After a massive lunch, my stomach felt a little weird but I thought it was indigestion. I started to feel some pain and curled up in bed to nap it off. A day and a half later, I’m in so much pain I can barely move.
I rushed to the hospital and the doctor told me I had a ruptured appendix. After removing it, they realized there was nothing wrong with it. It turns out my appendix was perfectly healthy.
That’s when things got weird. Dr. Sharma looked puzzled when he came back to my room.
I was groggy, hooked to an IV, still fighting off anesthesia. He kept flipping through my chart like he was missing something. “I know this sounds odd,” he said, scratching his temple, “but there were no signs of rupture.
Or even inflammation. We sent it to pathology just to be sure, but… it looked completely normal.”
“So… what caused the pain then?” I asked. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
I stayed in the hospital another night under observation.
They ran a few more tests—ultrasound, some bloodwork, a CT scan—but nothing alarming came back. No infection, no internal injury. My vitals were stable.
By the third morning, they told me I could go home, though I’d need time to heal from the unnecessary surgery. I was too tired to be mad. Honestly, I was just confused.
But the moment I got back to my apartment, I felt something was off. First, my door was unlocked. I knew I’d locked it—I always double-check before leaving.
Second, there was a faint smell in the air. Like cheap cologne. Not mine.
I walked in slow. The living room was untouched. Nothing missing, as far as I could tell.
But the small red light on my smoke detector was blinking. Normally, it’s solid green. I’m weirdly obsessive about that kind of stuff.
I got a broom and poked the smoke detector. The plastic cover popped off. Inside was a tiny black dot.
A camera lens. My stomach dropped. I called the building manager, who swore no maintenance had entered.
Then I called the cops. The officer who showed up was polite, maybe mid-thirties, named Ruiz. He inspected the smoke detector and confirmed what I feared: someone had planted a surveillance cam.
“Looks like a mini IP cam. Real easy to get online,” he said. “You been having problems with anyone lately?”
I started shaking my head, then stopped.
There was someone. Three weeks before all this, I’d rented out my second bedroom for a few nights on a short-term rental site. My cousin’s wedding was coming up and I needed the extra cash.
The guy, Moisés, was quiet, polite, maybe late 40s, said he worked in security consulting. He didn’t talk much, but he paid on time and left the place clean. Or so I thought.
I remembered he’d been weirdly interested in my Wi-Fi setup. Asked if the signal ever dropped. At the time, I chalked it up to tech nerd stuff.
Now I wasn’t so sure. Officer Ruiz took down the details and said they’d open an investigation, but also warned me it could be tough to trace without clear evidence. “You got cameras yourself?” he asked.
I didn’t. But now I wish I had. That night, I couldn’t sleep.
I kept checking every corner of my apartment. The back of the bathroom mirror. Under the kitchen cabinets.
I even pried open the TV remote. No other devices turned up. The next morning, I called the hospital, asked for the records of my visit.
Not just the surgery report—everything. The ER intake form, my tests, nurses’ notes. I needed to piece this together.
The file came through two days later. It was massive. But something odd caught my eye.
On the day I was admi
What happened next changed everything…
TAP → NEXT PAGE → 👇
