Tika is passed out on the couch — drunk, as usual. Drunk in the way that leaves a man half-sunken into a stained couch, shirt halfway unbuttoned, socks mismatched, smelling like sweat and cheap whiskey.

The room is dim. Empty bottles clutter the table in front of him, his phone tossed to the side. The television flickers quietly, playing something on mute. The room is dead quiet, except for the occasional drunken grunt that escapes him as he stirs in his half-sleep.

Then the phone rings.

Somehow, through the fog in his brain, he hears it. Tika squints one eye open, makes a noise like a dying animal, and reaches lazily across the table.

“…Hello?” he croaks, voice coated in phlegm and yesterday’s cigarettes.

Silence.

“Hello?” he says again, a little louder.

Nothing.

Just as he’s about to hang up, a low, rumbling voice comes through. Unclear. Unnatural. Like something speaking through broken glass underwater.

Tika squints. “A drunk calling another drunk. How stupid.”

He hangs up and drops the phone.Just as he starts to sink back into sleep, the phone rings again.

Annoyed, he grabs it.

Same voice. Same inhuman rumble, like something mimicking language but never quite learning how to speak.

He snaps, “Fucking stop this shit, fucker.”He tosses the phone across the room. It hits the floor with a dull thud. Then the television starts glitching.

On. Off. On. Off.

Until a strange black blur appears behind the static. A black shape, hunched, fuzzy — like someone left a shadow inside glass.

It moves. It slowly drags itself forward, tilting its head unnaturally, still smiling.

Then —It pulls free.

Out of the screen.

It creeps across the floor…

Closer…Closer…Until it’s an inch from Tika’s face.

Then it sees.

Mouth open. Drooling

.Eyes shut tight like he’s hiding from the world and knows it.

And to make it worse — he’s snoring.

The ghost’s face drops, full of disappointment.

It lets out a loud, guttural scream that shatters every bulb in the ceiling fan.

Tika jumps awake, confused and panicked.He looks around, eyes wild. “What the fuck?!”

Nothing.

Just a flickering lightbulb and a dead remote.

He mutters a curse and shuffles his way to the bathroom. His head throbs. His bladder screams. He unzips his pants, lifts the toilet lid, and leans back with a sigh.

Inside the toilet bowl…

The ghost is there — face tilted up, grinning with an unnaturally wide smile. Its soaked black hair floats like seaweed.

But Tika’s eyes are closed again, head tilted to the ceiling.

He starts pissing — directly onto the ghost’s face.

The ghost’s face drops again. Disappointment.

A look of pure, soul-crushed disgust.

Tika flushes and stumbles out without noticing a thing.

He doesn’t see the thing in the toilet.

Doesn’t see the grinning, soaked face staring up from the bowl — wide-eyed, teeth bared in something between a smile and a threat.

He collapses back onto the couch, eyes closed, already drifting off again.Then something creaks.

He opens his eyes.

He sees that thing crawling across the ceiling now — slow and upside-down, its limbs bending in unnatural angles, its head twisted backward, watching him with too-wide eyes and an inhuman grin stretching from cheek to cheek.

Tika stares blankly and says, calmly, “Fuck this.”

Then he reaches under the couch cushion and pulls out a revolver.

The ghost’s face drops again.

Bang.

The ghost screams as its leg shatters. It falls from the ceiling like a sack of meat, twitching and gasping.

Then starts crawling toward the TV. Limping. Bleeding shadows. Whimpering.

Tika stands, stretches, and picks up the remote.

The ghost doesn’t stop until it reaches the front of the TV and looks back at Tika one last time.

But Tika just smirks… and points the remote.

Click.

TV off.

The ghost hits its head on the TV screen like a bird slamming into a window.

It blinks. Confused

.It turns, now trembling.

Tika is walking toward it — slow, calm, grinning.

He raises the gun and smashes it across the ghost’s face.

Darkness.

—

The ghost wakes up strapped to a steel table.The basement is cold.

The walls are damp.

A single flickering lightbulb swings overhead like a noose.

To the side: a metal tray of tools. Rusty knives. Dirty pliers. Scissors that aren’t meant for cutting paper.

Tika stands across the room, arms crossed, eyes hollow.

He isn’t drunk anymore.

He is something else now.

The ghost screams — loud, guttural, broken — but not from its mouth.

From somewhere deeper.

We can’t understand what it says.

But we all know it means: “Nooooooooooooooooo.”