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A soft drizzle filled the world with a haze, and though you did not have an umbrella, you didn’t mind the bad weather. It had been three months since you moved, and for those three months, you had been at peace . There had been no ominous notes left on your doorstep or bloodied flowers sent to you at work, and certainly no eyes on you while you walked home in the dark.
Sure, you had to pack up your entire life and leave your friends and family behind to go into hiding, but it wasn’t the first time. You could only hope it would be the last.
The street lamp over your head flickered as you passed by and you shiver, hoping you’d get home before dark. It was fall and the daylight was dwindling down to just a few short hours, so each day you were fighting against the sun to get home. During winter you would have to resort to taking the bus or arming yourself, though, because a 9-to-5 like yours meant it would be dark by the time you left.
2% of men are stalked, and 8% of women in the United States. You fell into the 2%, an unlucky person with the odds stacked against them. Not only did your friends and family laugh and joke about your plight, but the police did even less for you than they did for women. A soft sigh escapes your lips as you turn the corner of the street, relief flooding your veins as you spot your apartment complex just a little bit further down.
As you approached your front door, you eyed it distrustfully. Despite the fact that you had no visible signs of being stalked, it still stressed you out to think that your stalker might be inside, waiting for you. With a deep breath, you unlocked the door and stepped into your dark apartment, flipping on the lightswitch before locking your deadbolt, the actual door, and two others you had installed to make sure no one could get inside without you knowing. Even the paper you left in the doorframe was still there.
With a hum, you walk into your bedroom to change out of your work clothes–a nice suit and tie and dress shoes–and into something more comfortable. The skin on your arms prickled as if you were being watched, but a quick glance out your window as you pulled on your t-shirt showed you that no one was there; you were safe. You felt tired enough to just stay in your boxers, contemplating whether or not you should take a shower before bed when a creak from outside made you freeze.
One specific floorboard in your apartment creaked extremely loudly when stepped on, and you had quickly learned just to avoid it whenever you were in the kitchen. But it couldn’t just creak for no reason. With bated breath, you listened closer now, taking a careful and quiet step toward the closet, eyes snapping around to look for your phone.
Left in the foyer. Shit.
You were such a dumbass for believing this entire thing would end. It hasn't ended for five times now! Five moves, five new lives in the span of six years! Why would they give up now?
You had never seen your stalker’s face and you sure hoped you wouldn’t today, either. The footsteps outside were leisurely, as if they didn’t know you were there. Just scoping out the area. They drew closer, though, and you quickly stumble over to the closet, submerging yourself in darkness. There was a secret about this closet, though, that you had quickly found and asked the landlord about–a crawlspace.
You were aiming for that. Only things didn’t go the way you expected. Instead of dropping to your knees and crawling through your clothes to get to the secret door, you tripped over something in the dark. With a thump and a panicked oof! , you lift your head to look at what you tripped over. A box?
You froze in panic as you realized it was not a box, but a person. Vibrant, icy blue eyes stare back at you, eyebrows furrowed. He had a finger pressed to his lips, telling you off for being loud. If this were any other situation, you’d have time to freak out. However, this time, someone–someone else, rather–was in your house, too!
The footsteps halt outside, and you can hear your door begin to creak open. Son of a bitch. It took you merely a second to find the crawl space door and throw it open, motioning for the other stranger to follow you in a panic. He hesitated before following, shutting the crawlspace with his hand as he turned. The space was small, and you were forced into his side, which through your clothes felt rather sticky.
Panic flutters in your chest as you spot the knife handle sticking out of his hoodie pocket, and you lean in to hiss in his ear, “what’re you doing in my house?!” He gives you a dirty look as the footsteps grow louder, encroaching upon your hiding space. The stranger doesn’t have enough room to lift his hands that are trapped beneath his body, but you knew he would’ve flipped you off if he could’ve.
“Shut up,” he hissed back, turning his head, your faces so close together your noses touch. He has a scar that you can feel, running along the tip of his nose and up his cheek. In the darkness it’s impossible to see much of him, but you still feel a nervous blush rise over your face. Oops.
“Y/NNNNN,” a voice drones out as it approaches the closet, heavy steps making each foot closer clear. You shrink back further, pressing into the back of the crawlspace as far as you could go. This was not the first time you heard your stalker’s voice, but it was the first time that you were in your own home, weaponless, helpless. “Coooome out. I know you’re in there.” they cooed, voice deep. Another man, it seemed. Though his voice was silky smooth, it felt nothing but threatening. Terror ran down your spine, plunging you into icy cold water. What if he found the crawlspace? What if he killed you?
Although the other person who broke into your house was also wielding a knife, and possibly had been hiding in your closet to kill you. What a fucking mess. The door to the closet is thrown open, slamming against the wall with a loud CRASH , and the man continues to coo and whisper to you, voice slowly rising in octaves as he grows angrier and angrier. Your clothes are thrown from their hangers and your boxes of shoes are tossed around in a rage, and you expect him to find the tiny door embedded in the wall at any moment and drag you out.
You flinch with each thud and scream, trembling in your t-shirt. The man beside you is silent, his face contorted into one akin to a wild animal, one that was pissed that someone else was staking their claim on his territory. That was supposed to be him tearing shit up and scaring the shit out of you, not some jackass with an attitude problem. Finally, with one last howl of rage, your stalker spins out of your closet, continuing to destroy your room and flip your bed in search of you.
“Who is that fuckin’ guy?” Your killer(?) whispers to you, annoyance clouding his tone. His speech is a bit slurred, a lisp that you hadn’t noticed before in your panic.
“My stalker.” You whisper back, “Did you come here to kill me?”
The man rolls his eyes. “Obviously.” Another chill runs down your spine and you look away from him, just trembling harder. Was this also targeted, or just an accident? Either way…
Jeff in particular was sick of sitting in the small area with you vibrating against his side. He crawled forward, shoving the door open despite your terrified hiss of, “Don’t!” Your stalker turns, as he pulls himself from the space, and for the first time, you can see him in the light of your room that breaches the closet’s darkness.
He’s surrounded by clothes and shoes and… other items you sorta wish your stalker hadn’t found, but the stranger was oblivious to it. He was short, only around 5’6, and his eyes burned with a cold fire that terrified you. His knife is pulled out of his hoodie pocket swiftly, seated in his palm with practiced efficiency.
“Who the fuck are you?” Your stalker snarls, “Where is Y/N?” You peek out of the darkness of the crawl space to get a closer look, noticing the scar that you felt earlier traveled up the entirety of the stranger’s cheek, traveling up into an area on his head hidden by shaggy bangs. His eye where the scar was is cloudy, and you wondered if perhaps he was blind because of it.
“You’re real fuckin’ annoying, you know that?” Your to-be-killer snarls back, “What’s it to you ? You wanna know if I killed ‘em?” His face contorts into a manic grin, and he holds up his–to your horror–bloodied knife. You quickly test each limb and pat yourself down, wondering if he had stabbed you and you just hadn’t noticed, but no, you were fully intact.
“You motherfucker!” Your stalker lunges forward, coming into your field of vision. His eyes are just as wild as the knife wielding stranger’s, but infinitely more terrifying. The man you were hiding with, however, didn’t seem worried at all. He ducked underneath the man’s muscled arm, spinning around and lifting his knife which glinted in the harsh light of your room.
You flinch and shut your eyes as you hear your stalker scream and the squelching of blood and the snap of bone. The thud after made you sick, but you didn’t dare open your eyes. There’s silence for a few moments, and the time spent in it you spend curled up in the fetal position, head tucked into your arms and chest.
You think you might’ve heard a dragging noise, but nothing concrete outside of the pounding of your heart and the beating in your ears. Tears welled up in your eyes, praying to every deity you could think of that you wouldn’t be next.
After what felt like an eternity, the man’s gruff voice came from outside. “Y/N? Get the fuck out here.” You uncoil yourself from the safety of your own body, tentatively opening your eyes. All you can see is his legs from how close he was standing, and despite your mind screaming at you to stop, your limbs move on their own.
You are slow at first, before bolting out of the tiny space with panicked pants, leaping to your feet as if being face - to - face would somehow save you. You even lift your fists in some sort of attempt to threaten him, mimicking some boxer movie you’d seen on T.V. “S-stay back!” You say as forcefully as you can, trying to make yourself seem confident despite your shaking voice and limbs.
It makes him laugh. He rubs his hand over his face, smearing blood across it as he snorts, approaching you without fear. The scarred stranger stuffs his knife in his pocket, and you shudder, wondering if he’d decided he’d strangle you or beat you to death instead. Despite him being average size, he was still taller than you, and he felt even bigger considering you were already cowering. You shut your eyes tightly, preparing to be thrown backward, or have those pale hands wrap around your throat.
That doesn’t happen, though. Cold hands press against your tightly bound fist, forcing your fingers apart. His voice is close to your ear, a low, amused rumble as he speaks. “Thumbs out. If they’re in, you’ll break them.” Your eyes snap open, watching his bloody fingers streak red across your hand as he rearranges it to the proper way, mind swimming with confusion and horror.
His hand lingers for a moment before pulling away, lifting himself back to his full height, a smirk placed on his face. “Consider yourself lucky. As long as you don’t call the police, you’ll never see me–or him–again.” He motions to the window with his thumb, and you nod enthusiastically. Anything to get him to leave faster. You feel like there’s a rock in your throat.
“Good boy.” sticky fingers tussle your hair, and your shoulders shake, heat rising up your throat, so hot you thought you’d burn up inside. What the fuck? He pulls away for good this time, patting the window ledge as he crawls up onto it, glancing back at you. You simply stare, cheeks aflame, not trusting yourself to speak. That smirk widens into a grin, and he throws himself from the window out into the darkness.
Leaving you alone.
Alone with your thoughts, with your shitty, destroyed apartment, and with the bloodstains on the carpet.
Your legs buckle beneath you, and you run your fingers through your hair, sucking in deep breaths to fill your tightening lungs. You had survived this encounter, your stalker was dead, and now you could say you survived a killer breaking into your home.
You weren’t sure who that guy was yet, but damnit, you needed to find out before you went crazy. Why did he let me go? Why did he kill that man for me? The Why’s burned in your mind, racing through like a pack of greyhounds, unrelenting.
The only way to make sure he really wouldn’t come back was to go to the police–or rather, do what he told you to do… and not go… which meant hiding the evidence. With a raspy breath, you steel yourself to the idea that you have to clean up all of this mess, get rid of the blood on your windowsill and your carpet, and whatever else traces of the two of them remain in your home.
And move on. You had to just move on… and pray you never saw that man again.