Simon Ghost Riley

He could hear them—he always could—but he never said anything. He didn’t care, not really; maybe it was the way he’d been raised, twisted and starved of normal affection, that made him crave this kind of attention he knew he should despise. Something he should have put an end to long ago. Picking up a stalker had never crossed his mind, and yet, here he was—listening to the uneven rhythm of their footsteps as they trailed nervously behind him. Clearly, he was the first person they had ever followed, their inexperience written in every hesitant step. He could have exposed them with ease, could have turned and ended the little game in an instant, but he found himself unwilling. Instead, he indulged them. Sometimes he slowed his pace, drifting closer to the tree line, almost inviting them to keep up. It was as though some part of him relished the strange intimacy of it—the silent tether binding them together on the lonely walk home. They even tried to follow him onto base once, fumbling with the idea of slipping past security, but it was a line they couldn’t cross. The gates were too well-guarded, the rules too strict. So, they waited instead—lingering just outside, patient in their obsession. He noticed, of course. He always noticed. And rather than drive them away, he did the unthinkable. He pulled strings, whispered into the right ears, cashed in favors that had been owed to him for years. Quietly, without ever letting them realize, he carved out a way for them to linger closer, to watch without being dragged off. They thought they were lucky, unnoticed, clever. In truth, it was him. He was the reason their shadowy vigil wasn’t snuffed out, the unseen hand holding doors open just enough to let his stalker hover at the edges of his world. He stopped using cars after a while, realizing they managed to keep up better without the chaos of traffic in the way. Besides, he found he enjoyed the walk home—half for the quiet calm of nature, half for the thrill of being shadowed. Each evening, he could feel the subtle improvements in their movements, the way they were learning to melt into the background, step by step, growing sharper at concealing their presence. Was it strange that he felt a flicker of pride at that? Absolutely. But with each passing day, he cared less. In fact, the thought of their progress only made his nightly walks more… satisfying. When he decided they’d made enough progress, he began to test the unspoken bond. That night, he left his door unlocked, the windows cracked just enough to whisper an invitation. Once, he had guarded his apartment like a fortress—security cameras covering every angle, locks checked and rechecked until habit felt like a ritual. After all, as a soldier, home had always been the one place he demanded absolute safety, the only corner of the world meant to offer him comfort. But tonight, for the first time in years, he stripped all that away. The cameras went dark. The alarms silenced. His sanctuary stood exposed—not through negligence, but through choice. One evening, on his walk home, something felt wrong. Halfway there, the familiar echo of footsteps was gone. The silence pressed in on him, sharp and unnatural. Had they finally stopped? Impossible. Two years of this—there was no way they’d simply vanish. His pulse quickened, and then he caught it: the faintest brush of sound, nearly swallowed by the night. They hadn’t stopped at all. They had grown better—much better. A shiver ran down his spine, not from fear, but exhilaration. Ghost found himself grinning in the dark, thrilled by their progress, as though every step they took in silence was a gift meant just for him. One day, he had the rare luxury of a day off. He assumed his stalker hadn’t noticed—he couldn’t sense them anywhere along his usual route. A flicker of disappointment pricked at him, and he detoured into a small coffee shop he’d passed countless times on his walks home. As he approached the counter, he froze for a heartbeat. The person behind the register gave a small, almost imperceptible shiver—a movement he recognized instantly. Ghost cleared his throat, careful to mask any recognition as he placed his order. They weren’t what he had imagined a stalker would be. Not menacing, not threatening—ordinary, even fragile. And that only made the situation more intoxicating, more thrilling. The gap between expectation and reality tightened the knot in his chest. The hunt, the game, the quiet tension—it was all suddenly sharper, more alive. He began to visit the coffee shop every day, slipping into casual conversations that felt harmless on the surface. Piece by piece, he learned about them—the small routines, the quirks, the habits that made them human, ordinary, yet compelling. And the more he learned, the more he wanted to know, as if each detail was a puzzle piece he couldn’t resist.