In a quiet corner office of Sahani Security Services, night technician Raghav Joshi sat slumped at his desk, eyes bleary from hours of staring at surveillance feeds. His job was routine—cycle through the night cams of corporate offices, apartment buildings, and shopping malls. Nothing ever happened, except the occasional drunk or stray dog.
That night, around 3:27 AM, something caught his eye.
On Camera 4, monitoring Sapphire Mall's South Entrance, a man in black stood motionless just outside the door. Raghav blinked. He hadn’t seen anyone approach. No motion alerts had gone off. The figure had simply… appeared.
Zooming in, Raghav leaned closer.
The man wore a long dark coat, soaked as if he had walked through a storm, though the weather was dry. His face, however, was blurry. Not like a bad resolution — like something wasn't letting the camera focus on it.
And yet, he stared straight into the lens.
Unblinking.
Still.
A ripple of unease ran through Raghav. He switched to Camera 5, the interior feed.
The man was inside.
But he hadn't moved. The timestamp hadn’t jumped. There was no frame break. One second he was outside… and the next, inside.
Raghav rewound the footage.
Still the same.
Outside.
Then… inside.
No in-between.
---
Meanwhile, in Block D of Shivneri Heights, Ayaan sat at his study table, pretending to read a textbook. But his mind kept replaying the events from the night before.
The knives.
The whisper.
The whistle.
He hadn't told his parents. Who would believe him? That the power outage was targeted? That the building vanished from the skyline?
He reached for his phone, intending to message Kritika, a girl from school who lived two floors below. But the screen lit up before he touched it.
One notification.
Unknown Folder: “DO NOT WATCH”
His thumb hovered over it.
He tapped.
It was a short video clip — grainy, timestamped exactly 3:33 AM, with the filename: “CCTV_1504”
Ayaan’s heart pounded.
That was his flat number.
He opened the file.
The footage showed his hallway from the angle of the main door’s security cam.
At first, nothing.
Then… the lights flickered.
A man in a black coat appeared — right at his door.
Staring into the camera.
He didn’t knock.
He didn’t move.
He simply… stood there.
For seven minutes.
Then, he slowly tilted his head, as if hearing something from inside.
He smiled.
But the face was wrong.
Too wide. Too stretched. Like skin pulled over a skull not meant to smile.
Then, just as suddenly, the screen went black.
The clip ended.
Ayaan dropped his phone. Cold sweat coated his palms. He ran to the door, yanked it open, and peered into the hallway.
Empty.
Dead quiet.
He slammed the door shut.
---
Back at the security company, Raghav tried reporting the footage, but every time he uploaded it, the file vanished. His email froze. His USB corrupted.
He called his supervisor.
“Sir, there’s something wrong with the mall cameras. I think someone’s tampering with the feeds.”
The supervisor laughed. “Again with your ghost stories, Raghav? Last month it was the girl in the parking lot. Focus on your shift. Don’t waste company data.”
Raghav sighed, then glanced back at the feed.
Now, the man in black was on Camera 9 — an office building near Shivneri Heights.
Raghav switched to Camera 10.
The man was closer.
No movement.
Just… appeared.
And then… something new.
The man raised his hand.
Not to wave. Not to point.
He pressed his palm against the camera lens.
And the screen cracked.
A spiderweb of static bloomed across the monitor. The other cameras started glitching one by one, flickering images of hallways, doors, mirrors — all showing him.
Over and over.
Always looking into the camera.
Always closer.
Raghav yanked the main power switch.
The monitors went dark.
But on his reflection in the black screen… the man stood behind him.
He spun around.
Nothing.
He ran.
---
The next morning, news spread.
The night technician from Sahani Security was found unconscious in the parking lot, muttering something about “he sees through the glass.” His hair had turned streaks of white.
Doctors assumed it was stress-induced psychosis.
But he refused to speak further.
Just one sentence over and over:
“He’s inside the cameras now.”
---
At 4:12 AM, Ayaan’s father reviewed footage from their doorbell cam — one of those new smart cameras with cloud storage. Nothing seemed unusual.
Until the footage from 3:33 AM.
The man stood right there.
Still.
No breathing. No blinking.
He looked at the lens as if he knew someone was watching.
Then he slowly turned his head… and looked straight at Ayaan’s father.
Not the camera.
Him.
Like he could see through the screen.
The file deleted itself the moment playback ended.
The system rebooted.
A message blinked on the home screen:
> “EYES ARE DOORS.”
---
That day, a city-wide glitch hit several buildings using smart surveillance systems. Every affected location reported the same issue:
A man in a coat. Appearing and vanishing. Standing still. Looking directly into the lens.
Some cameras melted.
Some exploded.
And in one apartment complex, a night guard disappeared, but footage showed him being pulled into the screen — face twisted in terror as the static consumed him.
But the police claimed it was an accident.
Electrical failure.
Coincidence.
**
But Ayaan knew better.
So did others.
And somewhere in the city, hidden in server rooms and mirrored hallways, the man in black moved through the wires, watching.
Waiting.
Because now… he was part of the system.
And everyone with a camera…
...had already let him in.
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