Sunday Short: Thread of the Dead

Azim loved the hunt.

Every Saturday, he’d wake before sunrise and head to his favourite thrift spot near the outskirts of Klang. Piles of secondhand clothes under canvas tents, RM5 bins, old-school tracksuits, and faded Levi’s waiting to be discovered.

On this particular morning, a storm brewed above, casting a strange, grey gloom over the usually busy lot. Vendors mumbled about bad omens, but Azim pressed on, headphones in, playlists full of 90s R&B.

Then he saw them.

A pair of vintage olive green corduroy pants, oddly pristine despite sitting in a "RM2 CLEARANCE" basket. The tag read “AP,” handwritten. The stitching looked unusually neat. There was a faint brown stain near the ankle hem, but Azim didn’t mind.

He paid RM2, slipped the pants into his tote, and walked off smiling.

The first night he wore them, things got… odd.

He dreamt of running. Fast. Barefoot. Through an alley lit by flickering neon signs. He could feel the cold pavement scraping under his feet—but in the dream, he was wearing the corduroy pants. Blood-soaked, heavy, torn at the knees.

He woke up drenched in sweat.

The second night, the dreams became more vivid. This time, he wasn't running—he was crawling, gurgling, clutching at his throat. A silhouette stood over him with a brick. Over and over. The last thing he saw was his own blood pooling around his waist. Same pants. Same stain.

By the third day, Azim stopped sleeping altogether.

He tried washing the pants. Soaked them in Dettol, Febrezed the hell out of them. But the stain wouldn’t lift. And stranger still—every time he hung them out, they’d somehow be folded neatly back in his closet the next morning.

His friends noticed the change.

“You look thinner, bro.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Why are you wearing that same pair of pants every day?”

Azim hadn’t realized it… but he was wearing them almost constantly. Not by choice. He tried to leave them behind once, but by the time he reached campus—they were back on him. No memory of changing.

He decided to burn them.

At 3AM, he took the pants to a construction site nearby. Poured kerosene. Lit a match.

But instead of burning, the fabric twitched.

It moved.

Like skin.

A voice—guttural, broken—rose from within the flame:

"Why are you trying to leave me?"

Azim dropped the match. The fire spread—but not to the pants. It circled around him. Trapped.

That night, his roommate found Azim shivering in the corner of their flat, still wearing the corduroys, eyes rolled back, whispering over and over again:

"I remember the brick. I remember the alley. I remember the last breath."

It’s said the pants were once worn by a murder victim—his body found in an alley in Ampang, bludgeoned beyond recognition. Only the pants remained intact.

Some say Azim never came back. Others say he still roams thrift stalls—offering his old pants to anyone who’ll listen to a “great find story.”

Be careful what you buy. Not every thread is yours to wear.