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“I know we didn’t really get into the video’s topic, but we’ll see you guys next Friday!” Nicolas Sturniolo told the camera, a strained smile on his face. His brothers, by his side, were not looking any better; Matthew kept looking outside the car, almost as if expecting something to shift to move, his hands tightly gripping the steering wheel; Christopher, the usual loud one, was silent, barely moving except for the consistent shivers coursing through his otherwise stiff body. The silence had stretched for too long, and an uneasy feeling started to settle between them.
Christopher was the first one to move, unable to stand the suffocating stillness. He snatched the camera, hands shaking, and shoved it toward Matthew. “Just—end it,” he muttered, voice brittle, hoping his brother would do his usual screaming outro to lighten the room, but the older simply turned it off.
The faint hum of the camera off filled the car before even that stopped and everything went eerily silent. Not comfortable silence, but the type of silence that settled uncomfortably on their bones.
Suddenly, the streetlights surrounding their car turned off. Instantly, the temperature dropped, an unnatural chill creeping over them, but it wasn’t just that the air got colder, somehow, someway, it was as if the air had moved, shifted.
Matthew blinked as he watched the shadows move. Despite there being no light, he could still see them. It looked almost as if the shadows were crawling to them, growing as it got closer and closer.
The lights turned back on.
The shadows disappeared.
The siblings stared at each other, eyes wide, their hearts pounding heavily against their chests. Nicolas shifted forwards onto his seat, sitting closer to his triplet brothers. Absently, he reached for Matthew’s hands and gripped them tight.
“Ugh!” Nicolas exclaimed, turning to look behind him, his eyes darting across the dim corners of the street. “Is it just me or are we being watched?”
“Nick!” Christopher began, turning to stare at his brother before punching him on the arm still holding Matthew’s fingers, his voice slightly trembling. “Don’t even say that! You know I hate when you say shit like that!”
“Chris, tell me you don’t feel like you’re being watched,” Nicolas turned back around, pulling his sweater tighter to his chest with his free hand.
Matthew’s eyes flickered to where he’d seen the shadow moments before, where the shadows seemed thicker, and almost as if they were staring at him back.
“It’s almost like it moves whenever we move,” Matthew added, his voice barely above a whisper, his eyes never leaving the dark corners of the street. His leg bounced nervously below the steering wheel, a nervous habit of his. Absently, he brought his hands to his mouth, anxiously biting his fingernails. He could feel his anxiety rise with every passing second. “I think we should leave.”
“Fuck yes!” his triplet brothers replied at the same time. Quickly, they all put their seatbelts on—
“Fuck yes!” his triplet brothers replied at the same time. Quickly—
His triplet brothers—
The words hung in the air, fractured and wrong, like a scratched record skipping.
Nicolas blinked, heart pounding. He was still in the car, but everything felt off—the air too thick, the silence too sharp. His brothers’ voice sounded distant, like they were coming from underwater. He tried to shake the feeling away, but no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t yell for help. For a second, he also couldn’t breathe. All he could do was stare right ahead as the shadows grew and moved closer to the car. A pair of eyes could be seen through the darkness. They blinked.
Christopher Sturniolo suddenly woke up feeling off. Wasn’t he in the car just a second ago? Normally he’d tick this feeling to anxiety or a sleep paralysis episode, but he hadn’t dreamt that night, or had he? Besides, this time everything felt off. Different. Wrong. As he became more aware of his surroundings, he realized that something was wrong. For starters, he woke up sleeping on his back, something he had always expressed he didn’t do. So why was he sleeping on his back?
Then, he realized he was alone in his bed. One would cross this off as normal, but for Christopher, it wasn’t. This would mark the fuoahsiuh night in a row he slept in his room.
As he shifted out of the bed, the wrinkling sound of paper startled him. Confused, Christopher lifted his pillow to find a folded, wrinkled piece of paper that looked to have been ripped from a notebook. The paper felt oddly cold to the touch, as if it had been left on a freezer overnight.
Carefully, he opened the paper to find words printed on it.
“As Christopher Sturniolo approached the kitchen, he could hear his brothers bickering over breakfast fruit. ‘You can’t be this stupid, Nick. The only right answer is bananas!’ Matthew exclaimed, annoyed. ‘That’s bananas, Matt! I don’t care what you think, strawberries are the best fruit!’ Nicolas yelled back. Christopher— froze, annoyance—.”
“Huh?” Christopher whispered, laughing it off thinking it was a weird prank from his older brothers who loved scaring him. Without a second thought, he began to rip the page. With every tear, the uneasiness he’d been feeling the whole day deepened. The shadows in the room shifted, stretching toward him like grasping fingers. The page grew heavy in his hands—too heavy for something so thin. The weight pressed into his palms, almost pulsing, like a heartbeat.
Panicked, he hurled it into the trash can. The paper landed with a dull thud, far too solid.
He didn’t look back. Didn’t dare to.
As Christopher approached the kitchen, he could hear his brothers bickering over the best breakfast fruit.
The air in the hallway suddenly felt heavier, pressing down on his chest.
“You can’t be this stupid, Nick. The only right answer is bananas!” Matthew exclaimed, annoyed.
“That’s bananas, Matt! I don’t care what you think, strawberries are the best fruit!” Nicolas yelled back.
Christopher immediately froze, annoyance quickly rising. The light above flickered, casting brief shadows that danced across the walls.
“Could you guys stop that!” He yelled.
“Woah,” Nicolas began, lifting his hands into the air. “I’m sorry we were having a brotherly moment by discussing breakfast fruits.”
“I’m not talking about that!” Christopher exclaimed. “I hate when you guys prank me with scary shit. You guys know that, so could you stop?”
“Chris,” Matthew began, slowly approaching Christopher as if he were a wild animal. His eyes darted around the room, like he was expecting something to jump out. “We not pranking you—We’re not pranking you.”
“Then what do you call this?” Christopher exclaimed, yanking the crumpled page from his front pocket. His heart hammered in his chest as he stared at it.
Didn’t I rip this?
I ripped it—
I know I ripped the page—
But it was whole. Perfect. Like it had never been touched.
The ink shimmered faintly, not like light catching it, but like something beneath the surface was shifting, writhing. The words bled into one another, stretching and twisting as though the page itself was breathing.
Then, letter by letter, the sentence rearranged itself, slow and deliberate, like it knew he was watching:
"You shouldn't be reading this."
The kitchen light flickered again, and somewhere deep in the house, a door creaked open slowly, the sound stretching out like a warning.
“What the fu—"
The page twitched in his hands. The ink on the page began to melt, as if it were alive. The words mixed with each other until the letters were no longer identifiable, dissolving into shapeless blurs.
Frozen in place, Christopher stared at the mess in his hands, he could listen to his brothers’ worried voices, but they were lost in the sound of his heart beating against his chest. All he could do was stare at the paper in his hands.
Then, the world turned black.
Matthew Sturniolo lay on Nicolas’s bed, phone in hand, mindlessly scrolling through TikTok with Mr. Wrinkleton on his left side. But even the distractions of the app couldn't quiet his growing worry for Christopher. After recording the car video, everything had felt... off. The lights flickered, murmurs seemed to echo through the house, and the temperature dropped without warning. But the worst part? The shadows. They were everywhere—lurking in the corners, shifting just out of sight. Watching. Waiting. Staring.
He'd convinced himself he was going crazy. Everything was happening in his head— a product of stress, anxiety and possible sleep deprivation— but then Christopher showed up, with that paper in hand.
It described, in chilling detail, his previous conversation with Nicolas. Everything they’d done. Everything they’d said. It was almost as if there truly was someone or something watching them. It sent shivers down his spine just by thinking about it.
Christopher passing out a second later did not help.
It wasn’t a normal fainting episode. It was different. Odd. Too fast. Too sudden. The way he’s fallen had been unnatural as well. He fell in a way that made it appear that someone had positioned him in that certain way. One second, he was standing up, slightly swaying, the next he was on the floor, arms bent almost too perfectly.
It took a moment for both Nicolas and Matthew to help their siblings, both too surprised at what had happened in such little time. After a few seconds, though, they snapped out of their stupor, they rushed to their brother’s side.
The second Christopher opened his eyes, he had begun to hyperventilate, his gaze fixed on the piece of paper that had fallen from his hands.
“Chris?” Nicolas had spoken up, gently rubbing his brother’s arm. Christopher hadn’t reacted, his eyes still staring at the paper, as if it were alive, his gaze locked onto the cryptic words like they were something beyond human understanding.
“Chris!” Nicolas had exclaimed, louder and clearly concerned with urgency in his voice.
That seemed to snap Christopher out of his reverie. The younger triplet had turned his head to his siblings, eyes wide and full body shivers.
“You don’t understand,” Christopher’s voice was shaky, but his words came out in a rush. “I found it under my pillow. When I touched it, it felt... wrong. It was cold, too cold. Like it had been frozen. I thought you guys were playing a prank on me. I really did. I really thought it was just some stupid prank. So, I ripped it,” He paused, shuddering. “Nick, I felt it pulse in my hand. The more I ripped, the more it pulsed and the heavier it felt. I threw it away; you have to believe me. I threw it away.”
“We believe you,” Matthew had placated, sharing a concerned look with Nicolas over Christopher’s shaking figure.
“I don’t know why it came back to my pocket. I know I ripped it. I knew I threw it away. So, why did it come back?” Christopher had curled further onto himself. “The words changed when I took it out of my pocket. It almost felt like it was alive. It shifted. The words… they moved. They… they…” He had swallowed hard, voice dropping to a whisper as tears started to trail down his cheeks, silent sobs rocking his already shaking body. “I ripped it, but it came back whole. It came back whole.”
Both Nicolas and Matthew stayed by Christopher's side, comforting him as best as they could until he finally cried himself to sleep. When that happened, Nicolas decided to carry him to Matthew’s bed, as it was the closest, and took the first shift in watching over him.
Now that he thought about it… what was Mr. Wrinkleton doing on Nicolas’s bed?
Matthew slowly turned his head around, heart hammering his chest, his breathing coming up fast and shallow. The air in the room felt suffocating, as if there wasn’t enough oxygen for Matthew to breathe correctly. Almost as if the air had thickened. His eyes met with the plush pug, at first, it seemed as if nothing had changed. But then—
The light bulb above him flickered, casting long shadows around the room. Once. Twice. Matthew watched, horrified as the shadows grew and moved with every flicker. He watched as a hand-shaped shadow, long and thin, inched closer to Mr. Wrinkleton, brushing against the toy’s body in a way that felt almost deliberate. The toy’s body twitched in response, its stitched mouth curling wider, its glossy eyes turning darker, distorted and then—everything went dark.
It was as if something sinister had woken up the moment the lights went off.
The temperature plummeted in an instant, the air turning frigid and thick with a damp, musty stench. Each breath felt shallow, as though the oxygen had been removed from the room. Dread coiled in Matthew’s chest, cold and suffocating, just as the noises began—soft taps against the wall, the slow groan of strained wood, and footsteps, deliberate and uneven, drawing closer.
Matthew scrambled for his phone, his hands trembling as he blindly searched beneath the blankets. The noises of the room and the feeling of being watched making it harder to think. Finally, his fingers brushed against the smooth, cold surface of the device, but the moment he grasped it, a low growl came from within the deep and thick shadows, almost as if something were moving inside them.
His breath hitched, not waiting a single second as he fumbled to turn on the flashlight. He let out a dry chuckle as the light revealed an empty space. His heart still pounded against his chest as he tried to steady his pulse.
“Oh, Mr. Wrinkle—” He froze. The tight smile he’d forced on his face disappearing in a second when he saw the plush toy. Not only was he not lying where he’d been just a few seconds before. It was sitting up. Its face was no longer innocent. It had shifted into something wrong.
At first, the change was subtle. The fabric of Mr. Wrinkleton’s body darkened, the once soft plush now matted and rough; Almost as if it had been left to rot for decades in a dark corner. Then, its once-glossy eyes were now scratched out, leaving empty sockets, as though something evil had ripped them apart. His smile, that had once been stitched, was stretched onto something unnaturally wide, frozen in an evil smile.
Then, as the shadows in the room pulsed, he moved. Not like a toy being shifted by gravity, but like something that had just woken up. Something that had been waiting.
Matthew tensed as he tried to back away, eyes locked on the twitching monster as if it would move the moment he took his eyes off. He felt his heart plummet to the ground when he found the door locked.
Before he could even try to unlock it, he watched as Mr. Wrinkleton’s head jerked downward, its smile deepening, the edges curling into something vile. The plush’s small body stretched into something impossibly larger, his once-soft paws disappearing as the claws ripped the fabric. The thing’s mouth oozed with a viscous, white substance that bubbled and dripped onto the floor.
“They can sense you,” a voice, deep and sinister came from the plush. The sound came up like a growl followed by an empty laugh. “They can sense you watching them.”
“What the fuck is going on?!” Matthew’s voice trembled as panic rose through his chest, his breathing short and erratic. His heart pounding harshly in his ears, drowning out the world around him.
Mister—the thing sharply turned his head towards Matthew, his vile smile growing, sharp teeth showing. In a second, Matthew went from standing beside the bedroom door to lying flat on the bed, the monster’s hands pinning him down by his arms and legs.
“Oh, buddy,” The monster purred against Matthew’s ear, a putrid smell coming from its mouth. “I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to them.”
“Th-them?” Matthew questioned, the words a choked whisper as panicked tears streamed down his face. The monster’s tongue flicking out to lick the boy’s face, leaving a trail of cold and slimy drool.
“It’s not a what... it’s a who. But don’t worry. Soon you’ll see. Their curiosity... it’s about to become your doom.” The monster’s laugh, dark and hollow, echoed around the room. "WAKE UP!"
Matthew’s eyes snapped open, his heart hammering his rib cage as he gasped for air. As he tried to process his surroundings, his face was dry, no marks of slimy drool. The lights were on, and the sunlight streamed from the windows. Then, he realized it was too quiet. Oddly quiet. He turned to his left, expecting to see the monster looming beside him. But the bed was empty. No Mr. Wrinkleton. No monster.
Relief flooded through him, at the same time his brain decided to catch up with everything that had happened. He curled around himself, body shaking and mind playing the events he’d just lived through.
Suddenly he heard footsteps approaching the room. His heart plummeted for what felt like the thousandth time. He watched, eyes wide as the door creaked open and Matthew flinched, closing his eyes at the same moment, a terrified cry escaping his lips.
“Matt?” Nicolas’ voice came shocking Matthew’s body. He opened his eyes, the rush of adrenaline disappearing the instant he locked eyes with his older brother. “Did you just had a nightmare?”
“What?” The question rocked Matthew.
“I found one of Chris’s pages on Mr. Wrinkleton,” Nicolas explained, his voice shaky. “There’s definitely something weird going on.”
With shaky hands, Matthew grabbed the paper and read through it, holding his breath when he realized the paper recounted in exact detail what he had just been through.
In the bottom of the page, it read:
“Stop reading, now. They know you're here. The further you go, the tighter your grip on them becomes. Your curiosity chains them, twists them, and there’s no turning back.”
He looked up, locking eyes with Nicolas, hoping his brother could understand what he did not want to say out loud. Of course, he did.
“Fuck,” Nicolas sat beside Matthew, wrapping his arms around the youngest. The two brothers closed their eyes, choosing to ignore the world for a moment. Choosing to ignore the fact that something… someone was watching them.
That you are watching them, reader.
Nicolas Sturniolo ran his hands through his hair, his legs bouncing nervously under the kitchen table. His brothers sat beside him, and despite the comforting proximity of each other, none of them felt safe. Not anymore. The pages had started appearing more frequently now. They would predict their words, their movements. They tried ripping them, burning them, but no matter what they tried, the pages kept appearing. Kept predicting their lives.
“It’s back,” Matthew his voice thin, barely above a whisper, as the living room’s lights flickered, a creak sounded from somewhere around their house, almost like something was about to break.
Nicolas looked around, trying to find the person watching them. Trying to find you. It was an on and off thing. One moment there would be calm, and the next things would flicker, weird noises could be heard, but the worst thing was the feeling of being watched. They all could feel them. Eyes. Your eyes. They could feel the eyes around the room. The way they followed their every movement. Watching. It wasn’t the sound that terrified him, it was the feeling. That feeling that someone, something, was standing just behind him, watching his every move. His hands shook, but when he turned around—nothing.
“I hate this,” Nicolas whispered, curling into himself on the couch. Wait, wasn't he sitting at the kitchen table? What the hell was going on?
“What do you want from us!” Christopher suddenly stood up quickly, too fast if Nicolas was being honest.
“Guys?” Matthew’s voice suddenly came up, his voice was weird. Different. It didn’t sound right. He was pointing towards the floor below Christopher’s feet. A page. The lights above them suddenly went off, and everything went completely quiet and still. But somehow, somehow the words were still visible through the darkness.
“Stop reading.”
Nicolas, Matthew, and Christopher laid frozen on the bed, eyes wide open, staring at nothing. They weren’t asleep. They weren’t dreaming. They were paralyzed. In their hands, just beneath Matthew’s fingertips, lay another page.
“It’s too late now.”
Suddenly, the triplet brothers awoke from the weird state they had been frozen into. They stared forwards. Outwards. Staring right at you, reader.
“Please, stop,” Christopher cried, tears streaking down his face. “It hurts.”
“STOP READING!” Matthew screamed, his voice raw and desperate. “STOPREADINGSTOPREADINGSTOPREADINGSTOPREADING—”
Nicolas didn’t speak. He just stared at you… his image flickering… glitching… until everything went black.
For a moment, there was silence.
And then, the last words appeared, bold and bleeding across the void:
"You couldn’t stop, could you? You chose to keep reading. Now, they’re yours. Every moment, every breath they take... it’s because of you. You wanted this. All of this is your fault."