British accent
Emma first noticed the man on a chilly Monday morning.
She was waiting for the train when she saw him standing at the far end of the platform. He wore a black coat and seemed to be staring directly at her. When the train arrived, people rushed between them, and by the time she found a seat, he had disappeared.
She forgot about him until three days later, when she saw him again outside the supermarket near her flat.
The following week he was standing across the road from her office.
“It’s probably just a coincidence,” her friend Nina said.
Emma tried to agree, but something about him made her feel uneasy. Whenever she looked in his direction, he was already watching her.
To test her idea, she changed her routine. She took different trains, visited new cafés and shopped in another part of the city. It made no difference. Somehow, the man always appeared.
Then everything changed.
One evening Emma found a white envelope in her letterbox. There was no stamp or address. Her name was written neatly across the front.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed her sitting alone in the park, reading a novel she had finished only two days earlier.
There was no message.
Only the photograph.
The next morning she reported everything to the police.
“We’ll keep a record,” the officer said, “but unless he threatens you or commits a crime, there’s very little we can do.”
Emma left the station feeling more frightened than before.
She deleted her social media accounts and stopped sharing her plans with friends. She even switched off the location service on her phone.
A week later another envelope arrived.
This photograph showed her leaving a restaurant with her sister.
Emma’s heart began to race. Her sister lived on the other side of the city, and nobody except her family knew about the visit.
This wasn’t luck.
Someone knew exactly where she was.
For the next few days she slept badly. Every stranger made her nervous, and she constantly looked over her shoulder.
Then, on Saturday afternoon, she saw the man again outside a bookshop.
This time she followed him.
He walked through several quiet streets before entering an old apartment building. Emma waited until the entrance was empty, then slipped inside.
The building was silent.
On the third floor she noticed that the door to Flat 12 was slightly open.
“Hello?” she called.
No one answered.
She stepped inside.
The flat was almost empty except for a table, a chair and a bookshelf.
Then she saw the wall.
It was covered with photographs of her.
Some were recent.
Others had been taken years earlier.
One showed her on her first day at university. Another showed her saying goodbye to her parents before moving away.
Emma felt her stomach tighten.
Someone had been watching her for almost ten years.
A notebook lay open on the table. Every page contained dates, places and times written in careful handwriting.
7:45 a.m. – Left home.
1:15 p.m. – Lunch with Nina.
The final page contained one sentence.
She finally noticed me.
A floorboard creaked behind her.
Emma turned.
The man was standing in the doorway.
He looked calm, almost relieved.
“I knew you’d come,” he said.
“What do you want from me?” Emma asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
“You think I’ve been following you,” he replied quietly. “I’ve been studying you.”
Emma stared at him.
“I wanted to understand everything before we met. Your routines. The places you loved. The people you trusted.”
“You’ve been spying on me.”
“I was waiting for the perfect moment.”
“There will never be a perfect moment.”
For the first time, he looked disappointed.
“You weren’t supposed to find this place yet.”
Emma slowly moved towards the open window beside the table.
Then, without warning, she grabbed the notebook and threw it outside.
It hit the pavement with a loud crash.
People stopped and looked up.
The man rushed to the window.
Emma pushed past him and ran.
By the time the police arrived, he had disappeared.
The notebook remained, but every photograph had been removed. The apartment had been rented using false documents, and nobody knew the man’s real identity.
Six months later, Emma had moved to another city and started a new job. She gave her new address to only a few close friends.
One evening she came home and found a white envelope lying just inside her front door.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
It showed her unlocking the same door only a few hours earlier.
On the back, written in the same careful handwriting, were three words.
- staring – looking at someone or something for a long time without looking away
- rushed (rush, rushed, rushed) – move or act very quickly
- uneasy – worried, nervous or uncomfortable
- threatens – says or shows that someone will cause harm or trouble
- sharing – telling or giving information, ideas or things to other people
- slipped (slip, slipped, slipped) – move quietly or smoothly without being noticed
- tighten (tighten, tightened, tightened) – become more tense or feel tighter because of fear or worry
- spying – secretly watching someone to get information about them
- warning – notice about something bad or dangerous that is going to happen
- unlocking – opening something with a key or another method to remove a lock
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