“Who are you?” I snapped, finally turning on the stranger who had been following me all day.
“Help me. Please miss. Help me escape.” The man spoke softly with love and care.
“Please.” I scoffed at him. “Get off me you filthy beggar.”
“You will know your actions have impact when one day, your only escape will be what you most fear.” He said and walked away. This man was crazy. Deep down, part of me knew. He was right.
“Get out of my way. I am too important to talk to you.” I say as I shove people from my path. My inner child would cry if she saw the woman I became.
The man is following me again. His face is richer now; he has a scary smile. He wants revenge.
At first I tried to ignore him.
No matter where I went, he was there. He was always there. Standing across the street outside my office, his polished shoes cemented to the pavement, his crisp navy suit untouched by the rain that was falling at an increasing rate. He never waved. Didn’t call out. Only the same thin smile graced his face, as if he knew something I didn’t. But I knew everything. Right?
I told my security about him.
“He’s trespassing.” I’d cry, almost a plea, pointing through the fogged glass doors. But when they went outside, the street was empty. No man. No footprints. Just a dry spot on the concrete where he was standing, now becoming wet from the rain.
This night was different. I dreamt of him. Of that same thin smile that seemed to be haunting me. My own demon.
He stood at the end of a long hallway, my childhood home. The wallpaper was peeling like old skin, as it does with age, and the house had the faint smell of smoke you come to recognise. In his arms, something small wrapped in a polka-dotted blanket. It cried softly, the sound weak and desperate, but when I stepped closer, he’d step away. Every time.
“Help me,” he whispered. “Please help me.”
I wake, gasping, my silk sheets suffocating my legs. My phone lights up beside me. 3:33 am. That’s odd. That’s when he…
Things changed after that night.
The people around me became harder to see. Their faces seemed wrong, stretched too thin, smiles too wide, eyes to… Red. My employees avoided my eyes. My assistant resigned without notice, leaving only a rushed note in shaky handwriting.
He’s behind you. He’s always been behind you.
I tried to laugh when I read it, but the wind seemed to have been knocked out of me. I tore it in half and burned it, firing anyone who asked questions.
Weeks passed, and my success grew. More money. More power. Yet, every victory tasted rotten, and the feeling of dread inside me only grew. My penthouse felt colder each passing night, and every mirror seemed to catch movement just behind me.
One evening, I washed my lipstick from my hands, I looked up.
The man stood in the reflection.
Not behind me.
Inside the mirror.
He pressed one hand against the glass, and for the first time, I saw his face clearly. He looked older than before, but those eyes…
I screamed and dropped my phone into the sink. When I looked again, only my reflection stared back.
But somewhere from deep in my apartment, I heard the cry of a baby.
And I knew there was no one else living there.
“Who are you?” I whisper staring at myself in the mirror of my phone. At the woman I have become.
I see him again that day. The same thin smile, but more crooked this time.
“I love you.” I tell the man that follows me.
“It’s too late for that now;” He starts with that same grin on his face but chooses not to finish.
“Please. Help me escape from what I have become. I’m afraid of all I am.” My voice shakes. He chuckles bitterly.
“Please. You left me that day. I let the demon overtake me.” He pauses, his gaze lingering on my eyes a while longer, pulling out an opal-handled dagger from his pocket, “However, if you insist on escaping. I suppose I could help you.” He stands over me now, but I stare back at him with sympathy. He meets my gaze with fury. Clutching the blade of the dagger in his left hand, blood pooling in his grip.
“I love you.” I repeat one last time.
He flips the knife around, holding the off-white handle with care, “I think… I could have loved you. But you insisted on escaping.” He says as he stabs me in the chest, holding me with his other arm.
“Help me.” I whisper.
“I am.” He drops me and looks back down with a wicked grin, different from the ones he’d give me before I search his face for any sign of remorse but to no avail.
As I take my final gasp of air, he kneels beside me and whispers in my ear.
“Mother.”
