Rain hammered against the slick asphalt, streaming into thin rivers that curled along the edge of the sidewalk. Nina walked toward her student apartment, one hand gripping the umbrella, the other clutching a bag stuffed with notes and books that smelled of damp paper. Her shoulders ached beneath the weight, her body heavy with exhaustion, but she kept her pace steady.
The streets were nearly empty—just the occasional late-night wanderer, a drunk stumbling toward a cab, or the faint glimmer of a car passing in the distance.
She hated walking home at night. It wasn't just the darkness; it was the silence that came with it. Silence in the city was unnatural, like holding your breath for too long. Even the traffic seemed to disappear after ten. That silence pressed down on her now, magnifying every echo of her boots on the wet pavement, every squeak of her umbrella shifting in her grip.
Her body tensed with every shadow she passed. The alleys looked deeper in the rain, the corners darker, and the scattered neon lights only made the emptiness more apparent.
It had been another exhausting day. Marketing lectures in the morning, a part-time shift at the café in the afternoon, and then hours buried in the university computer lab trying to polish a presentation for Monday. She should have left earlier, but the glow of the screen, the neat columns of data, had drawn her in until the janitor had coughed meaningfully at the door, giving her a look that said she was the last one there.
Now it was nearly midnight, and the shadows had grown teeth.
She pulled her bag closer against her side and tried not to imagine what might be lurking in the alleys—just two more blocks. Don't be ridiculous, Nina. You've done this a hundred times.
Still, something gnawed at the back of her mind. That prickling between her shoulder blades, a chill that had nothing to do with the rain dripping down her neck. She quickened her pace, boots splashing in the shallow puddles.
When she crossed the bridge, the feeling grew sharper. Not sound, not sight, but pressure—as though invisible eyes had fixed on her back. The sensation crawled along her skin, making her shoulders tighten. She paused, telling herself not to, and glanced over her shoulder.
Empty street. A single lamppost flickered, buzzing faintly, the light stuttering like a dying heartbeat. No footsteps followed her. No shadow moved.
Nina exhaled, a shaky laugh escaping her lips, too loud in the silence. Paranoid. Too much caffeine. That's all.
She adjusted her umbrella and quickened her pace.
But the feeling didn't leave.
By the time she reached her street, her pulse was rabbit-quick, her chest rising and falling in uneven bursts. She turned the last corner, relieved to see the faint yellow glow of her apartment building at the end. Safe. Warm. Normal.
Except something waited at her door.
She froze.
The small stone steps that led up to her apartment were no longer bare. A book sat there, resting neatly in the middle of the top step, as though someone had placed it carefully for her to find.
Her first thought: maybe it belongs to the neighbour. But no—the neighbours didn't read. The couple downstairs fought loudly every night about unpaid bills, and the old man upstairs only subscribed to gossip magazines.
The book didn't belong here.
Nina swallowed and approached slowly, umbrella trembling slightly in her hand. Rain hissed around her, drumming on the street, but the closer she came to the book, the more the world seemed to narrow, sounds muffled, as if someone had cupped hands around her ears.
She crouched, her bag slipping down her arm.
The book was thick, old, bound in dark leather that gleamed wetly under the weak porch light. No title on the cover. Only an engraved symbol—a circle cut cleanly in half by a vertical line.
Her stomach twisted. She touched it with hesitant fingers, brushing across the damp surface. Cold. Too cold for leather.
Inside, curiosity wrestled with fear. Part of her screamed to leave it, to run upstairs, lock the door, pretend it wasn't there. But another part—deeper, more stubborn—needed to know.
She lifted it.
The book was heavier than she expected, and when she opened the cover, the smell of aged paper rose to meet her, sharp and intoxicating. Her breath caught. Notes filled the margins—handwritten, in precise dark ink. Not random scribbles, not doodles, but deliberate commentary, responding to the printed words as if in conversation.
And the worst part—those notes referenced her.
Her name, in neat script: Nina.
The first line she saw: Nina doesn't realise how much she underlines when she studies. She always marks the wrong details first.
Her throat went dry.
This wasn't possible.
She flipped another page, faster now, hands clumsy. More writing. More observations. Notes about the café where she worked. About the way she chewed her pen in class. About the friends she sometimes met after lectures.
Her vision swam. The umbrella slipped from her grip, clattering down onto the wet steps.
Someone had written these for her. About her. Someone who had been watching closely. Too closely.
She slammed the book shut, chest heaving. The silence of the street pressed in again, suffocating. Her gaze darted left, right.
Nothing.
But the certainty grew claws inside her: he was still out there. Watching.
Nina clutched the book against her chest and bolted up the steps, fumbling for her keys with shaking hands. The door resisted for a moment, swollen from the rain, then gave way. She stumbled inside, slammed it shut, and locked it twice.
Only when she was safe in the dim, cramped hallway did she realise she was still holding the book in a death grip. Her knuckles had turned white.
She dropped her bag, leaned against the door, and tried to breathe. The apartment was silent except for the faint hum of her refrigerator, the ordinary sound jarring in the midst of her panic.
Slowly, she carried the book into her room. Her lamp cast a weak circle of light across the cluttered desk. She set the book down as though it might explode.
It lay there, silent, waiting.
Her hands itched to open it again. She didn't want to. She had to.
So she did.
Page after page, filled with her life, her habits, her secrets. Written by someone who knew her better than her closest friends. Someone who had been there, unseen, for weeks—months maybe.
At the bottom of one page, a sentence curved neatly across the margin:
Stop walking home alone so late. It's dangerous. You know that.
Her pulse thundered.
And then—her lamp flickered.
Nina's head snapped toward the window. Through the rain-smeared glass, she swore she saw movement. A figure—tall, still—standing across the street, half-hidden beneath a hood.
Watching.
Her breath caught. When she blinked, the figure was gone.