Twisted Obsession

AUTUMN

Some nights are better left forgotten.

I've tried to forget mine.

The blood.
The screams.
The stranger standing in the shadows.

And the moment I realized I wasn't supposed to leave that house alive.

But I did.

Since then, the trees don't feel empty anymore.

Sometimes I hear footsteps where there shouldn't be any. Sometimes, when the darkness outside my window feels a little too still, I swear someone is standing on the other side of it.

Watching.

Waiting.

Maybe I'm imagining things.

But they don't understand.

I'm not the same Autumn who ran that night.

She was afraid. She wanted to put as much distance between herself and her past as she could and pretend none of it ever happened.

I was tired of being her.

Tired of wondering if every shadow belongs to him. Tired of waiting for the man from that night to find me again.

So if he's still out there...

I'll find him first.

And this time?

I'm not running.

⸻

ASHER

I've never been a good man.

Never pretended to be.

Men like me survive because we understand one simple truth-

some things are better left in the dark.

Secrets.
Bodies.
The parts of ourselves no one else should ever see.

Then she walked into a room she had no business entering and saw a piece of me no one was supposed to see.

She should've become another secret.

Another loose end.

No hesitation.
No exceptions.
No witnesses.

But that night, I broke one.

She got away.

People don't usually get away from me.

Finding her again wasn't difficult.

Keeping track of her should've been even easier.

Until she disappeared. Again.

No warning. No trace.

I should've considered the problem solved.

Instead, I kept looking.

Somewhere between searching for a threat and searching for her, the reason stopped mattering.

All I knew was that I wanted to find her.

The problem was, I wasn't sure what I'd do when I finally did.