My mug disappeared from my desk. Has anyone seen it?
I can’t remember the exact results that popped up when I searched that, but something did. I was a bit weirded out. What were the odds that someone had the same issue?
It wasn’t just a matter of “oh, silly me, I took it with me to the bathroom and left it there when I was done taking a shit.”
I took a sip of coffee and gently placed the mug back on the coaster. When I checked to see if it was centered two seconds later, it was gone.
That exact thing had happened to someone online, or at least they claimed it. Tragically, they’d gotten no replies.
After a few moments of disbelief, I gaslit myself into believing I’d taken it downstairs and simply imagined taking that last sip.
I searched the sink, the tables, the fridge… hell, I even checked inside the fireplace. It was a plain, white mug with a cat sticker.
Its color contrasted with most of the furniture, so I quickly dismissed it. If it wasn’t downstairs, then it had simply disappeared and it was no longer my problem. I had work to get back to.
Then I faced a choice. I could either head upstairs or make another coffee first. I chose the latter.
At this point, I have to mention that every glass or cup I own is different in its own way. I don’t even have two identical mugs.
So when I opened the cabinet, I certainly didn’t expect it to be filled to the brim with those boring, plain white mugs. In fact, every single cabinet was.
My initial reaction was to rub my eyes, hoping I was dreaming. When I concluded I wasn’t, my curiosity was replaced with something I’d never felt before.
It wasn’t fear. It was something more primal. A gut-wrenching sensation that made me want to crawl out of my skin.
In my delirium, I started ravaging the entire kitchen. Sure enough, it wasn’t just the cabinets. The fridge I’d checked just five minutes prior was also overflowing with them. I find it ironic that none of them was the cup I was looking for.
There were many hopes I tried to cling to, but I couldn’t help dismissing them. No one was pulling a prank on me; no human could do something like this. And I wasn’t imagining it.
I could physically feel my blood running colder with each new mug I found. They weren’t limited to the kitchen. They appeared in places I had checked just minutes before. I must have looked like a lunatic trying to keep up.
At the very least, the breeze from the AC brushing my neck grounded me to reality. I took a deep breath and tried my best to think of a possible explanation. When nothing came to mind, I decided it was best to lock myself in my bedroom. Maybe if I felt safer, I’d figure out a way to overcome… whatever this was.
Before doing so, I turned off the air conditioner. At the very least, I had control over my electrical bill.
It felt like a wave of derealization. My heart pounded against my ribs, threatening to break them. My breathing became uncontrollable and jagged. For a moment, it felt as if I were looking at the already switched-off AC in third person.
There were no open windows. No ventilation. The AC was off. Someone had been breathing on my neck.
I rushed toward the stairs, desperately climbing them on all fours, and when I finally reached my room, I locked the door without looking back.
The false sense of safety quickly escaped me in the form of fast, erratic inhales and exhales. I had just trapped myself. I called the authorities and told them someone had broken into my house. There was no way in hell they would believe my story.
Not knowing what to do, I paced the small space in anticipation. I regret looking at my window.
Two handprints, the remnants of hot breath between them, and a note. Unmistakable. I dropped to my knees, my eyes fixed on the brutal sight. Had I lost it?
My window is about 20 feet above ground. There was no ledge, no balcony, or anything to stand on.
The thought of someone looking at me through my own window, impossibly elevated above ground, was enough to make me want to jump off.
The note. The note was the worst part.
"Find the mug, or you're next."
Are we fucking serious? Something with incomprehensible abilities was stalking me, putting me through an impossible situation, and the only thing it had to tell me was to find a stupid mug? And what did it mean by "I'm next?"
A sudden noise from right behind me made me jump back. It took all the strength I could muster to turn around. A trail. A trail of plain, white mugs, the same ones that took over my house. It was leading to my closet.
"Yeah, fuck that, I'm not doing that," I remember telling myself in my disbelief.
It wasn't one of those slow and chilling door openings you see in movies. It was loud. Violent. It sounded like a kick.
That was when a thought crossed my mind.
What if the trail's end was at my feet and not my closet?
What if I wasn't meant to follow the trail, but whatever was inside my closet was?
What walked out was the most visceral being one could imagine. It was myself. A mutilated, grotesque version of myself.
My eye sockets were forcefully stretched to house two white mugs. My jaw was broken, and my mouth looked too big for my face to accommodate it.
Its voice came out distorted and unnaturally high-pitched, saying things like:
"It hurts! It hurts so much!"
"Kill me!"
"Oh God it hurts!"
My chest tightened and the room started to spin. I think I took some steps back, and I ended up falling out my window, which I don't remember ever opening.
I was found by the police officers once they arrived and then rushed to the hospital. Despite the fall, my injuries were minor, although I did undergo cardiac arrest from the sheer terror of the encounter.
I'm writing this from a hospital bed. The police told me that someone had been living inside my walls for the past twelve years. There were tunnels connecting my closet to the attic, and the downstairs bathroom.
I know that this is nothing to take lightly, but it doesn't explain anything I went through. No normal person should have been able to do any of that. What was the thing I saw? That mortifying version of myself is still out there.
I'm so desperate to find answers that I'm going to do what the note told me to. I don't want to find out what "or you're next" means.
I don't think it's impossible that the mug is across the world right now. It's a custom-made white mug, with a sticker of a tuxedo cat. I know that the description isn't helpful at all, but there's really nothing more to it.
Please help me, I'm desperate and don't know what to do.
EDIT: This might be a coincidence, but every single person here drinks from the same mugs that flooded my apartment. I'm so fucking scared.