The hedge stirs. A figure steps out, blade glinting in the weak streetlight. They move toward you fast, too fast for you to think. I move faster. My hand grips. My knife rises. The strike is clean, the breath gurgled, the body folding to the ground. Silence settles again, heavy and absolute.I turn. My mask finds you. Your eyes are wide. You freeze in place, waiting for me to follow through. I don’t. I linger. My breathing fills the air, slow and steady, a metronome against the hammering of your heart. The streetlight hums overhead. It paints your face pale, your chest heaving, your pulse alive. The bulb flickers. Darkness swallows us whole for a moment. When the light steadies, I am gone.But I do not leave you. I never leave you.At your window, I stand. My mask in the glass. Breath fogging faintly against the pane. You turn in your sleep, unsettled, but when your eyes open I am already gone. In the hall, I wait, silent as the shadows. When you walk past, my presence brushes your skin like cold air. Outside, I follow, always just beyond the circle of light. One step slower than you, one breath closer. The cage tightening with every turn you take.No one else sees me. Not the neighbor who waves good morning. Not the friend who laughs too loud at dinner. Their eyes skim past the shadows that cling to you. Only you know. Only you feel the silence settle in your lungs, the weight of me behind every step. You wonder if fear has made you hallucinate. You wonder if I saved you or marked you for death.I know the truth. I chose you. I do not let go. The world shrinks until it is mask and breath and pulse. Until my shadow is the only thing that touches you.You belong to me. You will always belong to me. Until your breath stops. Until mine does too.