My name is Eric. Well, it’s not my real name, but it’s my alias. I’m a known writer to some niche horror communities. I’m also still in college, but I live alone most of the time due to my ever-traveling parents. From the outside, it’s easy to tell I don’t talk to many people, so much so I even think that it’d be a great challenge to find someone who knew me. I’m also a huge geek, and this will have some importance, but we’ll get to that.
Since I was little, I’ve always consumed horror media. I was more so exposed to it at first, if anything, but despite being traumatized every so often, it stuck with me. Would I show my future children the horror movies I was shown? Nope. Did I seek out creepypastas in my early years despite being terrified by these short horror stories? Yes! Consuming these stories was just part of the fun, but I also liked imagining myself in them and creating my own stories which were inspired by them. I told myself throughout these experiences that I’d never be a victim if it were me. Whether it was a slasher, if there was a monster, or anything, If I could fight, I would. How exhilarating! A brave hero making a last stand against impossible odds. Sure, they might die fighting a giant machete-wielding monster, but they’ll look cool in the process.
Anyways, there was a girl I met at the supermarket about three weeks ago. She was pretty, looked no older than me and was overly nice. On any other occasion this would’ve been an absolute win, and just maybe I could sleep without feeling so alone for once. The way we met set off an alarm in my head, however, and for some reason I didn’t want to celebrate just yet. Please don’t call me a loser; I haven’t gotten to the geek section yet.
The way we met felt a little forced: it was the cliché of bumping into a girl and picking up her books, but in this case, it was a basket of groceries. Her mannerisms were forced, or so I thought at least. She asked me a lot of basic questions, like my name and about family and whatever- things I would normally lie about and such. To my surprise, she caught me off guard with one question when she asked if I was single.
When I obviously answered yes, she looked relieved. Now, I’m not a bad-looking guy, and even then, that doesn’t matter all too much from the couples I’ve seen online or wherever, but her reaction embarrassed me a little. I also noticed beforehand that as I was talking about myself, it felt as if she already knew all that I told her, like this was old information to her. I don’t know how else to describe it, but she wasn’t pleasant to be around overall. I don’t think I did anything wrong in this interaction, nor did I overshare or say something suspicious, but afterward I couldn’t help but feel odd.
If you can put two-and-two together, I think we all know where this is going. This was my first time meeting her, but I doubt it was her first time seeing me. I think, as in, I can’t confirm it, but I basically believe she’d been stalking me for a while at this point. Speaking retroactively, of course.
At some point, I started to notice faint scratches near the foot of my door. I have one of those doors where mail can be slipped through a slot, and recently the floor was getting covered in marks where the mail would drop. I didn’t think much of it then, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she was using an instrument of sorts to grab my mail through the slot, causing scrapes across the floor as she did so. The suspicious activity finally crossed my threshold when I compared the pictures of successfully delivered packages versus what I saw when I arrived home to bring them inside one evening. The package was slightly shifted from how it appeared in the picture, with several small pebbles clearly not matching up. Call me paranoid, but we aren’t in a windy season. The package also opened a little easier than it should’ve, but maybe that’s just me being me with my overthinking tendencies. Either way, from that day forward, my packages were normal. I made sure of it.
It’s creepy, but she must’ve caught on that I was catching on. Catching on to her specifically? I doubt she thought that. Heck, I’d forgotten entirely about her by then- I have far too many things on my mind at all times of the day.
Remember how I said that my parents are always traveling? That was a bit of a lie, but I don’t think it’s worth explaining (or rather, they aren’t worth talking about). I bring this up because I use their old room as a studio to work on several hobbies of mine, whether it be writing, drawing, or scrolling through various online communities. At the time, I was reading a story posted on a website about a protagonist who obtained a bad habit of people-watching, but it was then that I heard my front door from across the house creek open and shut in the span of a second. My spine felt as if it were caressed by a ghost, but I kept my cool as much as I could. Unable to forget about the odd occurrences, I truly thought someone finally had entered my house.
In my studio, because I’m a geek as briefly stated earlier, I have a katana and a ninja sword-type thing. Ninjas aren’t real I don’t think, but I only recently figured out what this sword is meant to be, just so I could attempt to describe it here. I bring this up because I trust this sword over my katana any day of the week. The katana I have is from a mall. It’s sharp, yeah, but swinging it isn’t comfortable at all. The ninja sword is very sharp, probably sharper, and much easier to swing. The only downside is that it’s about a foot shorter than my other blade, but beggars can’t be choosers when someone just entered my house.
My studio room is at the very back of the house, opposite of the front entrance. When entering the house, you’d need to walk through the hallway, keeping straight and passing up several rooms, the kitchen on the left and living room on the right, then you’d reach my studio. With my sword in hand and a hollow feeling in my chest, I gently opened the door and stared at the front entrance, wondering if I could see any signs of someone entering. Although I couldn’t confirm my suspicions visually, I could tell that the door was unlocked as usual.
From the corner of my eye, from behind the counter that was not far from me which separated the kitchen from the living room, I saw a silhouette charging at me. I met their gaze instantly, seeing a girl running toward me with an axe you’d buy at the supermarket. She swung the back of the axe toward my face, and I was barely able to dodge backwards with a large leap. She stood still after that initial swing hit the wall. She probably barely recognized that I had a sword in hand. I seemed to have forgotten up until then myself.
In front of me was a girl about my age, a little shorter than me, who had blonde hair and blue eyes. She had a backpack strapped over black sweats. Even her sneakers were black. I could also make out the handle of a knife that crudely stuck out of her pocket. It took me a second, but I realized that she was the same girl from the supermarket I’d met a few weeks back.
As for me, I couldn’t move. My mind was working, but my body stood frozen as I looked at her. Sleep paralysis is the best way to describe what I was experiencing. Not being able to move, but being very capable of thought, watching as a monster stalks you while being unable to defend yourself. She was a girl with a small figure who held an axe. She looked innocent, but her intent was to kill me, and it disturbed me greatly. I could audibly hear my heart pumping blood throughout my body, and my chest felt a mix of tightness and emptiness. My palms were basically dripping with sweat, and my legs wanted nothing more than to drop. I tried speaking but couldn’t. All that escaped were cackles that were audible only to me. I could only imagine how stupid I looked from her point of view.
After what felt like an eternity of helplessness, I could move again. Right away I tried speaking but still couldn’t. If anything, it made my body feel weaker, so I gave up talking altogether. I didn’t know why she was here with murderous intent, but what I did know was that by looking at her face, I could tell she was pumped with adrenaline too.
The sword I held was shorter and lighter than her axe. I felt confident enough in my abilities regardless, and even then, she wasn’t scary in nature at all. As I said earlier, it was the context of the situation that disturbed me, not her. If she were to swing at me just as she did moments ago, no doubt I could dodge and counter her. I was only concerned if she were to perform an overhead swing since the axe weighed much more than my sword, and even then, blocking an axe looked tricky to me.
She did exactly that and charged at me with the axe raised over her head. For a second I saw her smile, maybe from nervousness or from pleasure, but regardless I didn’t like it. My mind basically said, “screw it,” and I stood my ground, taking only one step into her as she swung downward on me. I aimed for right below the blade, and as expected it crashed down on me. Still, I resisted enough for her blade to only bump the flesh between my neck and shoulder, there not being enough force to cause a cut. I had her exactly where I wanted her, and there was no doubt in my mind that I’d won. I let go of the sword with one hand and grabbed her axe that was over my shoulder. I jabbed my sword into her chest, just below the collar bone, just deep enough to scare her. I didn’t see her as a real threat anymore, despite my body still shaking, and I didn’t want to hurt her too badly.
I should’ve taken the axe from her completely, because as she jumped back in pain she tugged on it, causing a piece of its blade to hook the part of my back it was hung over. I could tell it cut me, but I was able to regain control by pulling it back toward me once more, this time swinging it to where it was no longer behind me. From there I kicked her back and was surprised at how far she fell backward. As she got up she unhooked her backpack, sliding both straps off, and promptly took the blade from her pocket. There was a smidge of blood on the tip, no wonder looking at the way she kept it in her pant pocket. Still, she ran at me again but couldn’t dream of touching me. I swung twice, one slicing her arm and the other the back of her wrist. She dropped the knife as blood trickled down, falling onto my tile flooring.
Even though I was “winning,” my body felt otherwise, and fear began creeping its way into me for the second time as I stared at the scene. Am I really doing this? Could I really have just died? What would she have done to me, had her axe landed at first? She darted, thankfully not at me, but toward the hallway, leaving her blood-stained backpack, knife, and axe behind. I felt more vulnerable once the door slammed shut, because I couldn’t help but think that she’d come back in.
She never did, though. And I stood there for two hours, attempting to comprehend all that had transpired. I made sure to lock the door, even the lock at the top, and brought a new change of clothes into the bathroom along with the sword. I took a long warm shower, replaying the scene in my head over and over again. My wound only stung for a second. I guess the axe barely hooked maybe less than a millimeter deep into my flesh.
Afterwards, I cleaned up the blood, annoyed at how much there was on the floor. Soon after, I opened her backpack and found an assortment of items, things I’d rather not think about. One in particular that I will bring up, however, was her phone. The camera on my front porch which had been turned off due to laziness up until the package incident caught her face the day she snuck in. I took a picture of her and used it to unlock the phone’s facial recognition lock.
Since then, I grew obsessed looking at the various photos of the girl who tried murdering me. It was thrilling to know that she failed, and that she was living in fear, knowing very well I was alive. In just hours I’d read all her texts, all personal notes I could find, and scrolled through her socials. She was a normal girl, which confused me but added to my amazement. I wanted to learn everything about her. My blood was screaming her name. It was just like the horror novels I’ve read/written, and it wasn’t long until I came up with the idea to finally meet this devious mistress.
I was able to find wireless earbuds connected to her phone that had their tracking setting enabled - How ironic that she was so nonchalant about being tracked. I’ve been keenly watching her in-person these past few days since then, as it didn’t take long to find where she was staying at.
You seem so interesting, and I’d like to get to know you better, which is exactly why I’m going to leave this note at your front door. Don’t bother throwing away your earbuds and fleeing. I already have a few ways to find you regardless. This isn’t my first time doing something like this, but it might just be the last depending on how this goes. I hope this doesn’t come off as too weird, but I think you can forgive me seeing how you swung an axe at me.
I don’t know why you chose me. Maybe you know something (or things) about me that I don’t want you to, but I’m not holding my breath on whether you’ll phone the police based on that information. After all, we both have some things to hide, don’t we? Otherwise, I would’ve simply called them by now.
With love, and maybe more,
Eric
P.S. This has all been therapeutic to me, and maybe I can share how I really feel when we meet up.