It all started with an anonymous package left on my doorstep. There was no sender, only my name written in a cursive so elegant it looked almost etched into the paper.
Inside was an ebony metronome.
I hadn't ordered it, but I made the mistake of winding it up. The tick-tock was hypnotic, perfectly rhythmic. But after an hour, I noticed something strange: the sound wasn't coming from the metronome itself. The pendulum would swing to the right, but the "tick" would sound when it reached the left. It was out of phase with reality.
That night, the beat changed. It was no longer a mechanical sound. It was a heartbeat.
I woke up at 3:03 AM. The metronome was ticking furiously. I looked out the window and saw a black van parked under the streetlight. A tall man, wearing a uniform that looked as though it were woven from ash, stepped out and left another package.
I sprinted to the door, but the van vanished in the time it took me to turn the deadbolt. Inside the package was an old Polaroid. The photo inside was still developing. When the image finally cleared, my breath hitched in my throat.
It was a photo of me, taken a second earlier, looking out the window. But in the photo, standing right behind me, a long, pale hand was resting on my shoulder.
I spun around. Nothing. Only the metronome, which was now ticking incredibly slowly. Tick... tock...
Every hour, a new package arrived.
4:00 AM: A lock of my own hair, still warm to the touch.
5:00 AM: A tooth. My back-left molar. I felt no pain until the moment I saw it in the box; then, my mouth flooded with blood.
6:00 AM: A key I had never seen before.
I realized with horror that this delivery service wasn't bringing me objects. It was dismantling my life and delivering it back to me, piece by piece.
The last package arrived just a few minutes ago. It's a box the size of a man. It's sitting in my hallway. The metronome has stopped. The silence is so heavy it makes my ears ring.
I am holding the key from the 6:00 AM delivery. I can hear faint scratching coming from inside the cardboard. And the worst part?
I can hear my own breath coming from inside that box.