Zora didn't sleep.
She sat at her desk, the note beside her, the words etched into her mind:
"He was a shadow. You are light."
It wasn't just poetic. It was personal.
She read it over and over, searching for meaning, for fingerprints, for anything. But the paper was clean. No smudges. No scent. Just intent.
She opened her journal and began to write. Not about Eli-not yet. About the feeling. The wrongness. The flickers in her periphery. The man at the café. The shadow across the street.
She listed dates. Times. Places.
A pattern began to form.
She hadn't imagined it.
She remembered the wig shop-the missing braid. The way Eli had laughed, brushing it off. But she hadn't. She'd felt the chill then. The same chill she felt now.
She called the café. Asked about the man with the notebook. The barista hesitated.
"Quiet guy. Comes in Thursdays. Doesn't order much. Just sits."
Zora's stomach turned.
She asked for the security footage. They said no.
She asked again. They still said no.
So she went in person.
She wore her sharpest coat, her boldest lipstick. She smiled like she meant it. She asked again.
This time, they said yes.
The footage was grainy, but she saw him.
Three rows back. Watching. Always watching.
She didn't recognize his face. But she recognized the feeling.
It was the same one she'd felt in the park. In her apartment. In her bones.
She printed the image. Took it home.
Pinned it to her wall.
And wrote beneath it:
"Find him before he finds me."
---
YOU ARE READING
The Watcher's Script
Mystery / ThrillerThe Watcher's Script is a psychological thriller about obsession, identity, and the power of narrative. Zora, a confident and intuitive writer, begins to sense that someone is watching her-not with lust, but with ritualistic intent. As her boyfriend...
