Stalker // DNF

3: Coincidence

'That is not fair! You were literally there as well!' George laughs into his headset, his cheeks tinting pink from his friends' teasing.

'Yeah, I was there - holding the bucket for you!' Cole's giggles from their University reminiscence pierces George's ears.

'Hey, I'm back, what did I miss?' Leila's voice echoes down the headset.

'Oh my god, Leila. Whatever your opinion is on George - it's about to plummet down,' Cole says, giddy from the excitement of being able to re-tell the tale.

'No! I'm telling it, 'cause you'll make it sound so much worse!' George shouts, sitting up abruptly and rushing out the story before he gets interrupted. In an ideal world, Leila, along with humanity as a whole, would never hear this story. But he would rather it come from his mouth than Cole's ridiculous one.

'I was in Uni after a night out. Me and Cole were stumbling home and stopped in a shop to get food. We were at the till and the drinks caught up to me, so I may or may not have thrown up all over the cashier.'

George hears Tom, another friend of his choke, but ignores it to get the story over and done with.

'Cole saw I wasn't finished so he grabbed a mop bucket, that was in use by an employee, and I threw up the remaining... stuff into the gross murky water,' George pushes the rest of the story out in one breath. 'Okay - are we happy and done with that now?'

'No! We are not done - I have a photo of the aftermath on the cashier!' Cole laughs. A few seconds later the notification pops up in their group chat. George lifts his arm up to groan loudly into his elbow. He picks the phone up with the other hand and peers over his arm at the photo of the cashier in shock, and covered in mulch.

'The poor lad - you're rank, George,' Leila chuckles.

'It wasn't on purpose - screw you guys,' George whines, locking his phone to avert his eyes from the embarrassment. 'I'm leaving.'

'No!' Tom yells, harmonizing with Cole.

'Nah I've had enough of this bullying,' George jokes. 'And it is late, guys - I have work tomorrow. I'll see you later.'

'Boo!' Cole shouts, just as George leaves the call and shut all his tabs. It is late, and the night before's lack of sleep is taking a tole on his body.

He powers everything off and stretches his body as he stands up, feeling a rush of blood run to his head.

George makes his way to the bathroom and turns the shower on. While it heats up, he looks at his reflection in the mirror, bright lights highlighting his entire face and body. He pokes at his arms, covered legs and posy cheeks, sighing and turning around to remove his clothes.

His tiredness accelerates his speed in scrubbing himself clean to collaps into his bed after partially drying himself, too exhausted to even remove the towel.

He wakes up in regret. The sheets are damp from unwiped residue from the shower and the towel is tied around his neck uncomfortably. He sits up, a pain shooting up his neck from chucking himself into an uncomfortable position and sleeping like that. He somehow feels he's had a worst night sleep than the previous night.

He sits up, instantly jumping out of the soggy bed and chucking on some clothes for work, the dry cloth feeling like heaven against his icy skin.

George makes his way to the kitchen and grabs some bread to toast. While it cooks, he grabs his phone and migrates to twitter to scroll and investigates what's trending in the UK. His eyes crinkle and a smile trickles over his face as he sees #newdreampainting at number 1.

He clicks on the trend to see what Dream had created overnight. George doesn't see the painting at first, instead he sees people using the hashtag and talking about it. He skims comments and is confused when he sees most people criticizing. The words, 'so random?,' 'wtf' and 'is this an ad?,' catch his attention.

He frantically scrolls until he sees someone post an attached picture of the mural. His breath gets caught as the first thing he notices is the location, the street. It was that same street, the one with the houses of the victims of the cyber-stalking. Why was Dream there again? He rarely painted in the same location twice in a row.

George then brings his attention back to the painting which had caused all of the controversy. His eyes widen and his heart skips a beat - what the fuck?

On the wall of a different building, there lay the shop with the exact same background; till, shelves and everything, that had been in the photo Cole sent of the disastrous night out in Uni. On the desk there is a crumpled t-shirt, why was it the exact same t-shirt the cashier had been wearing in the photo? It has the same exact Lacoste logo imprinted in the corner, in the same exact baby blue colour.

This would have been enough to weird George out, but the scary part is there is a mop bucket on the floor, and the actual mop was being smeared on the t-shirt, leaving behind a residue of flowers growing from the material. It was not George's vomit, but the flowers were growing in the exact same places that his sick had landed on the cashier's top.

What? This couldn't just be a coincidence? This painting was almost an exact replica of Cole's image, just without the actual cashier and the vomit.

George thinks back to the walk home from work where he saw the graffiti with the pints. 'Next rounds on me.'

The other mural with George's exact pizza order. No, he wasn't the only person to order those toppings, but they weren't exactly common, either.

And now this shop with an eery and extremely similar look and feel to the photo Cole had sent him and his friends last night.

All these could be coincidences in solidarity. But together? And 3 days in a row?

George's brain aches as he thinks back over the events and any possible explanation. Was he being self-absorbed thinking Dream was painting things about George's life? Why on earth would he do that? Who even was Dream?

George allows himself for a second to hypothetically imagine that all these graffiti images were about himself, who knew this stuff?

His Mum knew about the pizza, but she knew nothing of the bet and the photo. The only people who knew about all 3 events were his friends in the group chat. So Cole, Tom and Leila. None of them were talented artists, or at least that he knew of.

He feels ridiculous pondering over the 3 names - was he going that insane that he thought his friends were painting about things related to him? Who the hell would do that?

The smell of burning toast tickles his nostrils and he jerks his head up from the phone and catches smoke filling the room, rising up to the ceiling from the toaster. He plonks his phone on the counter and turns off the toaster immediately as the smoke alarm's piercing screech is heard from the wall by his door.

He instantly runs to the door to jerk it open and grabs a tea towel to wave by the smoke detector, pleading his neighbors won't hear the noise and he'll be smothered in complaints.

He whips the tea towel back and forth until most of the smoke clears and the screech of the detector stops abruptly.

George steps away from the door, his head foggy with confusion and his arms tired from the movement.

Some smoke was still dancing around the apartment, but most had moved from the kitchen into the living room, nearer the front door. He scans the misty apartment and his eyes catch at his computer setup. Everything had been powered off the night before, he was sure of it.

George wanders to the desk, following his curiosity and finds that he was correct, everything was switched off at the plug. So why on earth was his webcam flashing a dim red light?