Polaroids

<h2></h2> <strong>March 3rd, 1978</strong> They ask me what I saw. I tell them, nothing. Nothing at all. A vacant room, the hum of electricity. They insist otherwise. They are deceived. Or I am. <strong>March 6th, 1978</strong> They show me photographs. Warped, brittle things. They say they are from the lab, but that is impossible. The lab was empty. I was alone. The men in the images stand still, their faces blank, their bodies—wrong. They are not screaming. They are waiting. <strong>March 9th, 1978</strong> They call me a liar. A coward. Maybe I am. But I did not see bodies shift. I did not hear laughter where there should have been screams. I was alone. I know I was alone. <strong>March 11th, 1978</strong> I do not sleep. When I close my eyes, something watches back. The whispers move inside the walls. My shadow stretches wrong. I count my steps but always hear one more. <strong>March 15th, 1978</strong> There was no lab. There were no men. I am certain now. Yet the photographs are here, lined neatly on my desk. A new one has appeared. A reflection. Something behind me. And then—the flash of the Polaroid. The moment caught, sealed, proof of what should not be. A final image, still developing, as I turn—