My wife noticed the blinking light first. At first, I brushed it off, telling her it was probably just a malfunctioning smoke detector. But the way it pulsed steadily, like an unblinking eye, made me uneasy too. Out of curiosity, I pulled a chair over, climbed up, and unscrewed the cover. What I saw made my stomach drop.

Inside, tucked where the sensor mechanism should have been, was a tiny black lens. A camera.

“Emily,” I whispered, my voice trembling, “there’s a damn camera in here.”

Her eyes went wide. “You’re kidding.”

I showed her. She gasped and immediately began throwing our things into suitcases. My heart was pounding as I pulled the device out, pocketed it, and rushed downstairs to grab the rest of our bags. Within minutes, we were in our car, speeding away from that quaint little lakeside Airbnb that, just an hour earlier, had seemed so charming.

As soon as we stopped at a gas station, I pulled out my phone and wrote a furious review.

“WARNING: This place has hidden cameras. Found one inside a smoke detector. Stay away.”

I hit post with shaking fingers, feeling a mix of anger and violation. How many other guests had been watched without knowing?

But before we could even catch our breath, my phone buzzed with a notification. A reply to my review.

“You fool, this is…”

The message cut off there, like some ominous cliffhanger.

“What the hell does that mean?” Emily asked, peering over my shoulder.

I refreshed the page, but the reply was gone. Vanished.

“That’s impossible,” I muttered. “It was just there.”

“Take a screenshot next time,” Emily said, her voice tight with fear.

We decided to call Airbnb’s customer service right away. After being put on hold, a representative finally picked up. I explained everything, but when I mentioned the reply I had seen, the agent went silent.

“Sir,” the rep said carefully, “are you sure you saw a reply? Reviews on our platform cannot receive live responses from hosts that quickly. It usually takes hours, sometimes days, to process.”

“I’m telling you, I saw it. It was immediate.”

The rep hesitated. “Can you… can you describe the property again? The location, the address?”

I rattled it off, still shaking.

Another pause. Then, quietly, the rep said, “Sir, that listing was removed from our platform over a year ago.”

My blood ran cold. “That can’t be right—we just booked it!”

“I don’t know how you accessed it, but it hasn’t been an active listing for twelve months.”

Emily grabbed my arm. “What’s going on, John?”

I didn’t have an answer. None of this made sense.

We hung up, but the unease in my gut only grew. I pulled out the little camera I’d pocketed and turned it over in my hand. That’s when I noticed something strange—etched into the plastic casing were faint numbers: 17-04-93. A date, maybe?

Emily leaned closer. “That’s the day… John, that’s the day we met. April 17th, 1993.”

I froze. My skin prickled as if icy fingers had brushed the back of my neck. How could that date be on a random camera inside a rental?

“Okay, this is officially insane,” I said, trying to sound braver than I felt.

Emily whispered, “Someone knows us.”

The drive home was a blur of paranoia. Every car that followed us for more than a minute felt suspicious. Every shadow seemed to stretch too long. When we finally got home, we triple-locked the doors. But that night, as I set the camera on the kitchen counter, I noticed something else. A tiny light flickered on the device again.

“It’s still powered,” Emily gasped.

“No,” I muttered, my hands trembling. “It’s transmitting.”

I grabbed a screwdriver and pried the casing open. Inside was not just a camera, but a miniature SIM card and what looked like a GPS tracker. Someone had been watching us live.

That’s when my phone pinged again. A text message from an unknown number:

“You shouldn’t have left. We weren’t finished yet.”

Emily burst into tears. I pulled her close, my own chest tightening with dread. This wasn’t just some creepy landlord spying on guests. This was personal.

The next morning, I drove straight to the police station. I handed them the device, explained the situation, and showed them the text message. The officer who took my statement raised his brows, then frowned.

“This isn’t the first complaint we’ve had about that property,” he admitted. “But every time we investigate, there’s nothing there. No owner on record, no utilities, no tax filings. It’s like the place doesn’t exist.”

“But it does!” I shouted. “We were just there!”

The officer’s expression was grim. “I believe you. But we’ve never been able to catch anyone in the act. Whoever is behind this… they’re good. Very good.”

Emily squeezed my hand. “So what do we do now?”

The officer’s eyes narrowed. “You stay alert. And if they contact you again, bring it straight to us.”

That night, back at home, I couldn’t sleep. Every creak of the house, every gust of wind against the windows set me on edge. Around 2 a.m., I heard it—our smoke detector giving off a faint, rhythmic blink.

Emily woke with a start. “John… tell me that’s not—”

I jumped out of bed, yanked the detector off the ceiling, and smashed it against the floor. Inside was another camera. Identical.

And tucked beside it was a folded note.

I unfolded it with shaking hands.

“You can’t run. You’ve been ours since 1993.”

Emily’s scream tore through the house as the lights flickered and the sound of a camera shutter echoed from somewhere in the darkness.

I took the note and the second device to the police. This time, the officer stared at the engraved numbers: 17-04-93. He bit his lip, then said slowly:

— You know I can’t give you all the details. But… that date appears in an old case file. One I saw in the archives.

I froze. — What kind of case?

He sighed. — In 1993, on that very day, a young couple was found dead at the county fair in Pitesti. Their documents, their photos—everything—was stolen. The killers were never found. But do you know how they were described?

He pulled two black-and-white photos from a dusty folder. My stomach knotted instantly.

It was us. Or rather, it was two people who looked exactly like me and Maria, at the same age we’d been when we first met.

— I don’t understand, I whispered.

The officer folded his hands. — There are theories. That the killers kept the photos. That they’ve hunted anyone who resembled the victims… like an obsession. Or something darker: that it’s no coincidence at all. That someone has always wanted to repeat that day, to “rewrite” what happened.

Maria gripped my hand, her skin pale as chalk. — But… why us?

The officer looked us straight in the eyes. — Because you are their image. To someone, you are the ones who died that night. And they want to “take you back” from where you were lost.

I left the station barely able to breathe. In the car, Maria whispered:
— John… what if it isn’t a curse at all, but someone mistaking us for the ghosts of the past?

And that’s when I understood the terrifying explanation: we weren’t being hunted for who we were, but for who we resembled.

Someone, somewhere, had never been able to accept the death of that couple in 1993. And now, thirty years later, they had found us—living surrogates of dead shadows.

And the note inside the smoke detector no longer sounded like a threat.

“You’ve been ours since 1993.”

It was a claim.