All Your Screams Are Prerecorded
A short horror by Matthew Tonks
The show never ends when the audience can’t leave.
Inside a room wired with eyes and echoes, one woman’s fear becomes a prewritten performance—and somewhere beyond the static, a voice waits to press play again.
He smiles at his reflection, tracing his fingers down each cheek before puckering his lips and winking at himself. He downs the glass of whisky, then slumps into a seat.
Several monitors sit disorganised, stacked one atop another before him. The screens flicker hazily, revealing multiple angles of a room wallpapered in peeling floral patterns. The room is empty except for a single bed, its mattress caved, a map of stains marking years of misery. An unconscious woman lies on it.
His lips curl. He plucks a cigarette from an ashtray, inhales deeply, then leans toward the microphone before him. He sneers, smirks, and stubs the cigarette out.
Her world explodes in blind panic.
She blinks as the room spins. She swallows what feels like razor blades, and with each buzzing breath beneath the silence, her panic grows. Clenching her teeth, she clumsily sits up, only to find herself shackled to the floor.
Her heart skips a beat. She takes several panicked breaths, then grips the chain and pulls, grunting with the effort. She screams in frustration as she yanks harder, but it still doesn’t give. Her eyes dart desperately around the room, her heart pounding like she has just run a marathon.
That’s when she spots the first camera, then another.
She drops the chain and looks up at one of them, frantically waving her hands.
“H-H-Hello?” she calls out. “I-I-Is anyone there?”
Her only answer is silence.
“H-H-Hello!” she screams, her voice cracking. Tears streak down her cheeks.
A TV screen mounted behind a sheet of Perspex in the wall switches on. A grainy image, a silhouetted figure flickers into view.
“W-W-Who are you? W-Why am I here?” she cries.
“Firstly—so you know—this is a recording. No back and forth. If you’re screaming, shut the fuck up. What I’m about to say, you need to hear it. Because if you don’t, you’re gonna die,” the figure says, his voice cracking as static pulses at the edges of the screen, his outline bleeding pixels.
“Over the next few weeks, you and I, yeah, we’re gonna get close. Real close. Because you? You belong to me now. You’re mine. My bitch. And I’ll use you how I want, when I want, and it’s gonna hurt. So scream. Cry. Fight. It fucking doesn’t matter. That door? It doesn’t open, and that chain? It won’t break.”
The video stutters, frames skip, before continuing.
“You do what I say, you live. But if you don’t? If you push too far, if you try something stupid—especially anything that risks exposing who I am—I’ll kill you. I’ll chop you up into little pieces and flush you down the fucking drain.”
The image warps sideways, the static cutting through flashes of horror—a woman screaming, a fly twitching on cracked paint, a cow’s head boiling in a pot. Then the screen shudders back to his silhouette.
“When this video ends, you’ll get your chance. You can beg. You can plead. But don’t waste your breath. Everyone begs, everyone pleads, everyone screams, but no one leaves. Not before I’m done.”
The TV screen clicks off, plunging her back into silence.
“N-No, t-this isn’t real. T-this can’t be real!” she whispers, tears spilling down her cheeks as she shakes her head and claws at the shackle around her throat, gagging and choking.
“W-WHY?” she screams, her voice cracking beneath the weight of her sobs. “WHY ME? WHAT DID I DO?”
He sits perched over the microphone, a twitching smile on his face, sweat clinging to his upper lip.
He shifts in his seat, his pants tightening as his excitement swells. A laugh slips from his lips along with a trail of saliva. He takes a deep, stuttered breath, pours another whisky, and swallows. He sneers and hisses sharply.
His fingers twitch over the big green button at the base of the microphone as he stares at the screens, watching her look around, desperate and screaming. She pulls at the bed, tossing the mattress against the wall. The stains beneath are old and dark, but the fresh red ones drive her into a deeper frenzy.
He closes his eyes and lets out another stuttered breath, then presses the button. A static hiss slithers through the room, curling around her like cold fingers. She freezes, gasping, as his voice cuts through the silence, speaking as if he were right behind her.
“Save some of those tears for me.”
💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.
—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com
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