Benny didn't sleep.
He lay on his bed with the lights on, staring at the ceiling, counting the tiny cracks in the paint he'd never noticed before. His phone rested face-down beside him, close enough that he could feel its presence even without touching it.
Every few minutes, he flipped it over.
Every time, the reflection moved when he did.
That should have been reassuring.
It wasn't.
The memory of the reflection blinking—not his blink—refused to fade. It replayed in his mind with cruel clarity, sharper than anything else from that night. He could still feel the cold crawl up his spine when he thought about it.
By the time morning arrived, his body felt heavy and empty at the same time.
School passed in fragments.
Benny sat through classes without absorbing much of anything. Teachers' voices blended into background noise. Words were spoken, notes were taken, bells rang—none of it felt real.
What felt real was the phone in his pocket.
Every vibration made his heart spike, even when it turned out to be nothing more than a message or a system alert. He checked his screen obsessively, scanning for anything out of place.
Nothing was.
No strange icons.
No unfamiliar apps.
No camera interface opening on its own.
It was as if SPECTRA had never existed.
That should have made him feel better.
Instead, it made his stomach twist.
During lunch, one of his friends nudged him.
"You good?" the guy asked. "You look like hell."
Benny forced a laugh. "Didn't sleep."
"Yeah, that tracks."
The conversation moved on without him.
Benny poked at his food, appetite gone.
His phone buzzed on the table.
He flinched hard enough that someone noticed.
"Relax," another friend said. "It's just a phone."
Benny nodded, pretending to smile, but his fingers trembled slightly as he picked it up.
Just a message.
Normal.
Still, he didn't put the phone back down.
When he got home, the house felt wrong.
Not dark.
Not quiet.
Just… off.
Benny locked his bedroom door for the first time in years.
He didn't remember deciding to do it—it just felt necessary.
He sat on the floor with his back against the bed, phone in his hands, staring at the screen like it might blink first.
"You're not real," he said quietly.
The words sounded small in the room.
He opened the app settings again, going through them line by line.
Camera permissions.
Background activity.
System processes.
Everything looked clean.
Too clean.
He frowned.
Apps didn't just delete themselves. Especially not ones that acted like they had system-level access. Something like SPECTRA should have left traces—cache files, permissions, something.
There was nothing.
A thought settled into his mind, slow and unwelcome.
What if it's still there…
…and it just doesn't need to show itself anymore?
Benny's grip tightened.
That night, he dreamed.
He stood in his room, holding his phone up like a mirror. The camera was open, pointed straight at his face. On the screen, his reflection stared back, eyes too still, expression wrong.
"Don't look away," it whispered.
He tried to drop the phone, but his fingers wouldn't move.
Then the reflection smiled.
Benny woke with a sharp gasp, sitting upright in bed.
The room was dark.
His chest hurt from how fast he was breathing.
He checked the time.
3:17 AM.
The phone lay beside him, silent.
He didn't pick it up.
He didn't sleep again.
Over the next few days, nothing obvious happened.
No voices.
No midnight appearances.
No black icons appearing out of nowhere.
Life continued, stubbornly normal.
But Benny noticed details.
His phone battery drained faster than before, even when he barely used it. Sometimes, when he opened the camera by accident, there was a tiny delay—a fraction of a second where the screen stayed black before the image appeared.
Once, while scrolling through his gallery, he found a corrupted thumbnail.
Just one.
Black.
Unopenable.
He deleted it immediately.
After that, he stopped using the camera entirely.
By Thursday, the paranoia had settled into his bones.
He rearranged his room so he could see more of it at once. Mirrors were angled carefully.
Dark corners were avoided. He slept with the door open and the hallway light on.
Still, he felt watched.
Not constantly.
Just enough.
Like something that knew it didn't need to rush.
Friday night arrived quietly.
Benny sat on his bed, scrolling through his phone, forcing himself to act normal. Music played softly from his earbuds, something familiar and comforting.
The phone vibrated.
Once.
He nearly dropped it.
It was a system notification.
Storage Optimization Complete
Benny laughed, shaky and embarrassed, even though no one was there to see it.
"Get it together," he muttered.
He locked the phone and placed it face-down on the bed.
The room was dim, lit only by his bedside lamp.
Across from him, the mirror reflected the space behind his back.
Everything looked exactly as it should.
He lay down and closed his eyes.
The phone vibrated again.
This time, it didn't stop.
Benny opened his eyes slowly.
The screen lit up on its own, bright enough to reflect in the mirror.
A notification banner slid down.
No app icon.
No app name.
Just text.
Residual process detected.
His mouth went dry.
"That's not possible," he whispered.
The phone vibrated again.
The banner expanded.
Would you like to resume?
Two options appeared beneath it.
YES
LATER
Benny stared at the screen, his mind racing.
Resume what?
He hadn't agreed to anything. He hadn't opened anything. He hadn't—
The mirror flickered.
Just once.
In the reflection, the phone screen looked brighter than it should have.
A faint line of text appeared beneath the options, barely visible.
Some processes cannot be terminated.
The room felt colder.
"No," Benny said softly. "I didn't say yes."
The phone vibrated.
The LATER option dimmed.
Then vanished.
Only YES remained.
Benny's heart pounded so hard he could feel it in his throat.
From somewhere behind him—
Very close—
A voice whispered.
"Don't leave us waiting."
Benny turned toward the mirror.
And this time—
The reflection turned first.