The Door
I never noticed him until the night the city went quiet.
That’s what haunts me most—how invisible he was before, how my eyes skimmed right over him in crowded streets, coffee shops, subways. And then, suddenly, he was all I could see.
It started with the rain. I’d been walking home late from the library, clutching my books like they could shield me. The streets glistened, empty, and I thought I was alone—until I saw him leaning under the awning across from my apartment.
He wasn’t watching the rain. He was watching me.
A man too tall, too still, with dark eyes that didn’t blink. For a second, I froze. My cheeks flushed, my breath stuttered. Something primal inside me screamed danger, but another voice whispered beautiful.
I swallowed hard. “Do you need something?”
He tilted his head, and the corner of his lips twitched. “You.”
The word was soft. Too soft. Like a secret I wasn’t supposed to hear.
I laughed nervously, shaking my head as I hurried up the steps. My key scraped the lock, my fingers trembling, but I managed to slip inside. When I glanced back through the glass, the sidewalk was empty.
He was gone.
---
The next morning, my neighbor asked if I’d lost something. She held out a book I didn’t recognize—old, leather-bound, with no title. Inside the cover, scrawled in sharp black ink, was a single sentence:
Not here. Not yet. But soon.
My chest tightened. My cheeks burned as though I’d been caught in something intimate.
I told myself it was a prank. I told myself it was nothing.
But then the nights changed. The silence around my apartment grew thick, as if the shadows leaned closer. I’d wake with the sense of being watched, my skin tingling, my body betraying me with goosebumps.
And one night, the door clicked shut.
---
I thought I was dreaming at first. But no—when I turned, he was there. Standing in the corner of my bedroom like he’d always belonged to the dark.
My throat closed, a soundless scream choking me. My heart slammed against my ribs, my face hot, breath shallow.
He lifted the key between his fingers, let it dangle so I could see.
“You left the lock weak,” he whispered. “I fixed it.”
Panic clawed up my spine. “You— you can’t—”
“Can’t what?” He stepped forward, slow and deliberate. “Can’t walk into what’s mine? Can’t claim the one who blushes every time I look at her?”
My lips parted, words breaking into nothing. My cheeks burned hotter under his gaze.
“You’re insane,” I whispered.
He smiled then, and God help me, it made my knees tremble. “Insane for you, maybe. But tell me, little one—why are you trembling like you’ve been waiting for this?”
I hated him for saying it. Hated him more because it felt true.
---
The door clicked. He slid the key into his pocket.
And I knew, even as my chest heaved and my mind screamed, that something inside me whispered the words I’d never admit out loud:
I love the way you locked me.
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Part Two – The Captive
The first night blurred into the second.
I didn’t sleep. Every creak of the floorboards, every shift of air, I imagined him moving closer. My body stayed tense, hot with fear, hotter with something I didn’t dare name.
In the morning, the curtains were already drawn back. He was sitting in the chair by the window, watching me.
“Stop staring,” I whispered, pulling the blanket higher. My cheeks burned under his gaze, every inch of me prickling.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “If I stop staring, you’ll forget who you belong to.”
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