Chapter 3: Palindrome

Chapter 3: Palindrome

The duct tape over the hole was an ugly, silver scar on the wall. It did nothing to stop Trevor from feeling the weight of the gaze behind it. He hadn't turned his stream back on, but the viewer count in his head was perpetually stuck at one. He found himself talking in whispers, moving through his own apartment like a burglar.

His only escape was the window. Not his own—he’d drawn the blinds tight, creating a tomb-like gloom—but the window he could see from the small gap he allowed himself. Her window.

Anna.

That was her name. It had taken him less than ten minutes of shameful, anxiety-fueled searching to find her. He’d started with the university’s online art department showcase, his heart hammering with a mixture of guilt and desperate yearning. Her self-portrait was the first one he saw, a chaotic and beautiful mix of charcoal and oil paint, her emerald eyes seeming to look right through the screen. From there, it was a simple jump to her public art profile on Instagram.

He scrolled through years of her life, a digital voyeur tracing the evolution of her talent. Her art was dark, atmospheric, and strangely beautiful. She painted abandoned buildings, forgotten alleyways, and portraits where the subjects’ shadows seemed to be moving. It was a world he felt he understood. In his desperate search for a foothold in reality, he was falling for a ghost on a screen, a curated collection of images and captions.

Then he made the mistake. Deep in her profile, three years back, was a candid photo of her laughing, covered in clay, a genuine, unguarded moment of joy. Without thinking, his thumb double-tapped the screen. The heart icon bloomed red.

Panic, cold and absolute, seized him. He fumbled with his phone, unliking it in a fraction of a second, but the damage was done. The notification had been sent. He would be exposed. A random, creepy guy from the university, liking a photo from 2019 at two in the morning. He slammed his laptop shut as if that could somehow recall the digital sin, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

The paranoia, which had been simmering on a low boil, cranked to an inferno. He was convinced she would see it, would know he was the weirdo in the apartment across the way. He was just like the eye in the wall—an unwanted, obsessive watcher. The thought was a sickening palindrome: The thing watching him, him watching her.

By the third day of self-imposed lockdown, his supply of instant coffee and stale cereal had run out. Hunger and caffeine withdrawal were a potent combination, fraying his last nerve. Leaving the apartment felt like stepping out of a trench during a firefight, but he had no choice.

He waited until well after midnight, pulling on a hoodie and tucking his head down as if he could make himself invisible. The corner store two blocks away was a beacon of fluorescent normalcy in the quiet, sleeping town. Its 24-hour hum was a balm to his frayed senses.

The man behind the counter was old, with a kind, wrinkled face and a nametag that read ‘Gary’. He was wiping down the counter with a slow, practiced rhythm.

“Just this,” Trevor mumbled, placing a carton of milk and a jar of instant coffee on the counter, avoiding eye contact.

Gary rang him up, his eyes lingering on Trevor for a moment. “New in town, huh? Haven’t seen you around before.”

“Yeah. Just moved in. For the university.”

“Ah, a student. Which building you in? Most of the dorms are empty for the summer.”

“The brick one on the corner of Elm and Blackwood,” Trevor said, his voice barely a whisper.

Gary paused, his hand hovering over the cash register. A strange, knowing look crossed his face. “Oh. The Blackwood. Of course. You’re in the old asylum.”

Trevor’s blood ran cold. “The what?”

“Oh yeah,” Gary said, leaning on the counter conspiratorially, clearly happy to break the monotony of his shift. “That building wasn’t always apartments. Way back, it was the Blackwood Asylum for the Mentally Afflicted. Closed down in the sixties after some… unpleasantness. They say a lot of that misery soaked into the walls.”

Trevor’s mouth went dry. “Misery?”

“People see things. Hear things,” Gary said, his voice dropping. “The guy who had your apartment before you… real jumpy fella. A student, like you. Came in here all the time, buying up tape and spackle. Said he was trying to plug up the walls.”

A cold dread, sharp as broken glass, twisted in Trevor’s gut. “Why?”

“Said he heard scratching,” Gary said, his eyes wide as if recounting a ghost story he’d told a hundred times. “Constant scratching, from the inside. And he had this crazy idea that he was always being watched. Said he could feel eyes on him, even when he was alone. Poor kid completely lost it by the end. Started rambling about… what did he call them? Oh, right. ‘Wallflowers.’ Said the Wallflowers were watching him bloom. They found him after he hadn't paid rent for two months. Place was a wreck. Holes in the walls everywhere.”

Wallflowers. The word echoed the creepy screen name wx11flow3r_75. It wasn’t a coincidence. It couldn’t be. This wasn't just happening to him. This was the building. He wasn’t going crazy; he was just the next victim.

Trevor paid with a trembling hand, snatched the bag, and fled the store, Gary’s unsettling story chasing him down the empty street. The night air felt thick and heavy, the familiar buildings of his new neighborhood now seeming like looming, gothic monstrosities.

He reached his apartment door, his mind a maelstrom of fear and validation. He wasn’t imagining it. The eye, the scratching, the name—it was real. It was a known phenomenon. A feature of the building. He was fumbling with his keys, his hands shaking so badly he couldn't fit the key in the lock.

“Having trouble?”

The voice, clear and feminine, cut through his panic like a knife. It came from directly behind him.

Trevor spun around, his heart leaping into his throat. Standing there, illuminated by the dim, flickering hallway light, was Anna. She was even more striking in person, her auburn hair catching the light, her emerald eyes fixed on him with an expression he couldn't read. She was holding a sketchbook to her chest.

His mind went completely blank. All the things he’d imagined saying, all the pathetic scenarios he’d played out in his head, evaporated into sheer, dumbstruck terror. He was the creepy stalker, caught red-handed outside his apartment in the middle of the night.

“I… uh…” he stammered, his face burning with shame.

She took a step closer, a small, curious smile playing on her lips. It wasn't an accusing smile, but it wasn't a friendly one either. It was analytical. Observant.

“You’re the guy in 3B, right?” she asked, her gaze flicking from his face to his apartment door and back again. “The one who lives in the dark.”

He could only nod, his throat tight.

She tilted her head, her green eyes piercing. “I have a question for you,” she said, her voice dropping to a near whisper that amplified the hallway's silence. “So, are you ever going to open your blinds?”