My son's camera monitor alerted in the middle of the night. I checked it and saw my wife and son sitting on the bed. They weren't my wife and son.

I'm a nurse and I currently work nights. It's a total drag but I'm hopeful I can go to days soon since some coworkers are planning retirements. Anyway, I was working one night when just after 3am my son's monitor alerted me to sound and movement. No big deal at all, he probably coughed loudly or sneezed or something. He's three now so he generally sleeps all night. <br><br>I bring it up on my phone and I see him and my wife sitting on the bed. Again, no big deal. He might have cried out or gotten scared or something. I see the glow of his nightlight in the background but it's not enough to make out all the details. My wife looks back at the camera and I'm sure she's thinking *why* the monitor had gone off. Maybe he'd gotten scared by a dream or something. <br><br>I was about to close the app when I noticed they weren't really acting like themselves. My son was sitting on the bed with his legs crossed and his arms behind him, looking totally calm. My wife looked back at him and they both just... sat there. No movement. No signs of life really. It was kind of weird. <br><br>I close the app and go back to work, figuring they're just hanging out or something. Maybe my son had gotten up to use the bathroom or something. I don't think much of it until another hour or so passes and I get another alert. This one, I close the app immediately without bringing it up. I think I know now what's going on. <br><br>I've always heard of "the Retching" and have occasionally been fooled by it in the past. It always happens at the same time of day, always sounds like a Winston cigarette commercial theme song with a voice saying "always be there in the end." Sometimes it sounds like a woman singing, sometimes it's instruments. It always ends with a man coughing. <br><br>I used to think it was just advertisements or something outside until I researched it. I don't know how it's possible, but it seems like everyone knows about the Retching. Nobody knows where it comes from, or when it first started, but you can find countless hours on youtube of people recording it. <br><br>It's a very strange thing because if you're alone, it's almost always very loud. If other people are around you can't hear it at all. A bunch of people online have recorded trying to get their family to hear it and have been unsuccessful. I've tried to record it myself but when I do, all I hear is silence. <br><br>The thing is, though, not only did the sound bother me, but sometimes the vision would come with it too. I'd see people that weren't really there, sitting in chairs or standing by windows. The first time it happened I screamed and I have since read that it's pretty common. I guess you'd call it the "vision retch" as opposed to just the audio. <br><br>In any case, I figured that's what was going on and decided to play along. I bring the camera feed up and it's my son and wife just sitting there, same as before. My wife looks up at the camera, shoots me a tilted smile, and waves. I wave back at my phone. I don't know, it was silly. Just playing along with the weird hallucination. <br><br>Still though, something didn't sit right. My wife and son were *just off.* They looked like them, but their faces were wrong. My son was way too calm and collected, and my wife just looked... wrong. Almost like long facial features or something, I don't know. <br><br>I close the app again and go back to work. I got another notification about thirty minutes later and again bring it up, play along, and close it. It wasn't until I got off work, around 7am, that I started to think something was actually wrong. <br><br>When I opened the back door, I heard my son crying in the living room. He was sitting on the floor, refreshing a set of blocks he'd built, over and over. My wife was making coffee and when she turned she looked at me with wide eyes. <br><br>"Hey," she said. "What's up?" <br><br>"Hey. Not much, just got off work." <br><br>"Alright, well, there might be some news." <br><br>"Oh?" <br><br>"Yeah, so I think our … TV is on the fritz or something." <br><br>"Huh?" <br><br>"Well, I noticed one of the cameras was acting up whenever our TV was on. It was like… seeing things.” <br><br>I immediately knew what she was talking about. “Like what?” <br><br>“I don’t know, hallucinations or something. I saw you sitting on the couch. I thought you were home already but when I went in the room you weren’t there. You looked…different. And then I kept seeing things out of the corners of my eyes. The TV was messing with my head or something.” <br><br>I work my jaw. “Yeah. I saw some shit too on the camera.” <br><br>“When?” <br><br>“When I was checking on Charles.” I say. <br><br>She looks at me with a raised eyebrow. “What?” <br><br>“Nothing. What did you see?” <br><br>“I don’t know, like when Charlie was playing with blocks earlier, he kept stopping and clapping for no reason. Like someone was telling him to, but I said he was playing fine on his own and there was no one there. He just kept… clapping. Do you think something’s going on with him?” <br><br>“No. It’s just the TV or something, like you said.” I say. <br><br>“And I saw myself feeding him breakfast. Like, looking through the camera I saw us eating in the kitchen but we weren’t really in the kitchen. And sometimes I saw you.” <br><br>“Me?” <br><br>“Yeah, like I’d be watching him play and I’d hear you talk in the background but you weren’t home yet. You were talking about how pretty the park was and how much you loved swinging him and how happy he looked and-“ <br><br>“Okay,” I interrupt. I don’t like where this is going. “Look, if you saw something weird on the camera it was just the TV, or your mind playing tricks on you, okay?” <br><br>She looks at me with concern. “You saw something too, didn’t you? On the camera?” <br><br>I roll my shoulders. “I don’t know. Yeah. It was probably just the TV or something.” <br><br>“Well I think we should figure it out. Get some other cameras or something. I don’t like how it made me feel.” She pauses. “I saw things and heard things all over the house until I turned it off. Even after I turned it off.” <br><br>“Okay. Yeah. Of course.” I say, but I don't think she believes me. <br><br>It's been two days since then. Neither of us has used the camera monitor since then.