Story 10
Illegally Uploaded Video
I was watching an illegally uploaded video.
It was a horror movie. The uploader had recorded their TV screen with a camera and then uploaded it to a video-sharing site. Because of that, the footage was pretty rough—sometimes things around the TV got reflected on-screen, and occasionally there was background noise. Well, since I was watching it for free, I couldn’t really complain.
Since it was a horror movie, a lot of the scenes took place at night and were pretty dark, so the uploader’s room often got reflected in the TV screen and showed up in the video. What looked like a Buddhist altar, and sometimes a passing human silhouette (probably the uploader checking the camera?) appeared in the reflection. They were clear enough to be distracting.
At the beginning of the movie, I was bothered by the altar and the figure passing by, but eventually I stopped noticing.
When the movie was getting close to the climax, I found myself paying attention to the altar and the shadows again. Maybe it was because the story was so predictable that I had already figured out the ending and was getting bored.
Without really thinking about the movie, I let my gaze wander to the reflected altar. Once again, a person entered the edge of the screen, lingered for a moment, then left.
And then, only the altar was left in view again.
As I absentmindedly stared at the screen, I thought I saw the altar shaking. At first, I assumed the camera was shaking, but the TV screen itself wasn’t moving. That’s when I realized—it was the altar itself that was shaking.
The shaking seemed to grow more intense. I thought I could even hear rattling noises—clatter, clatter.
Honestly, I was so fixated on the altar’s movement that I stopped paying attention to the movie. I started feeling a little nauseous, like I was getting motion sickness.
It must have been about five minutes after I first noticed the altar shaking when it suddenly stopped dead still. Then, right away—it’s hard to explain—something like a hand reached out from the image of the Buddha inside the altar. I was stunned.
And then, more hands kept appearing. Soon there were around ten of them, squirming and writhing as they stretched out from the picture.
I couldn’t understand what was happening—I just stared at the screen in shock.
Before long, the shadowy figure appeared again, this time moving into the reflection as if to block the altar from sight.
And that’s when the video ended. Somehow, the movie itself had also finished.
But that image of those squirming hands is still burned into my mind. The way they moved—like they were beckoning—was sickening.
And I can’t help but wonder… is the uploader okay?
