Elena walked through campus like a ghost.
She wasn't sure when it started—this sense that the world had faded into something quieter. Softer. She heard less of her classmates and more of her thoughts. Felt less fear, more anticipation.
It was him.
He hadn't spoken to her again since the umbrella. Since the alley. Since the necklace. But she knew he was still there. She felt him in the way the elevator doors opened too quickly. In the way the streetlamp outside her window flickered at exactly 10 p.m. every night.
She told herself it wasn't obsession.
But then she found the journal.
It was in her bag—slipped between her notebooks. She hadn't noticed it before. Plain cover, no markings.
Her fingers turned the pages slowly.
Inside, every page was blank… except the last one.
A sentence was scrawled in sharp, neat handwriting.
"You were made to be watched."
Elena's breath hitched. She dropped the journal like it had burned her.
She didn't tell anyone.
That afternoon, Liam called.
She didn't answer.
He texted.
Liam: hey, are you okay, noticed you behave strange this days
She read it twice. Deleted it.
That night, as she stood by her bedroom window, staring out into the wind, she whispered aloud, "Are you there?"
The shadows didn't move.
But a shiver ran up her spine.
The next morning, she found another package. This time it was on her balcony, placed carefully between the chairs.
No note. Just a book.
It was a novel she had once read in high school. A romance. One of the few she actually liked. She had cried when the main character died.
Inside the front cover, something was underlined in red.
"Even when I wasn't in the room, I was always watching. You just never looked hard enough."
She clutched the book to her chest, confused. Why did her heart ache? Why did she feel like she missed someone who had never truly been with her?
That night, her dreams shifted again.
This time, she stood in a garden of white roses. All of them glowing under a moonless sky. In the center stood Luca, arms crossed, eyes burning into her soul.
He didn't say a word.
He just watched her.
When she woke up, her throat was dry. Her chest was tight. She looked at the necklace again. Touched it.
And she smiled.
Just a little.
Not because she was safe.
But because she was seen.
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