Chapter 3: You Are Not Alone

Chapter 3: You Are Not Alone

The voice on the radio was a velvet knife, sliding between his ribs. You are not alone. Julian slammed his hand against the console, mashing the power button. The song cut out, but the silence that rushed in was worse. It was a loaded, listening silence, and the phantom melody played on in his mind, a mocking refrain for his terror.

He had to get out of there. His foot stomped on the accelerator, and the car lurched out of the theater’s parking lot. The drive home was a descent into a waking nightmare. The city, usually a backdrop for his curated melancholy, had become a hostile, alien landscape. Rain fell in greasy sheets, blurring the neon signs into streaks of garish, predatory colour. Every surface was a mirror.

He saw it everywhere. In a puddle of oily water, the reflection of a streetlight seemed to warp for an instant into a grotesquely wide smile. The polished chrome bumper of the car ahead of him caught the light in a way that looked, for a heart-stopping second, like the flash of a single white glove. Headlights appeared in his rearview mirror, and he was consumed by the certainty that he was being followed. He swerved into the next lane, his tires screeching on the wet asphalt, his breath coming in ragged bursts. The car behind him continued straight on.

Relief was a fleeting, traitorous emotion. Of course it didn't follow him. It didn't need to. It knew where he was going. The thought was colder and sharper than the rain lashing against his windshield.

He kept glancing at his own reflection in the rearview mirror. The impersonator's question—What's wrong with your eyes?—was a hook embedded in his psyche. He saw his own dark eyes staring back, wide with panic. The left one… was it slightly larger? More open? The asymmetry seemed more pronounced now, a tiny, terrifying flaw in the canvas of his face. He was coming apart.

When he finally reached his apartment building, he nearly crashed into the curb. He fumbled the car into park and fled, not bothering to grab his bag. The short dash from the curb to the building’s entrance felt like crossing a sniper’s alley. Inside, the lobby’s fluorescent lights were harsh and unforgiving. The elevator arrived with a soft chime, its mirrored walls promising a fresh new hell. Julian squeezed himself into the corner, staring at the scuffs on his own shoes, refusing to meet the gaze of the dozen panicked Julians reflected around him.

He burst out of the elevator on his floor, his keys already in his trembling hand. He jammed the key into the lock of his apartment, the metal scraping loudly in the quiet hallway. The door swung open into the familiar darkness of his home. His sanctuary. He threw himself inside, slamming the heavy door shut and twisting the deadbolt. The solid, chunky thunk of the lock was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

He leaned his back against the door, his chest heaving, listening.

Nothing. Just the faint hum of the refrigerator and the distant sigh of city traffic.

His apartment was his masterpiece of control. A minimalist space with clean lines, white walls adorned with a few carefully chosen abstract prints, and sparse, modern furniture. It was a gallery for his life, a place where everything was exactly as he willed it to be. Its spartan nature had always been a source of pride; there was no clutter, no mess, no place for chaos to hide.

Tonight, that stark emptiness was terrifying. It felt like a stage, perfectly lit and set, waiting for the main performer to make his entrance.

A desperate, primal need to secure his territory took over. He moved through the small apartment like a soldier clearing a building. He flicked on the kitchen light; just gleaming counters and stainless steel. He swept through the living area; only the stark shapes of his sofa and coffee table. He checked the bathroom, his eyes deliberately avoiding the large mirror over the sink. Finally, the bedroom. He dropped to his knees, heart pounding, and looked under the bed. Dust bunnies and shadows. He threw open the closet door. Just his own neatly hung clothes, a silent army of black and grey.

The apartment was clear. He was alone.

But the fear didn't recede. It clung to him like the damp chill from the rain. The absence of a physical intruder only made the threat feel bigger, more insidious. It wasn't a man who could be stopped by a deadbolt. He remembered the glitching figure on the security monitor, a being of static and impossible angles. It was something that didn't play by the rules.

He began a second, more frantic ritual. He went to the large picture window in his living room, the one that overlooked the glittering, rain-washed street below. He checked the latch. It was secure. He moved to the bedroom window, smaller but just as vulnerable. Locked tight. He felt a sliver of his control returning. He was on the fourth floor. The door was bolted. The windows were locked. He was in a sealed box. He was safe.

He returned to the living room, the city lights painting shifting patterns on the floor. He needed to close the blinds, to shut out the watching night. He reached for the cord hanging beside the large window.

As his fingers brushed the plastic pull, he glanced at the windowpane. The dark glass acted as a perfect black mirror, reflecting the soft light of his living room. He saw the back of his own head, his slender frame, his hand outstretched.

And just over his shoulder, reflected with impossible clarity, was the silhouette of a man in a fedora.

Julian’s blood turned to ice water. He didn’t scream. The sound was trapped in his throat, a solid ball of pure terror. He saw the hat’s sharp, familiar brim. He saw the unnatural angle of a shoulder. It was there, in the room with him, standing so close he should have been able to feel its breath on his neck.

He spun around, a strangled cry finally ripping from his lips.

Nothing.

The room was exactly as it had been. Empty. Silent. The air was still. The space behind him held nothing but the white wall and one of his abstract prints.

His breath hitched, a series of painful, stuttering gasps. It was a trick of the light. A reflection from a building across the street. A car’s headlights. It had to be.

With a slowness born of utter dread, he forced himself to turn back to the window. He stared at his reflection. It was alone. Pale, trembling, but undeniably alone. The phantom was gone, as if it had never been there.

But it had been there. The image was burned into his retinas. And in that moment of horrifying clarity, Julian understood. The glitch on the security footage wasn’t a malfunction. It was a message. A demonstration of capability.

This thing, this entity, this impersonator… it didn't need a key. It didn't need an open window. It could slip through the cracks of reality itself. It could exist in the surface of a reflection, in the static between camera frames, in the hollow echo of a song.

He looked at the deadbolt on his front door, a proud, solid piece of brass. He looked at the secure latches on his windows. They were useless. They were children’s toys, monuments to a set of physical laws that his hunter simply did not obey.

The chilling realization settled over him, heavy as a burial shroud. He hadn't locked the monster out.

He had just locked himself in.