Chapter 22: The Voice Behind the Door
The pounding on the apartment door stopped so suddenly that the silence felt wrong.
Kai stood frozen in the middle of his living room, clutching his phone hard enough that his fingers hurt. His apartment had become a collection of noises over the past few hours. Knocks. Text alerts. Donations. Discord notifications. Static. Footsteps.
Now there was nothing.
Just the hum of his PC.
The glow of his monitors.
And one hundred and thirty-seven thousand people waiting for something terrible to happen.
The silence lasted five seconds.
Then ten.
Then twenty.
Long enough for Kai’s imagination to start working against him.
Because noise was scary.
Silence gave his brain room to create monsters.
His chat wasn’t handling it any better.
ExpiredMilkDealer:
WHY IS SILENCE SOMEHOW WORSE
FrogTaxCollector:
BRO IF I WAS HIM I WOULD ALREADY BE IN ANOTHER STATE
AngryToaster88:
I NEED A STREAMER THERAPY REIMBURSEMENT
Kai rubbed his eyes.
"I hate all of you."
The chat immediately filled with hearts.
Which somehow made it worse.
His phone buzzed.
Every muscle in his body tightened.
Unknown number.
Again.
At this point he was receiving so many messages from random strangers that his phone looked less like a device and more like a haunted object.
He opened it.
The message contained only four words.
don’t trust the voice
Kai frowned.
"What voice?"
No answer came.
Just those four words sitting on his screen.
Across his monitors, the viewer count ticked upward again.
137,487.
137,512.
137,608.
The number kept climbing.
Every rational part of his brain knew he should have ended the stream hours ago.
But every time he glanced at those numbers, something ugly twisted inside his chest.
He liked it.
Not the danger.
Not the stalking.
Not the fear.
The attention.
The feeling that people cared what happened next.
The realization made him feel sick.
Because Luna had been right earlier.
Attention and affection weren’t the same thing.
And lately Kai wasn’t sure he remembered the difference.
"Kai?"
Luna’s voice pulled him back.
Soft.
Careful.
The way someone might speak to a frightened animal.
"Yeah."
"Can you do something for me?"
His stomach tightened.
Whenever Luna asked for something, it usually ended with him discovering another reason she knew too much.
"What?"
"I want you to check your front camera."
Kai blinked.
"My what?"
"The peephole camera."
"I don’t have one."
Silence.
A very brief silence.
Then:
"Oh."
Kai narrowed his eyes.
"Luna."
"Yes?"
"You thought I had a camera."
"I hoped."
"Why?"
Another pause.
Then her voice became smaller.
"Because I’d feel better."
The answer caught him off guard.
Not because it was manipulative.
Not because it was creepy.
Because it sounded honest.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Kai stared at Discord.
At her username.
At the little green circle beside it.
The longer this night went on, the harder it became to remember that Luna wasn’t actually here.
It felt like she was.
The apartment seemed less empty whenever she talked.
That thought should have worried him.
Instead it felt comforting.
Which worried him even more.
A sudden donation alert interrupted his spiral.
The room flashed pink.
RealDerekVoss donated $75,000
Police outside in ten. Stay inside.
The chat exploded instantly.
ChairViolence:
WAIT WHAT
CerealArsonist:
DEREK HAS RESOURCES???
DumpsterWizard:
WHY DOES THIS MAN KEEP APPEARING LIKE BATMAN
Kai stared at the donation.
For the first time all night, genuine relief flickered through him.
Help.
Actual help.
Not theories.
Not texts.
Not internet detectives.
Help.
Then his phone buzzed again.
Unknown number.
His relief vanished immediately.
The message loaded.
A single image.
His apartment door.
Taken from the hallway.
Recent.
Very recent.
The timestamp showed less than thirty seconds ago.
Kai’s stomach dropped.
The caption beneath it read:
they won’t get here in time
His pulse hammered.
The apartment suddenly felt colder.
Smaller.
The image wasn’t the scary part.
The scary part was the timing.
Whoever sent it knew about Derek’s donation almost immediately.
They were watching.
Not just Kai.
The stream.
The chat.
Everything.
"Kai."
Luna sounded different.
Still calm.
But there was tension underneath it now.
The kind she usually hid.
"Yeah?"
"Lock yourself in the bathroom."
"What?"
"The bathroom."
"Luna, I’m not hiding in my shower."
"You have one entrance."
Her answer came instantly.
"One door. No windows. Hard surfaces. Small space."
Kai stared.
That was an alarmingly practical response.
The kind of response somebody only gave after thinking about it before.
The realization sent a chill down his spine.
Not because it was suspicious.
Because it wasn’t.
Because she was trying to protect him.
And she was good at it.
Too good.
The chat was already arguing.
MicrowaveBandit:
BATHROOM META
GoblinAccountant:
ACTUALLY SHE KINDA RIGHT
CertifiedFailure:
WHY DOES SHE SOUND LIKE SHE HAS EXPERIENCE
Nobody wanted to ask that last question.
Not even Kai.
Then a sound drifted through the apartment.
A voice.
Soft.
Almost impossible to hear.
Coming from the other side of the front door.
Kai froze.
The chat froze.
Even Luna went silent.
The voice spoke again.
A man.
Young.
Nervous.
"Hello?"
Kai’s blood ran cold.
The message from earlier flashed through his head.
don’t trust the voice
The stranger spoke again.
"Uh... Kai?"
The apartment felt impossibly still.
The voice sounded normal.
Too normal.
No threats.
No screaming.
No creepy laughter.
Just a nervous guy standing outside a door.
Which somehow made it worse.
Because monsters were easy.
Normal people were complicated.
"Kai?"
The voice hesitated.
Then added:
"I think somebody’s following me."
Every hair on Kai’s arms stood up.
His phone buzzed.
Another text.
Unknown number.
Three words.
don’t answer him
At the exact same moment, Luna whispered through the headset:
"Don’t answer."
The apartment went silent.
Kai stared at the door.
At the text.
At Discord.
At Luna’s name glowing on his screen.
Outside, the stranger waited.
Inside, Luna waited.
And for the first time all night—
both sides had given him the exact same warning.
