it all started last week when i couldnt sleep. i walked into the living room and saw what looked like a red LED glowing on the wall. sure enough it was the smoke alarm. i didnt remember it being on previously, so i assumed it might be a low battery warning light.
i went to the store the next day and got a new battery and made sure it was replaced. the last time i dealt with a smoke alarm it was so annoying i just wanted to get it out of the way.
i am a bit hazy about what happened over the weekend. i was still so sleep deprived that i think it may have been a dream. i came out to get some water in the middle of the night and i saw the light again, but i thought i saw it blink. i came out into the living room to take a closer look and i heard some whispering. now i live in an apartment building and the upstairs neighbor tends to make a lot of noise, but this was super clear. i stopped to listen but i couldn’t hear anything. the light didn’t blink anymore, it was just on. i went back to bed.
on monday i wanted to figure out what the light specifically was supposed to mean. i presumed it was just a ‘powered on, everything ok’ indicator. pulled out the stepladder and unscrewed the thing from the wall. this was kind of weird. firstly, the LED was super round – maybe i am just used to the newer LEDs, but it was really glassy and i couldnt see inside it very clearly. i couldnt see the wires connecting to the board. i looked on the back and was honestly relieved when it was only connected to the power. its going to sound very silly but i had this paranoid thought that it was one of those mega tiny cameras that they make nowadays. anyway, im no circuit board expert, so i dont really see anything else going on with the power. looks normal. moving on.
the actual thing that sticks with me isnt the LED, it was this curly cable going into the wall along with the mains power lede. the kind you used to see on telephones back in the day. i couldn’t figure out for the life of me what this thing was. i didnt want to take the whole thing apart and end up having to pay for it, but i also really wanted to know why there is a telephone cord in the wall leading up to my smoke alarm.
i sent an email to management asking about this unit and cable situation. earlier this evening i got a response back. they said they don’t know anything about it, and the inventory of the apartment only lists the smoke alarm in the kitchen. no mention of the alarm in the living room. this is normal, right. landlords are incompetent
now i’ll skip ahead to tonight. haven’t been able to sleep. everyone else went to bed. i have been sitting up with the light. it has been on, watching over me. i wonder if it is listening. starting at about 2 AM, the steady light turned to a blinking pattern again.
i got up from my spot on the couch to take a closer look. i heard something. i can’t say for certain, but i swear to god that it sounded like a person’s voice: “hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?..”
i asked “what do you want?”
nothing. five minutes of total silence. i started typing this post. i looked up just now and noticed that the light stopped blinking. i go pull out the stepladder again and pull the thing off the wall. the telephone cable is gone
what the fuck is going on
I’m so glad the weirdness will stop at day one. Yep. Problem solved creepy stalker nightlight hal camera is gone nothing elsee bad will occur
I hope a good night sleep finally comes to you and maybe the creepiness abaits a bit.
GOOD Spooky story.
i love mysterious status lights. what is it indicating? that one day i will die? that one day a fire might consume the apartment while i slumber and trap me into a hot box of death and lung-searing carbon monoxide? That the opaque white box can sense my every movement and doesn’t differentiate between me and a potential intruder who has slipped in under the blanket of darkness to steal my supply of fig newtons?
