5 Creepy TRUE Illuminati Horror Stories

What dark secrets hide behind the closed doors of the Illuminati? In this chilling video, we bring you 6 terrifying TRUE Illuminati horror stories that dive into secret rituals, shadowy figures, and encounters you were never meant to know about.

Audio Version:

Story No. 1 – The Illuminati chants in the forest – Illuminati Horror Stories

I don’t usually hike at night. Most people who do will tell you it’s disorienting, even when you know the trail by heart, and the forest takes on a different kind of weight when there’s no sunlight filtering through the branches. But that night, the meteor shower was supposed to be at its peak—something you wouldn’t see again for decades—and the best place to watch was a ridge about two miles in. My friend Marcus had convinced me it would be worth it. We parked at the trailhead just after nine. The last of the dusk was fading, and by the time we’d shouldered our packs and started walking, the trees had swallowed what little light was left. We each had a headlamp, but Marcus kept his dimmed to preserve his night vision. It was cooler than I expected, the air holding that early-autumn bite, and the sound of our boots on the hard-packed dirt seemed to travel far ahead of us.

The trail was easy enough to follow, but after about forty minutes, we both noticed something that made us slow down. It was faint at first, just a low sound buried under the noise of the wind and the occasional shifting of leaves. I thought it might be running water, maybe a stream we’d forgotten about. But as we kept walking, it grew steadier, with a rhythm that didn’t match anything natural. Marcus stopped and tilted his head. “You hear that?” he asked. I nodded. Now that we were both listening, it was clearer—layered voices, low and continuous, blending into a kind of chant. The language wasn’t one I recognized, though it wasn’t entirely unlike Latin or something older. It didn’t sound like singing; there was no melody, just repetition, words folding over themselves in a steady loop.

We killed our headlamps and stood still. The chanting didn’t stop. If anything, it grew sharper, like we were drawing closer even though we hadn’t moved. I glanced off the trail, into the dense trees on our right. The sound seemed to be coming from somewhere in that direction, maybe a hundred yards in. “Probably a group camping,” Marcus whispered, though his tone made it sound more like a question than a statement. We might have kept going if it weren’t for the faint glow I spotted through the branches—orange, flickering. Not the steady beam of a flashlight, but firelight. We left the trail, moving slowly, careful where we put our feet. The forest floor was covered in dry leaves, and every crunch felt loud. After about fifty yards, the glow brightened, and we ducked behind a massive fallen log, the bark soft and spongy under my palms. From there, we could see the source.

A clearing opened ahead, and at its center stood a metal fire pit—tall, maybe chest-high, shaped into the form of an owl with outstretched wings. The flames inside cast shifting shadows through the cutouts in the metal, making it seem as if the owl’s eyes were alive and blinking. Around it stood a dozen figures, each wearing a long dark coat that reached to their ankles. Their hoods were pulled up, faces shadowed, hands hidden in front of them. They weren’t moving, but the chanting was theirs—dozen voices blending into that droning loop, so loud now that I could feel it vibrating in my chest. I leaned closer to Marcus to whisper, but he shook his head sharply. We couldn’t hear each other, not over the sound. It wasn’t just volume—it was density, like the chanting was pressing against us, filling the air until nothing else existed.

The owl fire pit seemed to throw more light than a normal fire should, the flames almost white at their core. I caught glimpses of something inside—shapes, maybe wood, maybe not—but the way the light bent around them made it hard to focus. The chanting shifted. Not much, just a subtle change in rhythm, but it felt like a signal. The figures raised their heads in unison. The motion was so perfectly synchronized it made my stomach knot. One of them—taller than the rest—took a step forward toward the fire pit. I couldn’t see what they held until the flames flared higher, revealing a metal object, polished and gleaming. They lowered it into the fire without breaking the chant.

The moment it disappeared into the flames, the sound changed again—louder, deeper, carrying an edge that made my teeth hurt. Marcus put a hand on my arm, his grip tense, and mouthed something I couldn’t make out. The only thing I understood was the look in his eyes: We shouldn’t be here. I was about to nod when the chanting stopped.

The sudden silence was worse than the sound had been. It was absolute, pressing in on my ears, as if the forest itself had frozen. The figures stood motionless for a few heartbeats, then—without warning—every head turned toward us. I froze. The firelight caught the edges of their faces, and though I couldn’t make out features, I felt the weight of their attention like a physical force. Marcus grabbed my sleeve, and we backed away from the log as quietly as we could. My pulse was so loud in my ears I was sure they could hear it. We took a step, then another, trying to keep the trees between us and the clearing. Somewhere behind us, a twig snapped.

I didn’t look back. We moved faster, almost running, until the faint glow of the clearing vanished and the trees closed in again. The trail appeared ahead, and we stumbled onto it, breath ragged. We didn’t stop moving until we reached the car. When we finally spoke, neither of us could explain why we hadn’t heard footsteps behind us, or why—despite the distance—the chanting had seemed to follow us all the way to the trailhead, fading only when we slammed the car doors. We drove the entire way back to the city without turning on the radio. The woods along the road seemed too dark, the spaces between the trees too deep.

In the days after, I tried to rationalize what we’d seen. Maybe it had been some kind of private gathering, eccentric but harmless. Maybe the owl-shaped fire pit was just art. But every time I thought about it, I remembered the way the sound had filled the air until there was no room for anything else, and the way every hooded head had turned toward us in perfect unison. Marcus and I haven’t talked about it much since. I think we both know there’s no version of that night that makes sense in the ordinary world. But sometimes, when I’m walking alone at night, I’ll catch a faint, rhythmic murmur in the distance—too low to make out words, but steady enough to recognize.

And when I do, I don’t stop to listen.

Story No. 2 – The mystery lights near the Ridge – Illuminati Horror Stories

It was supposed to be an unremarkable weekend—just a few days away from work, the phone, and the low hum of the city. I’d been looking forward to the quiet more than anything else. The campsite was deep in the foothills, about a three-hour drive from the nearest small town, with nothing around but pine, rock, and the endless rustle of wind through dry needles. I’d chosen it specifically for the isolation; I didn’t want to see other people, much less hear them.

By the time I arrived, the sun was already edging toward the horizon. The dirt road that led there had been rough, and my arms ached from gripping the steering wheel over the constant ruts and dips. I pitched my tent on a flat stretch of ground near the treeline and made a small fire. It was the sort of evening that makes you think the world might still have quiet corners left—no engines in the distance, no music leaking from anyone else’s speaker, just the low pop of resin in the fire and the occasional far-off call of something moving through the forest. After dinner, I settled into my camp chair and let my eyes adjust to the dark. The stars came on in layers—first the bright ones, then the dense scatter of smaller points until the sky was so full it seemed almost solid. I was scanning lazily for constellations when something on the ridge caught my attention.

It was a flash—brief, sharp, and too bright to be a star. My first thought was a reflection off glass, but there were no buildings up there, no roads that I knew of. I set my drink down and kept my eyes on that stretch of the ridge. A minute later, another flash—this time joined by several more, all blinking on and off in perfect unison. Curiosity got the better of me. I dug my binoculars out of the gear bag and focused on the ridge. What I saw took a moment to resolve; at first it was just dark shapes against the darker trees. But as my eyes adjusted, I realized there were people standing in a circle—maybe a dozen of them, evenly spaced, each holding something large and flat that caught the starlight. The next flash came, and I understood what I was seeing. The objects were reflective metal panels, all angled toward a single point above the center of the circle. The flare of light had been so synchronized, so deliberate, that it made the hairs on my arms rise.

I kept watching, expecting movement or noise, but the figures stood perfectly still. Even at that distance, I could feel the unnatural stillness of the scene. Then, without warning, there was another flare—brighter than before, like a camera flash magnified a hundred times. It left me blinking spots from my vision, and when my eyes cleared, the ridge was empty. The circle, the people, the panels—gone. I lowered the binoculars and stared at the ridge with my naked eyes. There was no sign of them. I scanned the slope for movement, any hint of where they might have gone, but the trees stood motionless. I told myself it was a trick of the light, that maybe they’d moved quickly into cover and the darkness swallowed them. But I hadn’t looked away. They hadn’t had time.

The rest of the night felt different after that. I kept glancing toward the ridge, listening harder than before. Once or twice I thought I heard something faint—like a low, metallic ringing—but it could have been my imagination. I eventually crawled into my tent, though I left my boots and flashlight within reach. Sleep didn’t come easily. I kept replaying the moment of that last flare, the way it had seemed to erase the entire group in a single blink. The rational part of me wanted an explanation: maybe they’d been surveyors using mirrors to signal, maybe the light had blinded me to their departure. But the rest of me—the deeper, quieter part—felt certain I hadn’t witnessed anything so ordinary.

At some point I must have dozed off, because I woke to the sound of footsteps outside the tent. They were slow, deliberate, not the hurried scurry of an animal. I held my breath and listened. The steps stopped just beyond the thin nylon wall, near my head. I strained to hear breathing, but the forest around me was utterly still. After what felt like a full minute, the footsteps resumed, moving around the tent in a slow arc before fading toward the trees. I waited, counting to a hundred before unzipping the flap. The fire had burned down to embers. The beam of my flashlight caught nothing but empty ground and the edge of the forest. I didn’t sleep again that night. In the morning, I debated packing up and leaving, but the stubborn part of me wanted to see the ridge in daylight. I hiked up the slope, following what looked like an old deer trail until I reached the crest. The spot where I’d seen the circle was obvious—an unusually flat clearing surrounded by thick pines.

There were no footprints in the dirt, no discarded gear or signs of recent human presence. But the center of the clearing held something strange: a perfect ring of scorched earth, maybe ten feet across, the soil blackened and brittle. No plants grew inside it. When I stepped closer, I noticed that the blackened earth wasn’t random—it formed a faint but precise pattern, like overlapping arcs and lines burned into the ground. I crouched and touched it. The soil was cool, but the texture was wrong—almost metallic, as if the dirt had been fused into something harder. I took a photo with my phone, but when I checked it later, the image file was corrupted, the thumbnail a smear of grey static. I spent the rest of the day hiking other trails, trying not to dwell on it. But as the sun began to set, my eyes kept drifting back toward the ridge.

That night, I didn’t bother with the fire. I sat in the dark, binoculars ready, watching the ridge line. Hours passed. The stars wheeled overhead. And then, just when I was about to give up, the flash came. It was identical to the first night—sharp, white, and perfectly synchronized. Through the binoculars, the circle was back, each figure holding the reflective panel exactly as before. I scanned the faces, but they were either masked or hooded, their features swallowed in shadow. Then, one of them turned.

Even across that distance, I knew they were looking directly at me. My hands went cold. I lowered the binoculars for a second, then raised them again. The figure was still turned toward me, panel lowered. The others remained facing inward, unmoving. A second flare erupted—blinding, like a magnesium flash—and when I could see again, the ridge was empty. I didn’t sleep at all that night. I kept the flashlight in my lap, every nerve on edge, listening for the sound of those slow footsteps returning. By morning, I’d made up my mind to leave. I packed quickly, barely eating, and started down the dirt road toward the main highway. But an hour into the drive, something caught my eye in the rearview mirror.

On the ridge behind me, just visible above the trees, a brief synchronized flash of light. I didn’t stop. I didn’t look again. It’s been months since that trip. I’ve tried to put it out of my mind, but sometimes, on coudless nights, I’ll see a flicker in the corner of my vision—like light reflecting from far away. And lately, I’ve begun to notice something else. The flashes aren’t always distant anymore. Last week, walking home from work, a metallic glare winked from a rooftop across the street. Two nights ago, it came from the window of the building opposite mine. And last night, I woke to find a thin line of light creeping across my ceiling—bright, white, and perfectly straight—as if someone, somewhere, had just angled a panel in my direction.

Story No. 3 – The Cursed Circle of Illuminati – Illuminati Horror Stories

I’ve been into urban photography for as long as I’ve owned a camera. It started as a way to see the city from angles most people never thought about—fire escapes, old service tunnels, forgotten rooftops. The places you weren’t supposed to go always had the best lines, the best symmetry, the best silence. By now, I knew which buildings had unlocked stairwells, which security guards looked the other way, and which maintenance ladders could be trusted not to snap under my weight. One late autumn evening, I set out to capture a panoramic skyline I’d been planning for weeks. The location was perfect—an old financial building with clean sightlines in three directions, stone parapets, and a flat roof. I’d scouted it twice before. The lobby was off-limits after 6 p.m., but a side alley had a rusted ladder leading up to the annex roof, and from there, a narrow service bridge connected to the main building. The sort of route most people wouldn’t notice unless they were looking for it.

It was past ten when I reached the alley. The streets in this part of town were empty—banks and insurance offices don’t exactly bring in late-night crowds. The cold air made my breath visible, little bursts of mist as I climbed. My boots hit the annex roof with a crunch of gravel. From there, the service bridge looked even narrower than I remembered, swaying slightly under my weight as I crossed. The rooftop access door on the far side wasn’t locked. I stepped out, and the view was everything I’d hoped for—the skyline sharp and glittering, the dark river cutting a silver path through the lights. I was just about to set up my tripod when I noticed movement below.

The main courtyard sat five stories down, a neat square of trimmed lawn enclosed by the high stone walls of the complex. At first glance, it seemed empty. Then I saw them. Twelve figures stood in a perfect circle at the courtyard’s center. They were dressed in black suits, their silhouettes sharp against the pale grass. Each one held something small and reflective in both hands, but from this height, I couldn’t tell exactly what. They didn’t move, not even shifting their weight—it was an unnatural stillness, the kind that draws your eyes and keeps them there.

I brought the camera to my face, zooming in. Their faces were shadowed, the floodlights falling just short of their features. Every one of them was looking inward, toward the exact center of the circle. There was no sound, no sign of what they were doing. The symmetry was almost mathematical. I was lining up my first shot when it happened—every head turned at the exact same moment, all twelve gazes snapping upward directly toward me. I froze. Through the lens, their collective stare felt like a physical weight. I pressed the shutter, but the camera didn’t respond. I tried again—nothing. My finger felt numb against the button.

I lowered the camera and looked back down. The courtyard was empty. Just lawn, still and undisturbed. My phone buzzed in my pocket—one sharp vibration—and then died completely. I left the rooftop fast, crossing the bridge and climbing down without looking back. By the time I reached the street, my hands were shaking, though the cold was only part of it. At home, the camera worked fine, but every photo from that night ended before I even reached the rooftop. The shots I’d taken earlier in the week were still there; everything from that moment was simply gone. My phone refused to turn on at all.

I told myself I’d imagined it, that maybe it was just a trick of the light, but over the next few days I started noticing them. Not always the same faces, but the same stillness. In the subway, across the street, in a café window—men and women in black suits, watching without moving. Always alone, never approaching, and yet always there. The first real sign that I hadn’t imagined any of it came four nights later. I woke at 3 a.m., sitting upright in bed, certain I’d heard something in the apartment. The room was cold, colder than the rest of the building. In the reflection of my darkened window, I thought I saw the outline of a person standing behind me. I turned—nothing. But when I looked back at the glass, the reflection lingered for just a fraction of a second too long before disappearing.

I knew I had to find out what I was dealing with. I started digging through old property records, city archives, anything connected to the building. That’s when I found it: a scanned set of 1930s architectural plans in the library’s digital collection. One page showed the courtyard with an unfamiliar symbol drawn in its center, almost exactly where the circle of figures had been. It wasn’t part of the official blueprint—it had been added in pencil. Below it, faint but legible, was a note: Break the circle, break the hold. It sounded like the kind of cryptic nonsense you’d find in a bad novel, but it stuck with me. I didn’t know what “breaking the circle” meant, but I was sure it had something to do with the symmetry I’d seen that night. A week later, I went back. Not to the rooftop, but to the courtyard itself. The gates were locked, but I climbed over, boots sinking into the damp grass. In the moonlight, I could see faint discolorations in the lawn where the figures had stood—a ring of slightly lighter grass, perfectly round. I stood in the middle, heart pounding, half expecting them to appear around me. Nothing happened.

I stepped to the edge of the ring and dragged my boot across it, scuffing the grass until the curve broke. For a moment, the night air seemed to shift—lighter, warmer. No one was there, but for the first time in weeks, I felt alone. That night, I slept without waking. The next morning, my phone turned on as if nothing had happened. My camera still held no trace of the rooftop photos, but the constant sense of being watched was gone. It’s been months since then, and I haven’t seen the suited figures again. Still, sometimes I catch myself thinking about that note—Break the circle, break the hold. I wonder who wrote it, and whether it was meant for someone like me.

And I wonder, too, if breaking the circle freed me… or simply let whatever was inside step out.

Story No. 4 – The Locked Hall of Illuminati – Illuminati Horror Stories

I had been working late at the university for weeks, buried under a mountain of research that seemed to grow heavier with each passing night. It was the kind of work that didn’t attract much attention, the kind that required someone willing to be alone in the dimly lit corridors after the rest of the building had gone silent. I was cataloguing historical archives for a visiting professor, scanning brittle documents, translating fragments, and cross-referencing obscure references in languages most people didn’t even bother to learn anymore. It was meticulous work, and though it left me with tired eyes and aching shoulders, I liked the quiet. Or at least I used to.

That night, the air in the building felt different. I can’t explain it properly, but it was heavier, somehow—thick, almost metallic. I had just finished scanning a batch of old manuscripts in the basement reading room and was making my way back upstairs to return a set of keys I’d borrowed from the security office. The old building was a labyrinth of narrow hallways, uneven floors, and echoing stairwells. As I reached the third floor, I passed the old lecture wing. Most of those rooms hadn’t been used in decades, their doors locked and windows shuttered. One door in particular always caught my attention: Lecture Hall B-19. Its tall, arched frame and heavy wooden panels made it stand out from the others. I had been told it was sealed years ago after a partial ceiling collapse, though I never saw any signs of damage. The brass plaque on it was tarnished but still legible, the edges worn smooth from years of hands brushing against it. I’d passed it countless times without thinking much of it—until I heard the sound.

At first, I thought it was just the wind, a low rhythmic hum that seemed to seep from behind the door. But as I paused, straining to listen, I realized it was too deliberate, too patterned. It was chanting. Deep, resonant voices repeating syllables I couldn’t place. They didn’t sound like any language I knew, and I’d studied enough to recognize Latin, Greek, and even fragments of ancient dialects. This was different—alien in its tone, as if the sounds themselves were shaped to unsettle the listener. My curiosity overpowered my better judgment. I stepped closer, pressing my ear to the cool wood. The voices were clearer now, rising and falling in perfect unison, the cadence hypnotic. I noticed a faint line of light spilling from a narrow gap where the door didn’t quite meet the frame. The gap was no wider than a pencil, but I could see movement inside—shadows flickering across what looked like stone walls. I knelt slightly, tilting my head to catch a glimpse.

What I saw made my stomach tighten. A group of figures, at least a dozen of them, stood in a wide circle around a long, low table. Each wore a hooded robe, the fabric heavy and dark, their faces completely hidden. The table itself was covered in black cloth, and at its center sat a metallic object—an emblem of some kind. It was circular, with a raised design that seemed to twist and shift in the light, almost as if it were alive. My mind tried to fix on its pattern, but the longer I looked, the harder it became to define. It was like staring at something that refused to be remembered clearly. I was about to step back when one of the figures slowly turned toward the door. I couldn’t see his face—only the faint glint of eyes deep within the shadow of his hood. I felt a sudden pressure in my ears, like the air itself had thickened. And then, though the heavy door between us never opened, I heard my full name. Not just my first name, but my full name, pronounced perfectly, with a weight that made it feel more like a command than a greeting.

I stumbled backward, my shoulder hitting the opposite wall. The chanting stopped instantly. The silence that followed was worse than the sound had been. My heart was hammering, and a cold sweat prickled down my back. I forced myself to move, walking quickly—too quickly—down the corridor, trying to make my footsteps sound casual. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to see if the door was opening. When I reached the security desk, the night guard was gone. His chair sat empty, a mug of coffee still steaming faintly beside a stack of papers. I left the keys on the desk and went straight to the exit. Outside, the air was damp and cool, the kind that should have cleared my head, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. The walk to my car was only a few minutes, yet it felt much longer.

I told myself not to think about it, to put it out of my mind, but the next day I found it impossible to focus. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the circle of hooded figures, the strange shifting emblem, and those eyes staring from the shadows. By evening, my curiosity had grown unbearable. I wanted answers—needed them. So I went back. The building was quieter than usual, the hum of the air conditioning absent, as if the place itself was holding its breath. I walked the same route, my footsteps echoing in the empty halls. When I reached Lecture Hall B-19, the door looked exactly the same—no light, no sound. I pressed my ear against it, but heard nothing. I tried the handle out of habit, knowing it would be locked. It didn’t budge.

But as I turned to leave, I noticed something odd. The brass plaque on the door was polished. Perfectly polished. Yesterday it had been dull with age, but now it gleamed, catching the dim light of the corridor. I reached out to touch it, and my fingers recoiled instantly—it was warm. Not just a little warm, but as if it had been sitting in the sun all day. That night, I dreamed of the emblem. In the dream, it was much larger, suspended in the air above me, its shifting patterns pulling me in like a whirlpool. The chanting was there too, surrounding me from all sides, and though I couldn’t see the figures, I felt them standing just beyond the darkness. I woke gasping for breath, my sheets twisted tightly around me.

Over the following days, little things began to happen. I would catch glimpses of movement in the corners of my vision. I’d hear faint murmurs when I was alone, though never clear enough to understand. One afternoon, while reviewing a set of scanned documents, I found an unfamiliar page inserted between two unrelated manuscripts. It was a diagram—circular, intricate, with symbols that looked disturbingly similar to the ones I had seen on the emblem. There was no record of the page in the archive database. I showed it to the visiting professor, but he only glanced at it before telling me to “put it back where I found it” and refusing to discuss it further.

By the end of the week, I was sleeping less and less. I started avoiding the third floor entirely, taking longer routes just to keep away from B-19. But one evening, as I was leaving, I saw the night guard for the first time since that initial encounter. He was standing at the far end of the hall, motionless, his face unreadable. When our eyes met, he raised one hand—not to wave, but as if to signal me to stop. And then he said, in a voice barely above a whisper, “They know you saw.” I didn’t wait to hear more. I left and didn’t look back. That was three months ago. I transferred to a different department, switched my hours to daytime only, and convinced myself that whatever I had stumbled into was over. But last night, a package arrived at my apartment. There was no return address, no markings at all, just a small, flat box wrapped in plain brown paper. Inside, on a bed of black cloth, lay a metallic emblem. Smaller than the one I’d seen, but identical in design.

And as I held it in my hands, the room seemed to grow colder. Somewhere in the distance, faint but unmistakable, I heard chanting.

Story No. 5 – The Unknown People with Books – Illuminati Horror Stories

It was early autumn, the kind of dusk where the daylight fades slowly enough that you don’t quite realize you’ve lost it until the lamps in the park blink on. I’d been walking through that park for years, usually cutting across it on my way home from work. It was a habit I didn’t think much about—familiar, safe, uneventful. But that evening stands out so clearly in my memory that I can recall the smell of damp leaves and the faint metallic taste in the air. The park wasn’t empty. Families were heading toward the exits, joggers passed in short bursts, and the occasional cyclist coasted by. But there was a certain stillness to the place that night, as if the usual noise had been turned down just a bit. I remember passing the playground and noticing how the swings hung motionless despite a faint breeze, the chains rattling lightly without movement.

That was when I saw the first man. He was sitting on a wooden bench near the pond, wearing a dark, perfectly fitted suit—too formal for a park, even in the city. His posture was impeccable, back straight, legs crossed at the ankle. He held a leather-bound book in his lap, thick and aged, the kind that looked like it belonged in an old library. His eyes were fixed on the pages, and he didn’t move when I walked past, not even to turn a page. I thought it was odd, but not unsettling. People read in parks all the time. But two minutes later, near the rose garden, I saw another man. Same suit. Same posture. Same book. This one did turn a page as I approached, but his hands moved so slowly it was like watching someone in a slowed-down film. His eyes didn’t track me. His attention stayed on the text, though the angle of his head made me wonder if he was aware of me in some other way.

By the time I reached the northern path, I’d almost convinced myself it was coincidence—maybe some literary group with a fondness for suits and antique books. Then I saw the third man. He was on the last bench before the park’s north exit, sitting in the same precise position as the others. As I passed, he closed his book with deliberate care, the sound of the covers meeting unnervingly loud in the quiet air. Without looking up, he said, “We’ll meet when you’re ready.” The words were calm, almost conversational, but they hit me in a way I can’t fully explain. It wasn’t just that he knew I was there—it felt as if he knew me. I kept walking, didn’t look back, and made it to the street. But my usual pace felt too slow, and I realized I was almost jogging by the time I reached the next block.

That night, I told myself it was nothing. Maybe I’d overheard a snippet of conversation meant for someone else. Maybe the suits and books were a performance, some obscure urban art project. But over the next week, things began to shift in ways I couldn’t dismiss. It started with the books. I’d catch glimpses of them in unexpected places: a man standing on the subway platform, holding one in both hands; a woman in a coffee shop, the same leather binding resting beside her cup; even a street vendor flipping through one between customers. The covers were always closed when I saw them closely, but I could swear the texture and the slight warping of the spine were identical each time. Then came the looks. In the crowd, I’d notice someone watching me—not staring, exactly, but their gaze would hold mine for just a fraction longer than polite. Sometimes they were dressed normally, sometimes in the same dark suits. Once, in the grocery store, I turned down an aisle and found one of them waiting at the far end. No cart, no basket, just standing there, a book tucked neatly under one arm.

I stopped going through the park altogether, but it didn’t matter. They appeared elsewhere—in the plaza near my office, outside the building where I lived, always far enough away to be deniable, close enough that I couldn’t ignore them. About two weeks in, I woke one night to the sound of a book closing. Not a loud slam, just the soft, deliberate thump I’d heard in the park. My apartment was dark, the city noise faint through the window. I got up and walked through each room, heart thudding, but everything was in place. No open windows, no signs of entry. Still, the sound had been real. I’d swear to it.

Sleep became harder after that. My dreams were vague but heavy, filled with shapes I couldn’t quite focus on, and always, somewhere in the background, the rustle of pages turning. One afternoon, desperate for answers, I went back to the park. I told myself it was to prove I wasn’t avoiding it out of fear, but the truth was I wanted to see them again. I walked the same route as that first night. The pond, the rose garden, the northern path.

Nothing.

It was almost disappointing—until I reached the north exit. There, on the last bench, sat a man in a suit. Not the same one from before—I could tell by the build—but the posture was identical. The book lay closed in his lap. I stopped. He didn’t move for a long time. Then, with the same unhurried precision I’d come to recognize, he lifted the book and held it out toward me. I didn’t take it. I couldn’t even step closer. But I noticed something strange—on the front cover, just above the spine, was a faint mark, almost like a fingerprint pressed into the leather. I felt, without knowing why, that if I touched it, I’d understand everything. Instead, I turned and walked away.

For the next month, I avoided not just the park but the entire neighborhood. I changed my commute, started working later hours, spent more time in crowded areas. Yet they found me still. I’d catch sight of them across intersections, reflected in shop windows, standing at the far end of train cars. Always with the book. The real breaking point came one rainy night when I stepped out of the elevator onto my floor and saw one of them standing at my door. He wasn’t holding a book this time. He just stood there, perfectly still, as if waiting. I backed into the elevator and hit the button for the lobby without thinking. By the time I came back with the building’s security guard, the hallway was empty. I knew then that avoiding them wasn’t going to work.

The next day, I went back to the park, alone and in daylight. I walked to the same bench where the third man had first spoken to me. On the seat, resting in the exact center, was a leather-bound book. No one was nearby. I don’t remember deciding to pick it up, but suddenly it was in my hands. The leather was warm, almost unnaturally so. The pages were filled with dense, unfamiliar symbols—shapes and lines that seemed to shift slightly if I looked too long. There were no page numbers, but in the top corner of the first page was a small handwritten note: When you are ready. I don’t know how long I sat there staring at it. The next thing I remember clearly is walking home, the book under my arm. It’s been in my apartment ever since. I’ve tried to throw it away—left it in dumpsters, on buses, even in a donation bin once. It always comes back, placed neatly on my desk or coffee table, no sign of disturbance anywhere else in the apartment.

I’ve stopped trying to get rid of it. Every so often, I’ll open it, just for a second. The symbols don’t make any more sense than they did at first, but the more I look, the more I feel… prepared. For what, I don’t know. I haven’t seen the men in weeks. But I have the feeling they’ll come when I’m ready. And lately, I think I might be getting there.