№16300379[Quote]
I found the file on an imageboard thread with no title, just hundreds of replies saying things like “don’t open 'b alone” and “mute it before it notices you.” Nobody explained what 'b actually was. Some people said it was a GIF, others said a video, but everyone agreed on one thing: once you watched it, you kept seeing frames from it afterward in places they shouldn’t appear. Someone uploaded a mirror link before the thread was deleted, and because I was bored and stupid, I downloaded it.
The file had no extension. Just 'b.
It opened in an old media player after freezing my computer for almost a minute. At first there was nothing except a black screen and quiet breathing through static. Then, for less than a second, a frame appeared: a dim hallway with a person standing at the far end. Another thirty seconds of blackness passed before the next frame appeared, except now the figure was closer. Every new frame flashed by too quickly to fully process, but the thing kept moving nearer each time. Its body looked wrong, stretched like corrupted video data trying to imitate a human being.
I tried pausing the video, but the breathing kept going.
Not through my speakers.
Behind me.
I turned around and saw nothing. When I looked back at my monitor, the video had changed. The hallway was gone. Now it showed a grainy image of my room from the corner near the ceiling, like a security camera feed. I could see myself sitting at my desk staring at the screen. Then something slowly stood up behind my chair in the footage. Not appearing suddenly—unfolding upward inch by inch.
I jumped away from the computer.
But in the video, I didn’t move.
The version of me onscreen stayed seated while the thing leaned closer to my ear. The image froze there for several seconds before white text appeared over the footage:
viewer synchronized
Then my monitor went black completely, and from somewhere in the apartment, in the exact same distorted audio from the file, I heard breathing begin again.