Man in black

Every town has its whispers, and ours was about the man in black. Some said he was a shadow, others swore he was flesh and bone. All I knew was that he appeared when the streets grew quiet, when the lamps flickered low, and when curiosity outweighed caution.

The first time I saw him, I was eleven. I had wandered too far after dusk, chasing the last traces of sunlight across the rooftops. That’s when I noticed him—tall, faceless under the brim of a wide black hat, dressed head to toe in dark fabric that seemed to drink the light around him. He didn’t move toward me. He didn’t even glance in my direction. But I felt it—that unmistakable certainty that I was being watched.

No one believed me. My mother laughed and told me I was dreaming. My friends teased, insisting I’d been scared by my own shadow. But I knew the truth: the man in black was real.

Over the years, I heard stories. Old Mrs. Callahan claimed he once stood at the end of her street for three nights straight, never moving. A truck driver passing through town swore he saw him walking along the deserted highway at 3 a.m., keeping pace with the vehicle no matter how fast he drove. And then there was the rumor about Clara James, who vanished after saying she planned to confront him. She was never seen again.

The mystery was not just his appearance, but his purpose. He never spoke, never intervened, never left evidence of his presence—except for the feeling he left behind. People described it as a chill down the spine, a weight pressing on the chest, or a whisper in the mind that said: I see you.

For me, the man in black became an obsession. I began keeping journals of sightings, marking patterns, searching for meaning. Sometimes months would pass without mention of him, and then suddenly, three different people in three different places would swear they saw him within the same week. Was he wandering? Was he following? Or was he everywhere all at once?

The turning point came when I was twenty-two. I had just left a late shift at the diner, and the streets were empty except for the drizzle of rain on cracked pavement. As I turned the corner, I froze. There he was. Standing beneath a flickering streetlamp, his posture rigid, his hat pulled low. For the first time, he was close—so close I could see the faint outline of his jaw, pale against the black fabric.

I wanted to run. Every instinct told me to. But another part of me, the part that had chased this shadow for over a decade, demanded that I stay. So I took a step forward. Then another.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice trembling.

He didn’t answer.

The rain fell harder, pooling in the cracks of the sidewalk. My heart pounded so loud I thought he must hear it. I reached out, just enough that my fingertips hovered inches from the edge of his coat sleeve. That was when the streetlamp flickered out.

Darkness swallowed us.

When the light returned, he was gone. The street was empty, silent, as if he had never been there at all.

That night, I returned home shaken but alive. Some would call it madness, but I felt no fear anymore. Instead, I felt chosen. Seen.

Now, years later, I still wait for him. Some nights I stand at my window, staring into the shadows, certain he’s out there. Watching. Perhaps he is not meant to harm, but to remind us of the thin line between what we know and what we cannot explain.

The man in black is real. He is the story we whisper, the presence we feel in lonely places, the reminder that not everything in this world can be explained. Some people run from him. I no longer do. Because deep down, I believe he is not chasing us—we are chasing him. The mystery. The darkness. The truth that hides just beyond the edge of light.

And maybe, just maybe, one night the man in black will step out of the shadows and finally reveal why he has been watching all along.