Chapter Text
“How do you get out of these handcuffs?”
Cold concrete on all sides, lit only by the camera light across from him.
“You should have a key-”
“It’s not one of the release ones?”
Straining to grab the envelope again. Upturn it with contorted hands. Nothing coming out, again. Pressing his fingers against the metal cuffs, because surely Colby had read the instructions wrong. Surely if he just searched hard enough his nail would catch on the release latch, or slide over a button, or something, anything that would confirm that his best friend hadn’t — couldn’t have — forgotten to put the fucking key in the envelope.
“Oh wait here’s the handcuff box...Oh fuck-”
Sam exhaled through his nose, eyes closed. He didn’t need Colby to finish the sentence. He could picture it perfectly: his friend standing by his car, holding the one thing that was supposed to be in this crawl space with him. He didn’t need to ask his next question either, but he did it anyway.
“How far are you?”
He knew the answer already. Over an hour of sitting in the hole, all alone. He would have laughed if he wasn’t pissed. It was almost perfect, in a way. An extended investigation, just like he wanted.
Sam waited for Colby to finish apologizing before hanging up the phone. The spirit box chirped something low and indistinguishable. He glanced at it before looking back at the mirror. An extended investigation, except after the last fifteen minutes, he wasn’t planning to stick around.
He wrenched his elbows to the left, scooting backwards until he could feel the cool glass of the mirror. He moved his fingers towards the edge until he found the place where the mirror met the inner wall of the hole. But the surface seemed smoother than it should have been, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t find a gap to cram his fingers into. It was as if the mirror had been made to slot perfectly, seamlessly, into the opening of the hole.
Sam huffed with effort, scratching at the concrete, then pushing, then pulling, ever more frantically until he was slamming his conjoined fists into the mirror and jerking his whole body backwards. Breathing in fast, panicked gasps. Staring wide-eyed at the floor, the ceiling, the camera.
“Come on. Shit, come on!”
But the mirror wasn’t moving. And slowly, very slowly, the realization dawned that he was trapped.
Like, genuinely trapped.
Like completely and totally, whole-heartedly-
“FUCK!” Sam let his head hit the wall as he groaned. He rolled his eyes at the camera, trying to ignore the prickling in his wrists. A deep exhaustion settled over him like a blanket, soured by frustration.
“Okay so I guess I’m gonna be here a while,” he sighed. “The things we do for content.”
The spirit box crackled to life again, spitting out a few distorted notes of a song he’d never heard. Sam looked at it wearily, letting out a soft, breathy laugh.
“Oh so now you wanna talk to me?”
To his surprise, the box hissed back: “Yes.”
Sam jolted slightly, refocusing on the box, glancing to the camera in quick bursts. He narrowed his eyes. Cleared his throat. Okay then, extended investigation it is, he thought.
“Are…are you…is there someone with me right now?”
A few seconds passed before the box repeated itself: “Yes.”
“Weird,” Sam muttered, “Why didn’t you answer me before? Guys I’ve been in here for half an hour already and I barely got anything except the last few minutes, and even then it wasn’t like, super coherent.”
Almost a full minute passed of empty static. The sound seemed louder than it had been earlier, bouncing off the concrete and grating against his ears. He’d almost started to speak again when the static finally parted and produced a clear, crisp word that made his blood run cold.
“Trapped.”
Sam let out a strangled gasp. Almost unconsciously, he pressed himself a little further into the corner. He was now all the more aware of the aching in his wrists, and a sick, slithering feeling curled in his stomach.
What are the chances? He wondered. What are the chances it would say that? What radio host, what talk show, what song had stumbled over that word for this box to randomly—because it had to be random—select it?
“Are you…” Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t- “Are you happy I’m trapped?”
Idiot. The rational part of his brain screamed at him. Why ask questions you don’t want the answer to? Why entertain this at all? Why not lean over and simply turn the box off? Why not just wait out the hour in peace?
The other part of his brain waited, fearfully, gleefully, for a response.
“Yes.”
Sam wasn’t glancing at the camera anymore. He’d almost forgotten it existed entirely, forgotten about time, about Colby. How long had it been? It felt like minutes. It felt like hours. It felt like he’d never been anywhere else. None of it mattered. His mind latched onto the spirit box, pinballing between excitement and terror.
“Why?”
“Show.”
“Show? Like you want to show me something?”
“Show you.”
“What do you want to show me? Why did I have to be stuck here for you to-”
A strange silence fell over the room. No static. No sound. But something in Sam knew the box hadn’t finished. Something in him felt like it was waiting…or holding its breath. Like he was holding his breath. Like the air had grown stale and still and oh shit I can’t feel my hands.
He tried to adjust his position on the floor, hoping to get the blood flowing again. His body felt heavy and slow. The same exhaustion from before sank deeper into his bones. He tried to draw in a breath and found his lungs sore and inefficient. Not horrible, yet.
He was still breathing.
But the discomfort was there, gnawing at him.
How long have I been here?
Lazily, he swung his hands over his phone screen. The light seemed blinding. His eyes couldn’t focus on the numbers. Couldn't read the wall of notifications. Missed calls from a name he couldn’t hold in his mind.
Distracted, he suddenly felt like he’d forgotten something crucial. Something that seemed on the tip of his tongue until the box spoke one final time and all his thoughts were shooed away like flies.
“It’s getting dark out there.”
One, perfect, unbroken phrase. In a voice that seemed both familiar and deeply alien. Genderless, ageless, but not the usual robotic tone either. Something organic. Something alive. He couldn’t remember a time when the box had spoken like that, and although the phrase seemed to mean nothing he couldn’t help but feel a certain sharpness to the words. A sort of predatory lilt that turned a benign observation into a veiled threat.
“What does that-”
And then the box started to scream.