Sarah turned twenty-five on a Wednesday.
Her friends gave her cakes, perfume, a few half-hearted greeting cards. But one envelope was different—plain beige, no return address, her name written in cramped, shaky handwriting.
Inside was a photo card.
At first, she thought it was one of those novelty old-timey photos taken at carnivals—sepia tone, grainy, unsettlingly vintage. But when she looked closely, her stomach tightened.
The picture showed a tall man, towering over a streetlamp. His body was pitch-black, almost absorbing the light around him. He wore a long coat, too long, brushing the ground like a shadow spilled into fabric. And on his head sat a magician's top hat, tilted forward just enough to hide his eyes.
But worst of all was his smile.
Thin. Too thin. A razor line stretched across his face like someone carved it there.
Sarah flipped the card over.
On the back, scrawled in dark, messy ink, were five words:
don't take your eyes off it
A nervous laugh escaped her. This had to be a joke. A prank. Someone trying to be edgy. She tossed the photo onto her desk and went about her evening.
But the photo didn't stay where she left it.
The second time she saw it, the man looked slightly… different. The angle was the same. The pose was the same.
But he looked closer.
Closer to the camera.Closer to her.
She tried to brush it off. Maybe she was imagining things. Maybe the lighting made it appear that way.
That night, as she got ready for bed, she nearly screamed.
Through the thin curtain of her bedroom window, across the quiet street, standing perfectly still beneath the flickering streetlight—
Was the man in the photo.
Same coat.Same hat.Same impossible height.
She froze.
He was facing her window.
His head angled just enough to suggest he was staring directly at her, despite the darkness hiding everything above that horrific smile.
Sarah shut the curtain and backed away, heart ricocheting inside her chest. Every instinct screamed that this was wrong, dangerous, impossible—but she forced herself to peek again.
He was still there.
Unmoving.
Watching.
She closed her eyes, inhaled sharply, whispered to herself: "He's not real."
Then she opened her eyes.
He was closer.
One full step closer to her window.
Her skin went electric.
Without meaning to, she blinked—only a fraction of a second.
When her eyes reopened—
Another step closer.
He didn't move.He didn't sway.He didn't breathe.
But every time she blinked, even the smallest twitch, he took another silent, perfect step toward her.
Sarah backed into the wall. "No. No, no, no—"
The words on the photo card burned through her thoughts:
don't take your eyes off it
She stumbled to her nightstand, grabbed her phone with trembling fingers, still keeping one eye on the window. She called 911.
The operator answered. "What's your emergency?"
"There's—" She didn't dare blink. "There's a man outside my window. He's watching me. I—I can't take my eyes off him."
"Is he trying to break in?"
"He moves when I blink," she whispered.
Silence.
The operator's voice shifted, suddenly careful. "Ma'am… what do you mean?"
"He gets closer. Every time I blink. He gets closer. Please—send someone. Please."
"What does he look like?"
Sarah didn't want to say it out loud. Saying it made it real.
"He's tall. Too tall. He's wearing a—"
She blinked.
She didn't mean to.Her eyes simply burned too much, and instinct took over.
When they reopened—
He was at the edge of her driveway.
The distance he covered in that single blink should've taken thirty steps.
Sarah choked on air. "Please hurry. Please."
"Units are on the way. Stay inside. Stay on the line."
Her eyes watered. They stung. Her eyelids trembled with exhaustion.
She couldn't keep them open much longer.
"Don't blink," she whispered to herself. "Don't—"
Her vision blurred. Tears collected.
She blinked.
He was right at the base of her window.
His hat almost touched the glass.
His smile wider now—so wide it seemed to split his cheeks.
"No!" Sarah screamed, stumbling backward.
The dispatcher spoke rapidly, voice rising, but Sarah barely heard it. Her entire world shrank to the towering silhouette outside the thin pane of glass.
She forced her eyes open so wide it hurt. Her breath came in short, panicked gasps. Her pupils trembled. The world dimmed at the edges.
She blinked.
The glass cracked.A long spiderweb fracture stretched across the surface as if something pressed gently against it from outside.
He was inches away.
She clamped her eyes open again, muscles spasming, body shaking. The effort felt like knives digging into her eyelids.
Her vision doubled.Her eyes begged for relief.
She blinked.
The window exploded inward with a sound like a scream being torn through metal.
The darkness of him spilled into the room, impossibly tall, impossibly thin, hat scraping the ceiling.
Her phone clattered to the floor. The last thing the dispatcher heard was Sarah's choked, breathless gasp.
Then nothing.
__________________________
When the police arrived eleven minutes later, they found the window shattered inward, the room freezing cold, and Sarah's phone still connected to the call.
But Sarah was nowhere.
No footprints.No struggle.No broken glass on the floor aside from the initial explosion.
As if she had simply… stepped out of existence.
On her bed sat the photo card.
The picture had changed again.
The tall dark man with the magician's hat no longer stood under a streetlamp.
He now stood inside a bedroom.
Her bedroom.
And in the bottom corner of the photo, barely visible, was Sarah—frozen in mid-scream, eyes wide, the darkness behind her reaching out like a hand.
On the back of the card, the message had changed too.
now you take her place