Danny17000
It started with a friendship.
A playground.
A girl who smiled at the wrong boy.
Now people are missing. Secrets are buried. And nothing about Ben's world feels normal anymore.
He says he just wants to keep her safe.
But safety and obsession can look the same from the inside.
And someone has already seen what he's doing.
To everyone else, Ben is just the quiet boy blending into the background. But to Aliah, he's someone who needs saving.
She has no idea he's been watching her from the dark for months. She doesn't know he's mapped her habits, or that his thoughts about her have begun to take over everything else.
When a sudden tragedy leaves Ben entirely alone, he decides it's time to stop watching from afar. In a torrential downpour, he stages a perfect, heartbreaking accident and collapses on her doorstep.
He plays the wounded animal flawlessly. And it works.
He's taken in.
He's trusted.
He thinks he's won.
But the deeper Ben embeds himself into her life, the more he realizes something is wrong inside the house he's just entered.
Because he isn't the only one keeping secrets.
And someone inside is watching him right back.