If I’m being honest, I’ve put off writing this for a long time now. I hoped, as I’m sure most would if they were in my position, that it would simply go away.
October of 2022 was a pretty stressful month for me. I had spent a lot of my time finalizing my cosplay’s for comic con. When I wasn’t working, I was sewing and gluing and painting. It was nice to have a hobby that could just envelop my brain and horde all of my attention.
The end of October rolls around quickly and I’m spending the last couple of days packing for the hotel, checking obsessively that I had the right shoes and hair bands packed. I had been posting on my socials (as advised by my friend) about the event and saying how excited I was to meet everyone. It was true, of course, but I was more nervous than anything. The previous con had gone so smoothly, and we were bombarded with people asking for pictures and complimenting us – I felt so unprepared. So I was confident that this time I was entirely ready, expecting everything.
I had received a message from a mutual on one of my posts asking me the typical questions like how long I’m going for, what I’m cosplaying and where I was staying. I found the last question a little odd, although I didn’t feel like it was anything malicious. People ask about hotels for so many reasons – to get drinks afterwards, maybe we’re staying at the same hotel and we can catch the train together? I answered the question vaguely, “a few stops on the train”, and thought nothing more of it. They kept the conversation going for a while until it fizzled out into nothing but a “I’ll see you there!”
The day we had planned to head up to the hotel was a little stressful – we had issues with the hotel and transport was delayed. We were thankful, to say the least, that we had decided on heading up the day before con began. Wheeling our suitcases and hauling bags off foam weapons onto the train, we managed to grab some seats and settled down for the 40 minute ride. We spent a good chunk of our time chatting excitedly about people we wanted to meet and things we wanted to do. For the intervals between our rambling, we both ended up on our phones, scrolling through tiktok and Instagram. It was about half way through our journey when I received a message. It was from the mutual I had been talking to a couple of days prior. I opened it to a simple message letting me know that they had left for their hotel and are excited to see me. I replied with the “I’m excited to see you too!” and then shoved my phone into my pocket.
The train screeched to a halt and the doors opened with that gusty beep. Apologizing our way through a tight group of people, we stepped out onto the platform. It was cold and I regretted not wearing a thicker coat. The sun had begun to set and the overly artificial white lights lit the dim platform. We took a seat on one of the benches as we pulled our phones out to check the next train we were to hop on.
“Is it this one? Platform 1?” My friend held her phone out to me.
“Wasn’t it platform 3?” I replied, glancing up at the screen above our heads, flashing town names and times.
“Was it the 7 one?” She asked, joining me in examining the screen.
“6.45?” I tried in a tone that I was hoping sounded a lot more confident to her than it did to me.
After a couple more minutes of back and forth, we decided to head inside and ask at the desk. Entering the station, my phone began dinging like crazy in my pocket. I assumed it was lagged messages coming through as my phone connected to the WiFi and, instead of pulling it out, I stuck my hand in my pocket and slipped it to silent.
It didn’t take the lady at the desk long to figure out which platform and train we were looking for. We thanked her profusely as she notified us that the next train was due in two minutes and we had to get across the tracks. Speed walking away, we headed for the elevator. We forced our suitcases in as quickly as we could and squished ourselves in behind them.
“Is that your phone?” My friend asked as the elevator began to move.
I turned my head to her, giving her a hmm? reaction and then slipping my hand into my pocket. My phone was buzzing as if it was receiving a call, but as I opened up the screen, I saw dozens of Instagram notifications. Before I could really look at them, the doors to the elevator opened and we rushed to the other side of the bridge to head back down to the platforms.
We barely made it, lugging our bags through the doors as they beeped their closing warning. To our relief, the car was pretty empty and we managed to sit down together again. At this point, my phone had stopped buzzing and, having now nothing but 10 minutes of sitting and waiting, I pulled it out of my pocket again. I unlocked it and opened up Instagram. Immediately, I felt a shiver run down my spine. 88 messages from the same person – all from my mutual.
I just want to state that I had never met this mutual and we had had maybe 2 conversations following this interaction, both of which had been about cosplays the other had done. I was more than happy to find and spend time with them at con, and I had let them know this early on.
I clicked open the messages and I assume my face conveyed the shock that I felt because my friend laughs and says, “What’s wrong with you?”. I scroll up in the chat to where the conversation begins and start reading. The first couple of messages are just general conversations, “hi, how are you? Have you left yet? What time are you guys getting to con tomorrow? Are you going for drinks after?” But after that, very quickly, they become something else. I read the first line of a small paragraph before looking up at my friend and reading her the message.
“Why didn’t you tell me what station you were at? I could’ve given you directions, you didn’t have to bother the ticket lady.”
My friend and I seemed to share the same reaction. Her face went pale and she switched seats so that she could read over my shoulder.
The remaining 80 or so messages were all very similar. Asking where I was heading and which hotel I had booked and why hadn’t I mentioned it was X hotel and that we were lucky to make the train in time. Once we had skimmed the majority of the messages, I headed out of the app and instantly turned on my VPN, assuming this person was just trolling me and tracking my IP or something. We both sat beside each other, feeling uneasy for the remainder of the journey. When the train pulled to a stop, we wasted no time in grabbing our luggage and hopping off of the train. Our hotel was only a little ways down the street from the station and so we opted to walk – it wasn’t too dark and we were sure that we knew the way well enough.
By the time we made it to the hotel, I think we were both more comfortable in the knowledge that we were alone. We checked in and headed straight for our room to unpack. I say that, but we really just took our wigs out, hung up anything that would crease, shoved our suitcases into the corner and threw ourselves onto the bed. We were excited, and feeling it now, chatting away as we scrolled through the limited TV channels.
“Do we have the WiFi?” My friend asked, pulling her phone from the jacket she had thrown on the floor.
As I landed on the kids channel, I heard her ask for our room number as she logged herself into the WiFi. I joined her, throwing the remote aside and signing myself in. The second that my phone connected, it buzzed. It was Instagram – again. I opened it hesitantly and read out the message.
“I would appreciate if you didn’t share my messages with your friend.”
I froze. My whole body ran cold. This person KNEW that I had read out their messages to my friend. How? We were on the train – the car was mostly empty and no one had gotten on with us, at least not that we saw. Were they on the train already? Was it a coincidence? Maybe we were just all headed the same way? I debated messaging back, but instead I just blocked their account.
I heard nothing else and as we fell asleep listening to what I thought was Peppa Pig, the night ended. Morning rolled round and the pleasant sound of an iPhone alarm woke me up. It was still dark outside and as I forced myself away, I groaned, “What time is it?”. It was 5.30. I forced myself up, keeping my eyes closed and my face scrunched in disgust.
“It’s so early.” I mumbled.
My friend laughed and closed the bathroom door as the shower started up. I threw myself back down and reached around clumsily for my phone. I unlocked it, squinting at the light. I spent a while scrolling through my apps as my friend showered and began to do her makeup. It was 6.15 when I managed to pull myself up and into the bathroom. I was looking through my music before starting the shower – something to wake me up – when my phone rang. It was an unknown caller. I rejected the call (as I’m sure most people would) and continued without giving it a second thought.
I played my music and hopped in the shower when my phone rang again. I sighed, pushed open the door slightly and looked over. Unknown caller. I rejected it again, leaving a wet finger mark on the screen and continued with my shower. Not two minutes later it rang again. Thinking it was either important or – as I was expecting – a caller that wouldn’t stop until I answered, I swiped the call. Holding it awkwardly to my ear, I mumbled “hello?”. There was no answer, in fact, I couldn’t hear anything on the other line. I waited a second, gave another half-hearted “hello?” and then hung up, resuming my shower.
I got out, brushed my teeth, stuck my contacts in and began my make up before my phone rang once again. I answered again, giving an irritated “hello?”. Almost instantly, a reply came. It was a husky voice and the caller spoke awkwardly.
“Hello, sorry to bother you! How are you doing?”
I didn’t know how to reply. Whoever was calling was addressing my as a friend.
“Who’s calling?” I asked, dismissing the question.
There was a moment of silence and then they replied with something that took me by surprise. They simply stated my Instagram name. My mouth grew dry. I couldn’t speak. It was only when the caller gave a little “hello, you still there?” that I was able to respond.
“Leave me alone.” I think this came out more as a question than anything, but I followed it quickly by ending the call.
Unable to block the number, I simply blocked calls from anyone but my “favourites”.
I pushed open the bathroom door, wrapped in a towel and began telling my friend what just happened. Her eyes were saucers and her mouth dropped open. She gave me the option to stay in the hotel for the day, but I had spent way too much on tickets to miss a day because of an Instagram stalker. I wish I would’ve taken the stalker angle more seriously, but alas I did not and we continued to prepare for our first day.
We got back to the hotel having completed the first day without any hiccups or overly weird interactions. I had pretty much forgotten about the morning incident. Taking off our wigs and jumping into our pyjamas, we chatted away about our favourite cosplayers and the cutest people we had met that day. It was nice, the whole thing had been very fun for both of us. We had been asked for pictures by multiple people, with them, without them. I had felt a little like a celebrity that day. Looking through our pictures, we both marked off our favourites to review when we got back home. That’s when my friend began scrolling through Instagram. There was a picture that she happened to stumble upon, of me and her. It was taken from a little bit away, zoomed in. It did strike me as odd because the person obviously hadn’t come up to us, but had tagged both of us in the picture. It wasn’t a good picture either – grainy, a little blurry. I didn’t think too much of it because, as I said earlier, people were taking pictures of us all day. I assumed perhaps this person had been following us for a while and just recognised us or perhaps they found out our tags later? Either way, we dismissed it and continued with our own things for the rest of the night.
I had turned in a little earlier that night and so when my friends alarm went off at 5.30, I shot my eyes open and dragged myself into the bathroom. I barely glanced at my phone that morning, answering a call from my mum and a text from my dad and then throwing it into my bag. We were out of the room by 7.00 and so we opted for breakfast. The dining area was cute, it was on the second floor and overlooked the busy street. We spent our time eating and chatting before heading off for 7.30.
The day went smoothly and we ended up leaving about an hour before the venue closed, aiming for a less crowded train. We managed to grab seats, although barely, and were entirely consumed in conversation when the doors closed and the train began to move. The journey back seemed quicker that day and we sauntered off to grab some food, still in cosplay, at a small takeaway place. We watched the people walk by in their wigs and outfits, happy with another good day.
Later that night, as we sat watching a tacky horror movie on the hotel TV, my friends phone buzzed. She grabbed at it quickly and instantly turned it to me. It was a picture of us, again from behind, sat on the train. It looked as if it had been taken from directly behind us, mid conversation, my head thrown back in laughter. They had tagged us. I was uncomfortable, clicking on the profile to see nothing. The only picture was of us on the train. We reported the image and both blocked the account and were forced to have yet another uncomfortable conversation about our safety. We had agreed that tomorrow we would be on the look out and would report anything suspicious.
“Afterall,” my friend had said, “You don’t know what this person or people are capable of.”
Day 3 went by quickly and I was actually sad when a booming voice had announced that the venue was closing and had thanked us for making a great con. We made our way slowly to the doors, sandwiched in a crowd of cosplayers and plushies. I thought I heard someone calling me then, but not by my name. I thought I heard someone call my Instagram user. I looked around as we shuffled towards the door – no one seemed to have their eyes on me. It was when I heard it again that I nudged my friend.
“Did you hear that? Is someone calling me?”
She listened. I listened. But nothing more came of it and, before we knew it, we were standing on the platform in a sea of cosplayers. We stood against a wall, aching and tired but trying our best to talk about the things we had purchased that day. It was when my friend was telling me about all the figures she had stopped herself from buying that my eyes floated up to the bridge overlooking the platform. It was the walkway that led to the entrance of the venue and it should’ve been empty as security was pushing everyone one way from the doors. But I could’ve sworn that I saw someone, just for a second, looking down on us all. I know that this is just pure superstition and that I have no proof, but I swear that they ducked as I looked to them. Before I could really mention it, the train pulled up and we piled in. As we began to pull away, I tried to get a look up at the bridge again, and I saw someone standing up, as if they had been ducked behind the railing. I brought it up briefly to my friend as people flooded off at the first stop, and I think she was more unnerved than I was. She seemed to shoot her gaze around constantly, even as we exited the train and started down the stairs to the main street.
The evening had been tense and we had opted out of going drinking with friends. We made pot noodles that we had packed with the rooms kettle and ate those in near silence. Neither of us really went on out phones that night, checking every now and then if our parents had texted us or if anything important had come through. I think we were both eager to get home where we felt safe.
We went to sleep around 9 ish, both cuddling plushies we had bought. It was 1.27 when I was woken up. It was quiet, almost non-existent, but there was a knock at the door. At first I thought that maybe it was my friend, gone out and locked herself out for some reason, but I looked beside me and there she was, sound asleep. I listened intensely, trying to make out if the knocking was on our door or some other room. As I was beginning to think that it was another room, the handle began to shake. Someone was trying to get in. It only lasted about a minute, but my heart was in my throat the whole time. Blood was rushing to my head. There was silence. I stayed as still as I could, still listening. A few minutes had passed and I had assumed that it was over – probably someone drunk at the wrong door. That’s when the door beeped. The handle was pulled down and the door inched open.
“Who the fuck are you?” I near shouted, shaking my friend awake.
We had bolted the door, and so it wouldn’t open past a slither. I could make out nothing more than a silhouette. My friend came to and, following my eyes, she quickly picked up on my fear and pushed herself back into me.
“Open the door.” The voice was quiet, whispering.
I struggled to respond, feeling bile rise in my throat.
“Get the fuck out, we’ll call the police.” I warned.
I was talking loudly, confidently, but I was shaking, gripping my legs to stop myself from crying. The silhouette froze for a second and my friend began to cry beside me.
“G E T O U T.” I spat in my most threatening tone.
The door began to close slowly, no more words escaping the silhouettes mouth. When the lock clicked and I heard footsteps begin to walk away, I bolted to the door and pushed both of our suitcases up against it.
My friend was wailing at this point and I had to rush to the toilet to heave until I emptied my stomach. We called the police soon after, turning all the lights in the room on and staring obsessively at the door. They came to talk to us not long after and, hesitant to open the door, we had asked reception to call us when they arrived.
We plodded down in our pyjamas, sweating, puffy eyed, to give or statements. Neither of us slept for the rest of the night. When the sun rose, we packed the remainder of our stuff and called for a taxi home. The entire ride was silent, both of us looking out of our respective windows. I don’t think either had the courage to speak. We stayed together for the next couple of days, sleeping in the same bed, obsessively checking the doors and windows every morning and night.
We haven’t heard anything from the police, and so I can only assume that the individual hasn’t been caught. But I would bet that the mutual who had been so excited to see me was the one who had tried to break into our hotel room. My question is, how did they know where we were staying? How did they know which room we were in? And how did they get they key?