The tray was gone when I woke up. So was he.

No sound above. No humming. No footsteps. Just the buzzing of the old light overhead, a constant, irritating drone that amplified the silence in the rest of the room. And the cold ache in my back from the cot he’d given me. If you could even call it that. The mattress was thin and uneven, the springs inside contorted like starving animals, I swore they were trying to claw their way through the fabric and into my flesh.

I pulled the thin blanket tighter around myself, a futile gesture. It offered no discernible warmth. My arms were bare, my skin dotted with goosebumps that refused to recede. The concrete walls offered no warmth, no comfort, and no clue how long I’d been here. Days? Weeks? The passage of time had become a blur of darkness and the intermittent, blinding glare of the overhead light.

I counted again.

Not the days. I’d lost track of those after... after I stopped screaming.

I counted the cracks in the ceiling.

Eighty-seven. I’d memorized their shapes, their paths, the way they branched and spider-webbed across the dull grey surface. Each one a tiny imperfection in this perfectly constructed prison.

The eggs were gone, but I could still smell them. He’d brought me eggs and toast on a plastic tray every morning, for as long as I could remember being here. Scrambled, always scrambled, with too much salt.

Salt and memory.

They turned my stomach. Not just the smell, but the forced normality of it all. The pretense.

He was trying to be gentle. That’s what terrified me the most.

He wasn’t violent—not yet. Not physically, anyway. The violence was in the air, a thick, suffocating presence. A promise.

But his kindness was stitched together with desperation, and desperation is louder than reason. It overpowers everything, drowning out logic and empathy and any semblance of control.

He wanted me to see him. Love him. Remember. His version of us.

I remembered.

I remembered the way he hovered in doorways at school, a shadow perpetually lingering at the edge of my vision. How he knew things he shouldn’t—my class schedule, the way I liked my coffee, which side I always parted my hair. At first, it was just flattering. Sweet, even. Someone noticing the little things, paying attention in a way that made me feel… seen.

But then came the messages. Cryptic, possessive, laced with a longing that felt unsettling. The photos. Ones he’d taken of me from a distance, zoomed in on my face, my hands, my bare legs in shorts.

And one day, the note in my mailbox: You’re drifting away. I can feel it. Scrawled in his handwriting, pressed so hard into the paper that the ink bled through.

I should’ve done more. Told someone. Filed a restraining order. Blocked him on every platform. Moved away. Changed my name.

I did everything except believe it would come to this. I told myself I was overreacting. That he was just a bit awkward. That it would pass.

The sound of a door opening upstairs made me jolt upright, every muscle in my body tensing.

Heavy footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Each footfall echoing through the silence, a drumbeat of dread.

He was back.

I tried to calm my breathing. Slower. Quieter. In. Out. In. Out. Like a meditation, a desperate attempt to regain control.

If he thought I was calm, maybe he’d relax. Maybe I could get him to talk. To slip. To reveal something I could use.

The lock clicked. The distinct, metallic snick of the deadbolt disengaging. Metal grinding against metal, a sound that had become synonymous with fear.

The door creaked open, spilling a sliver of light into the gloom, and there he was.

Ethan.

Still in that same old hoodie, the one he used to wear every day in high school, the faded logo of some band I'd never heard of stretched across the front. Still with that boyish tilt to his smile, the one that used to seem charming, now just made my stomach churn with a nauseating mix of pity and revulsion.

“Good morning,” he said, his voice unnaturally cheerful, pitched too high. Like we were at summer camp, sharing a cabin after a late-night campfire, and not in a concrete cell beneath God knows where, where I was his prisoner.

He held something behind his back.

I didn’t speak. I refused to give him the satisfaction.

“You slept better last night,” he said, his eyes searching mine. “I could tell.”

He took a few steps forward, closing the distance between us. Then, slowly, deliberately, he revealed what he was carrying: a plain, black and white composition notebook and a cheap, Bic pen.

“I thought maybe,” he said carefully, his voice dropping to a softer, more persuasive tone, “you’d want to write something.”

My chest tightened. The air in the room felt thinner, harder to breathe.

“Letters. Memories. Whatever helps. Thought journaling is… therapeutic. That’s what they say.” He was trying so hard to sound normal, like he was genuinely concerned for my well-being.

He knelt beside the cot, bringing himself down to my level, like he wasn’t a kidnapper but a counselor, offering me tools to cope with my feelings.

His eyes were soft. Hopeful. Pathetic.

I took the notebook slowly, my fingers trembling. Afraid he might flinch or pull it back, but he didn’t. He let me have it.

It was real. Lined pages. Half full of possibility, half waiting to be filled with…what? Lies? Confessions? Pleas?

I turned to the back and quickly checked for anything hidden—no messages scrawled inside the covers, no secret maps tucked between the pages, no clues hidden inside the spine. Just paper. A blank canvas.

“You can write me something if you want,” he added, standing and taking a step back. His voice was a little steadier now, more confident. “Something about us. Your side.”

My side? I almost laughed. The absurdity of it all, the utter delusion.

But I didn’t. I nodded. Just once. A small, almost imperceptible movement.

It felt like the most dangerous thing I could do. Agreeing with him, playing along, feeding his fantasy.

His smile cracked wider, a disturbing, manic expression that revealed too much gum. And for a terrifying second, he looked proud. Like I’d finally seen the light.

“I knew you’d come around,” he said, his voice filled with a sickening triumph. He was already stepping back toward the stairs, eager to give me what he thought I needed. “I’ll give you some space. Take your time.”

The door closed with a soft thud. The lock clicked, the sound echoing in the sudden silence.

And I was alone again.

I stared at the notebook for a long time, weighing it in my hands. A weapon? A trap? A lifeline?

Then I opened to the center page, the blank expanse feeling both daunting and liberating. I turned the pen in my hand, feeling the smooth plastic against my skin, and started to write—not to him, but to myself.

Keep calm. Play along. Look for patterns. Look for weaknesses.

He watches you. Start watching him.

This is not the end.

You are not done.

The words flowed from the pen, a desperate act of defiance, a silent promise to myself that I would survive this. That I would find a way out. That I would make him pay.