CASE 01
Empty Bed
The nurse said the patient in Bed 6 had died before my shift began.
At 3 a.m. the call button lit up and the screen displayed my name.
FEAR FILE · 19 CASES
Thanatophobia
Fear of death or dying.
CASE 02
Morgue Tag
I laughed when my coworker stuck a toe tag on me during our overnight shift at the morgue.
I stopped when I saw tomorrow’s date already printed on it.
CASE 03
The Drawer
I opened the hotel nightstand and found a notebook listing every guest who had died in the room.
My name was written at the bottom in wet ink.
CASE 04
Curtain
The patient behind the curtain kept asking me to hold his hand because he was afraid to die alone.
When the nurse finally arrived, she pulled the curtain back to an empty bed covered in dust.
CASE 05
Basement Level
The hospital elevator opened onto a basement floor that does not appear on any directory.
Every bed in the corridor had my name clipped to it.
CASE 06
Diving Suit
We recovered my partner’s empty diving suit from the wreck after three days of searching.
The suit began knocking from the inside as soon as we brought it aboard.
CASE 07
Moon Grave
The rover discovered a human grave on the far side of the Moon.
The headstone carried tomorrow’s date and my full name.
CASE 08
Heartbeat
I pressed my ear to the wall because I thought I heard a heartbeat from the next apartment.
My own chest went silent while I listened.
CASE 09
Draft
The writing assistant kept restoring a paragraph I had deleted from my story.
It was a description of exactly how I would die before sunrise.
CASE 10
Arrivals
The arrivals board listed my flight as landed while we were still two hours from our destination.
Under passenger status, every name changed to deceased.
CASE 11
Tomorrow
The timestamp on the photograph says it was taken tomorrow morning.
It shows police standing around my bed.
CASE 12
Negative
I held the film negative up to the light and saw a dark figure beside every person I had photographed.
In the newest frame, the figure is standing behind the camera.
CASE 13
Thermostat
The thermostat keeps lowering itself to the temperature of a morgue while I sleep.
This morning it displayed BODY DETECTED instead of the room temperature.
CASE 14
Upstairs
I heard footsteps upstairs even though the police were standing beside me in the living room.
Then their radios announced that officers had found my body upstairs.
CASE 15
Gate 0
My boarding pass directed me to Gate 0 at the far end of an empty terminal.
The departure screen there listed only passengers who had died in plane crashes.
CASE 16
Funeral Photo
The photographer sent us a wide shot of everyone gathered around my father’s grave.
My father is standing at the edge of the frame looking furious.
CASE 17
Little Girl
A little girl got into the elevator alone and pressed the basement button.
When the doors closed, she asked why I had followed her into the grave.
CASE 18
Children’s Ward
The hospital hired a clown to entertain the children on the ward.
The nurses stopped smiling when he walked into the room of a child who had died the night before.
CASE 19
The Flies
Flies began gathering on one empty spot in every family photograph hanging in the hall.
Yesterday a new photograph appeared there with me lying in that spot.