He watched the first few seconds with the sound off. His thumb hovered over the volume, as it belonged to someone else. On the screen, the camera shook slightly, the angle tilted from somewhere across the room. Whoever filmed it hadn’t bothered to hide the fact that they were filming.

  A voice drifted faintly from the speaker. Laughing menacingly. High, breathless laughter; it didn’t sound human to him. His stomach dropped, and a tightness started in his chest. He muted it again immediately. For a moment, he just stood there staring at the frozen image.

  It was him. Standing in the middle of the living room, shoulders stiff, looking like someone who had already realized he had made a horrible mistake but hadn’t figured out how to leave yet. Behind the camera, it looked like someone said something he couldn’t quite hear.

  The memory hit him in pieces. Earlier that night… The same apartment. Too many drinks. The conversation was turning in that direction, the way it always eventually did.

  “I just don’t get it,” one of them had said, swirling a drink in her glass.

  “You’ve never even tried.”

  He remembered laughing awkwardly.

  “That’s not really how it works.”

  “How do you know?”

  Another voice chimed in, playful but sharp underneath.

  “Yeah. What if you just met the wrong woman?”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  He had tried to brush it off the way he always did. A silly joke. A little shrug. Anything to change the subject. But the conversation had kept circling back. Curious smiles. Sensual teasing. Someone leaning closer and saying quietly:

  “We could help you figure it out. We like to play anyways.”

  Back in the kitchen, his chest tightened more. He unmuted the video again. On the screen, he watched himself shaking his head. Even without the sound, he could read his own body language perfectly. Uncomfortable. Cornered. Someone off-camera said something.

  The girls on the couch laughed again.

  And then the memory landed all at once, disturbing, uncensored, and complete. The phone in someone’s hand.

  The words that had followed: “Relax! It’s just an experiment.”

  His hand slipped slightly against the counter. He paused the video before it could continue any further. Across the room, his friend on the couch stirred faintly but didn’t wake.

  He looked at her. Then back at the phone. His mind kept trying to replay the same moment over and over. Not the video. The moment before.

  The moment when he should have left. But there had been three of them. Three voices he could remember. Three people he trusted told him he was overthinking it.

  That it was harmless. That it was ‘funny.’ That it might even prove something…

  He remembered someone saying: “See!? You’re curious too! Isn’t Everyone?”

  Another voice had added softly: “Don’t worry. We’ll guide you. This is natural after all.”

  His stomach twisted hard. The message notification was still sitting under the video. ‘Told you! The right woman could fix him!’

  His throat felt tight suddenly. Not because of the video. Not even because of the memory he regained. But because he realized something worse. They hadn’t thought they were doing something cruel. They had thought they were proving a point.

  Across the room, his friend shifted under the blanket again, still unconscious to the storm forming around her. He set the phone back on the counter slowly.

  Because now a new thought had started to settle into place.

  A cold and quiet, terrifying thought. If they filmed it…Then the video didn’t just exist on this phone. It could be posted anywhere.