A WOMAN USED A HIDDEN CAMERA IN AN APARTMENT BECAUSE SHE WAS AFRAID SOMEONE ELSE LIVED THERE EVERY TIME SHE WAS AT WORK, BUT WHEN WATCHING THE VIDEO, HER BODY GOT COLD

The apartment building where Camille lives is quiet, old, and a bit dark in a crowded alley in Sampaloc, Manila. She has been renting there for two years since she started working as a call center agent who always works the night shift.

At first, everything was fine, especially since the neighbors were quiet. But in recent weeks, strange things have been happening inside her own unit that have been making her hair stand on end whenever she is alone.

It started with very small things that are easy to ignore. One morning when she came home from a tiring job, she noticed that the amount of milk in her refrigerator had decreased significantly. The next day, her favorite bread that she bought from a famous bakery was left open on the table.

She was absolutely certain that she had put it away neatly in the cabinet before she left. At first, she thought maybe she had just forgotten because she was so tired of taking calls, or maybe there was a rat.

But when she saw that her shoes were misplaced on the rack and there were traces of dried mud on the floor of her bathroom, she knew that it wasn’t a rat that was entering her house. Someone else was inside her private space.

She was even more terrified once, while she was arranging herself in front of the mirror before entering the office, she heard faint rustling sounds from above the ceiling. It sounded like heavy footsteps trying and carefully hiding the noise.

The young woman couldn’t bear the nervousness she felt anymore. That day, instead of sleeping to regain her strength, she stopped by an electronics store and bought a small and expensive hidden camera shaped like a power bank.

When she got home, she secretly placed it on the highest part of her bookshelf in the living room. The camera angle was perfect—it covered the entire living room, the small kitchen, and the very door to her bedroom. It was connected to her cellphone via the internet, so she could watch live anything that happened while she was away.

That night, before going to work, she made sure the main door and windows were locked. With a lot of nervousness, she boarded a jeep to Makati. She could only pray that it would be okay, she was just paranoid from the stress.

It was two in the morning. Camille was on her lunch break at the office. Her hands were shaking as she picked up her cellphone and opened the hidden camera app. The feed was dark at first, but because the camera had strong night vision, she could clearly see green and black on the screen.

The living room was silent. Nothing moved. Until she heard a faint crackle from the video audio. The lens looked up in the direction of the ceiling near the kitchen. The small access panel made of plywood slowly opened. From there, a shadow of a man descended.

Camille’s whole body went cold. She covered her mouth with both hands to prevent herself from being held back in the break room. There was someone! A man wearing a dirty jacket, messy hair, and a very thin body slowly descended to her floor.

Page: SAY – Story Around You | Original story

The man walked to the kitchen as if he knew the entire place by heart. He opened the refrigerator and took out the remaining food from the tupperware. When the man turned to face the camera while eating quickly, Camille’s eyes suddenly widened.

Her world stopped spinning. The person hiding in the ceiling of her apartment and stealing her food… was Marco. Her older brother who had been missing for exactly a year.

Their entire family thought Marco was dead after he owed millions to a violent syndicate. They had the police search for him but there was no trace. Why was Marco here? Why was he hiding in his own brother’s dirty and cramped ceiling instead of coming forward and asking for help?

Camille was about to call the police to let them know that her brother was alive when something suddenly changed in the video.

Marco stopped chewing. He looked straight in the direction of the main door. Even on the small screen of his cellphone, Camille could clearly see the intense fear on his brother’s face. Marco quickly and noiselessly hid in the dark corner of the sofa, tightly holding onto a thick steel pipe that he had probably retrieved from the ceiling.

Camille saw the door knob slowly turning. Someone was picking the lock from the outside very quickly. Only a few seconds later, the door opened.

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A large man entered. When he faced her for a moment, Camille almost fainted from a mixture of shock and fear. It was Mang Ed, the quiet and seemingly kind caretaker of the apartment building who always fixed her broken faucet. But this time, Mang Ed’s familiar smile was gone. His eyes were glaring in the dark, and in his right hand he held a long and very sharp scimitar.

Mang Ed slowly walked towards the door of Camille’s room. He was holding the master key to the apartment that he had secretly made a copy of.

Before Mang Ed could even open the bedroom door, Marco quickly jumped out from where he was hiding behind the sofa. Without hesitation, Marco slammed the thick steel pipe into the back of the crazy caretaker’s neck with all his strength. Mang Ed fell to the floor like a felled tree, completely losing consciousness and dropping his bloody scimitar.

Shaking and sobbing, Camille called the authorities. The police immediately responded and found Marco with Mang Ed tightly tied up. When the authorities investigated, they discovered many photos of various female tenants on Mang Ed’s cellphone, and a detailed plan on how he would kill Camille that very night.

Camille hugged her older brother tightly at the police station, crying. Marco explained that he discovered the caretaker’s dark plan and surveillance when he once secretly peeked around the apartment. Because the syndicate was still looking for him, he decided to endure hiding in the hot and dusty ceiling to become a secret bodyguard for his youngest brother day and night.

In the end, Camille’s vigilance and the secret sacrifice of a missing brother became the only key to ending a bloody nightmare.