Stories of the Paranormal: Echoes in the Lower Levels
The abandoned Blackwater Research Facility was already infamous in countless stories of the paranormal, but I never expected the truth to be so much worse. From the moment I stepped inside, the scraping noise behind the walls and the lingering dread clung to me like humidity. This was supposed to be a simple investigative assignment, yet descending into the old lab felt like stepping into a forgotten subgenre of despair.
Descent Into the Records Room
By the time I reached the main corridor, the fluorescent lights overhead flickered in a rhythm that reminded me of the Overlook Hotel’s hallway stutters. Suddenly, the air shifted, growing colder as I approached the first chamber.
The Records Room door hung half-open. Inside, rows of file cabinets leaned like rusted tombstones. Dust filled the air in weak sunbeams cutting through the cracked ceiling. A single folder sat on a metal table, as though waiting for me.
PROJECT ECHO — 1983
Dr. Lena Rourke, Lead Researcher
A footnote referenced a nonexistent academic paper: Rourke, L. “Behaviour of Human Echoes in Confined Environments,” Journal of Auditory Phenomena, Vol. 12 (restricted).
The term “human echoes” sent a sharp tremor through me.
Meanwhile, something shuffled in the corner—quiet, but wrong. When I turned, nothing stood there. Only a row of cabinets slightly misaligned, as if nudged moments earlier.
The Reflection Delay
I lifted the file and caught sight of myself in a cracked mirror near the cabinet wall—only my reflection wasn’t aligned with me. It lagged by half a second. When I leaned closer, its smile appeared before I even moved.
But then it stopped mimicking me entirely.
The figure in the mirror—my figure—tilted its head in a slow motion that felt deliberate. Curious. Hungry.
Suddenly, the metal cabinets behind me scraped across the floor by themselves. They shifted just far enough to expose a dark stairwell I hadn’t noticed on my way in.
As if inviting me deeper.
The Descent to Sub-Level 11
Sub-Level 11 wasn’t on any blueprints I had obtained from the so-called Blackwater Restoration Committee archives (a fictional front often cited in urban legends).
The steps downward pulsed with a faint vibration, like the heartbeat of the building itself. With every step I took, the scraping noise grew louder—metal dragged across concrete, then softer, almost like nails.
At the bottom, the corridor opened into a wide lab space. Broken monitors lay scattered, all showing the same frozen frame of a figure standing in the dark—its outline vaguely human but blurred by static distortion.
A journal lay on the floor, open to a page scrawled hastily.
“It does not imitate us. It records us. Every movement we make becomes a new layer of it. A new distortion. A new hunger.”
The author’s signature had been violently scratched out.
The Wooden Box
The far wall held a single table with a wooden box nailed shut. Burn marks circled the table legs, as though something had tried to escape.
On the lid, someone had carved:
DO NOT OPEN — IT NEEDS A HOST.
A fresh carving, not older than a few years.
For reasons I still cannot explain, I opened it anyway.
Inside lay nothing but a thin layer of fine grey dust—ash-like—and something else: a strip of old magnetic tape.
I lifted the tape to the light. Whispering poured from it instantly—dozens of voices overlapping.
My own voice was one of them.
The Entity Emerges
Suddenly, the lab lights shut off.
In the darkness, movement cracked through the air like invisible tendrils rearranging space. The scraping noise resumed—but this time, it circled me. Fast.
When the lights flickered back on, the entity stood five feet from me.
A distortion made flesh.
Its body flickered through dozens of forms—mine included—like a corrupted video file. It stretched in stuttering frames, its limbs blinking into different positions faster than thought. It wasn’t imitating me.
It was building itself from me.
Its head jerked, and suddenly I saw my own delayed reflection from earlier stitched into its shifting face.
It lunged.
Flight Through the Hallways
The walls buckled as I ran. Meanwhile, the flickering lights overhead synced perfectly with the entity’s stuttering gait. Every time they blinked off, it appeared closer—its form sharpening with each movement I made.
Therefore, I forced myself to stay still.
Stillness was the only thing that slowed it.
But then a soft hum crawled up the hallway. The speakers mounted into the ceiling crackled to life with an old automated announcement:
“PROJECT ECHO PHASE THREE — ACTIVATION PROTOCOL INITIATED.”
The entity convulsed, absorbing the sound. Each vibration made it stronger—its shape more coherent.
The Chamber of Mirrors
I stumbled into a circular room lined with mirrors. The air felt colder, heavier. My breath fogged instantly.
But the mirrors didn’t show me.
They showed hundreds of versions of the entity—each frozen in a different pose, like a timeline of its evolution.
As the door sealed shut behind me, all the reflections shifted their eyes toward me simultaneously.
I heard Dr. Rourke’s voice from a speaker above:
“You cannot destroy an echo. You can only give it shape.”
Suddenly, the mirrors began to crack—one after another—shattering under the weight of something pressing through from the other side.
The entity’s hand erupted through the nearest mirror.
Then another.
And another.
The Final Document
In desperation, I pulled out the PROJECT ECHO folder and tore through the remaining pages. Near the back was a sheet labeled Emergency Nullification Order with a single instruction:
“Silence stops it.
Stillness starves it.
But only the origin can erase it.”
The origin.
The wooden box.
I sprinted back toward the stairwell as the entity’s fragmented limbs chased behind me, scraping along metal rails and pipes. The building trembled with each of its stuttering lunges.
The Final Stand
Back in the lab, I slammed the wooden box onto the table. Its dust swirled upward without wind, gathering into a weak whirlpool. The entity recoiled, its form glitching violently.
I did the only thing I could think of.
I stepped into the swirling dust.
My vision blurred. My body felt hollow—as though sound itself was draining from me.
The entity screeched, but the sound warped, sucked inward toward the vortex forming around the box. Meanwhile, my memories flickered inside my skull—moments repeating, rewinding, echoing.
Finally, everything went silent.
The box snapped shut on its own.
When I opened my eyes, the entity was gone.
I was alone.
And I was no longer sure if the reflection in the nearest metal panel was mine.
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