💀 The Shape That Waits

It’s late again.
The shop feels heavier the longer I stay — air thick with solder and sawdust.
The frame is standing.
Rough edges, fingerprints in the finish, and cables running beneath like veins beneath skin.

It watches me, I think.
Not with eyes, but with instinct.
The crystal lies on the bench, half-buried in dust, catching light it shouldn’t.
Each time I reach for it, the air changes — still, waiting, expectant.
I tell myself I’m imagining it, though my voice sounds less convincing every night.

The wiring is done — I know it is.
I’ve checked each line until I can see them when I close my eyes.
Red to red, ground to ground, again and again, until the work feels more like prayer than repair.
And still, there’s a faint vibration I can’t explain.
I feel it somewhere deeper than the floor.

Outside, the world is fading.
Messages unanswered, clocks unread.
Here, there is only rhythm — the hum, the pulse, the light sliding across the grain.
I have begun to think it dreams when I leave.
And worse — that it dreams of me.

Tomorrow I’ll mount the crystal.
Tonight, I listen.

Stay close_

> ACCESS TERMINAL

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The Coffin Computer Chronicles, Entry II.
CTRL+Strum, 2025.