Transcription
[Music] [Music] Yeah.
[Music] April 5th. It began as most strange things do with something innocuous. Socks, six pair. I carried them to the basement laundry room. The door frame straight out of a German expressionist film and sounds of rats scurrying. Plus, that multi-metallic scent never encouraged me to use the more expensive coin-operated laundromats around New York City. Rents too high, city's too dangerous, times too valuable. I left with four pair intact and two odd survivors, one gray, one black, the rest gone. I told myself it was nothing. A common loss, static cling, misplacement. But something felt off.
April 12th, I returned, skeptical yet curious. I stayed longer. This time lingering near the machine as it finished its cycle. This time four pair again, the arithmetic of absence. Two proper pair, one black, one white. No static cling this time. I made sure. I pressed my ear to the machine. I swear it purred. It sounded like hunger.
April 19th. I watched the machine like a hawk with insomnia. Two pair go in. One mismatched pair comes out. No lint, no remnants. Just that same eerie hum of fluorescent lights and the rhythmic churn of machines, but the drum of that machine stops a beat too early. Like it knows I'm listening. I started to think the socks were being stolen. But who'd steal socks? No. Something more disturbing was happening. It was like the socks were disappearing. As if the machine itself was taking them, but taking them to wear. And what does it want with socks? I tried to convince myself it was a prank, some sick joke, but I couldn't shake the feeling, the sensation that something else was at work. I wasn't just losing socks anymore. I was losing time.
April 26th, I haven't slept in days. Instead of counting sheep, I laid awake all night keeping a log of what little I had left. Socks, time, days until my next load. I wore my last mismatched pair of socks to bed. I don't know why. Maybe it was the cold sweat. Maybe it was fear of whoever or whatever was taking my socks would come straight for the source. I had to know. I had to know what was really happening. I returned with whatever dirty laundry I could scrunch together. Towels, blankets, but nothing else. I wouldn't allow it to take what I had left. No socks went in this time. I wanted to bait it to see if the machine would react. The door swung shut with a groan and I felt a chill run down my spine. I watched it spin then waited. I could hardly breathe. What came out was not socks, no attire at all. Nothing except a note handwritten. The ink dark and oily as though it had been written by something that had no right to exist. Bring the machine more socks. I should have left. I should have turned and walked away. But I stayed. I had to stay. There's a presence here, an appetite. It doesn't want my money. It wants offerings. How many socks before it wants something more? How long until I'm the one who's being disappeared into the darkness?
[Music]