice was soft now. “The way the light doesn’t touch it. It is so lonely. It represents the modern man: Sy. Alone in a crowd.”
“It really completes the room:” Sy agreed. He walked right through my chest to get to the light switch. I felt his shoulder pass through my heart. He did not even shiver. “We should call the magazine. This ‘haunted’ look is going to be huge this spring.”
I collapsed. The darkness fell away from me like old skin. I sat on the rug: a small: grey: tired thing. They didn’t see me. They were already taking photos with their phones. They were talking about “toxic positivity” and “mood lighting.”
I looked at my hands. They were fading. Friday was coming: and I had not earned a single scream. I had given them my soul: and they had hung it on the wall like a cheap painting.
I am a survivalist. But you cannot survive in a world where your teeth are seen as jewelry. You cannot fight someone who loves your weapons for their color.
I stayed on the floor. The sun started to come up. The light was a warm: pale yellow. It was a beautiful color. It was the color of a world that did not need me. I felt the void opening up under my feet: ready to take me back. I was not scared anymore. I was just tired. I was as redundant as the second chair in the corner that nobody ever sat in.
Elena walked by and tripped over my foot. She didn’t see a foot. She looked down at the spot where I was vanishing.
“We should put a plant there:” she said. “Something that doesn’t need much light.”
I closed my eyes. The last thing I heard was the sound of a tape measure clicking against the floor. It sounded like a clock ticking down to zero. It was a very clean: modern sound.