Someone Has Been Watching Me My Whole Life

The first time I saw him, he was standing beside my mother’s grave. Clad in a black coat, with no umbrella and an emotionless face, he stood perfectly still. Rain soaked his hair, yet he didn’t move, only gazing at her name carved into the stone. When he caught me watching, he looked up and smiled.

I should have walked away, but instead, I asked, “Did you know her?” He nodded slowly. “Better than you think.” His voice was eerily calm, almost detached from the graveyard setting.

“My name is Luca,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

We met again three days later—and then again, and again, every day after that. He always seemed to know where I was—at the cafe, the library, or the park near my apartment. I never told him my schedule, nor did I ask how he knew. Part of me enjoyed being watched, craving to be wanted that badly.

Luca was intoxicating. His touch made my breath catch. His voice made my skin burn. His eyes hid secrets that made me crave danger. He told me I was different, special, that I belonged to him. And foolishly, I believed him.

But then, people around me began disappearing. First, my ex-boyfriend. Then a flirtatious coworker. Eventually, my neighbor who had followed me home one night. The police claimed they ran away, but Luca smiled every time I mentioned their names.

One night, I confronted him directly. “Do you hurt people for me?” I asked.

He traced my jaw with his thumb and replied, “I remove problems.” Fear should have taken hold, but I instead kissed him.

A week later, I found blood on his shirt. He insisted it wasn’t his, and I didn’t ask whose it was. Soon, he moved into my apartment without asking. My friends stopped visiting. My phone went silent. My world shrank until it was just him.

Then I discovered the hidden room behind my closet—soundproof, windowless, chains bolted into the wall, a camera in the corner, and hundreds of photographs—all of me: sleeping, showering, crying, changing clothes. Some were taken years ago, before my mother died, before I met Luca, before I knew his name.

When I finally faced him, he didn’t deny a word. "You were always meant to be mine,” he whispered with a cold certainty. "I just waited for the perfect moment."

“You’re sick,” I managed to whisper, voice trembling.

He dropped to his knees before me, eyes steady and unwavering. “You’re my religion," he murmured softly.

That night, I desperately tried to escape. But he caught me at the door—not with violence or tears, but with chilling, calculated precision. He didn’t scream or beg. Instead, he injected something into my neck.

When I regained consciousness, I was chained in a shadowy room. My wrists stung with pain. My head throbbed fiercely. He sat calmly across from me, like a predator delighting in his prey.

“You weren’t supposed to find out yet,” he whispered quietly.

“Let me go," I stammered, voice shaking.

He tilted his head, calm and unsettling. "I waited fifteen years for you," he murmured.

That was when I finally understood. He hadn’t fallen in love with me. He had crafted me.

He revealed everything—my mother, his therapist, who tried to turn him in, who planned to expose him. And so, he killed her.

He stood silently at her grave, watching me as tears streamed down my face.
"I needed you broken,” he admitted. “Lonely. Easy to take.”

“You’re a monster,” I spat.

“And yet, you love me,” he replied with a sly smirk.

I wanted to deny it. But my heart pounded wildly as he touched my face.

Days blurred into weeks. The outside world faded, replaced by dependence. Fear twisted into an addictive longing. My prison became my home.

Then, one night, the door swung open—not Luca. A police officer stepped in, cutting my chains. My mother’s case had been reopened, and new evidence had emerged.

As they led me out, I stole one last glance back. Luca stood in the hallway, smiling—a quiet, proud smile. No rage, no fear—just a strange, twisted pride.

Three months later, they declared him dead—shot while trying to escape custody. People called me lucky. Said I had survived a monster.

But they were wrong.

Sometimes, in the dead of night, I still wake up missing his hands on my skin, his voice in my ear, his obsession choking me. And sometimes, I swear I see him standing at the foot of my bed, smiling as if he never left.

Because monsters don’t die. They wait. Because Luca never truly left me.

PART 2

The dawn light slowly turned the walls a pale gold, and when I finally drifted off to sleep that night, I couldn't stop staring at the door.

At 6:12 am my phone buzzed. An unknown number left a text that I'd find myself thinking about later: "You still bite your lip when you're scared", it said.

I had been on edge ever since that moment, and so I threw my phone across the room and started packing my bag, grabbing just the basic essentials. I didn't know what else to do but run, and I've been doing that lots before.

At the train station, I caught sight of him before I even turned to see him.

A feeling of being squished and a tightening in my throat is basically what happens when I'm near him.

When I turned, he was near the ticket machines, alive, smiling, completely perfect. The world around me started blurring and I nearly collapsed, muttering “you’re dead...” to myself.

He moved closer to me, and said “not to you,” and I should probably have screamed, run away, but I was frozen stiff, while he stroked his fingers gently along my wrist, which made me shudder.

He told me I left without saying goodbye, that it was cruel, and I couldn't help but ask, How is he here. “I was here all the time,” he replied, “you were just avoiding”.

Coming face-to-face with him, people passing us by as they go about their day, talking and laughing, makes it hard to believe that he's the monster I know him to be, and that he's got a hold on me so tight.

He said he went to prison for me, bled for me, even died for me.

I told him he murdered my mother, and he shot back saying she tried to take me away from him.

Just as the train was boarding, he leaned in close and said that if I got on the train, he would follow, and I stared at the open doors and then back at him, and I'm not sure which way to go.

He says I belong in his arms, and that monsters can’t hurt me there, and I told him he was the monster.

The doors began to close. I made my choice. The train left without me.

PART 3

The tenth floor housed the new apartment. The entrance is guarded. Every hallway has cameras. The door has a deadbolt. I'm safe now, the police said.

Even so, I kept the lights on while I slept. He appeared in every shadow. My heart raced at every sound. All of the reflections felt incorrect. I would occasionally catch myself murmuring his name while I slept.

I was given Dr. Harris as a therapist. gentle eyes. gentle voice. I had formed a trauma bond, she informed me. That fear and love were confused in my mind, that my feelings weren't genuine. Luca, however, felt genuine.

His fingers touched my face. I can still hear him saying, "I was his religion." In crowded elevators, I can still smell his cologne.

My body had been altered by him.

The messages then began. I initially convinced myself that they were hallucinations. A message at 2:11 a.m.....

Unknown number: You missed me?

My hands became numb. According to the police, his phone was destroyed. His accounts have been removed. The system was cleared of his fingerprints.

I blocked the number. The following evening, there was another.

-“You continue to sleep on your left side. The window was something you've always detested.”

A week later I discovered a black rose outside my door. Nothing to say. Only the New Flower. I stopped going outside of my apartment. They delivered groceries. It was a remote job. The curtains remained closed. Once more, I was imprisoned by myself. As before

Then Dr. Harris said something that made my blood run cold.
“Your mother spoke about a patient like Luca once,” she said. “Years ago. Obsessive. Delusional. Dangerous.”

I stared at her.

“She kept a file,” Dr. Harris continued. “It vanished after her death.”

My stomach twisted. “Do you think he planned everything?” I asked.

Dr. Harris hesitated. “I think he planned you.”

That night, I dreamed of the room.
The chains.
The camera.
The walls are breathing.

When I woke up, there was dirt under my fingernails. And mud on my shoes. I hadn’t left my apartment.

I checked the building’s security footage. At 3:07 a.m., the camera outside my door glitched. Three seconds of static. Then nothing.

The next message arrived at dawn.

-“You’re still trying to run from me. You were never very good at it.”

I went to the police.
“They said grief does strange things to the mind.”
“They said obsession creates ghosts.”
“They said I needed stronger medication.”

But ghosts don’t leave fingerprints. I found one on my mirror that night. A single print, right where my reflection’s throat would be.

I started keeping a knife beside my bed. I started locking myself in the bathroom when I showered. I started talking to him when I was alone.
“I told him to leave me alone.”
“I told him I hated him.”
“I told him I missed him.”

Then I found the final gift. A package at my door. No return address. Inside was my mother’s missing file.
-Every session note.
-Every warning.
-Every diagnosis.

At the bottom was a single handwritten line.
“If something happens to me, protect my daughter. He will come for her.”
The paper was dated three weeks before she died.

My phone buzzed.
Unknown Number: She tried to stop me. My breath shattered.
Me: You’re dead.
Three dots appeared.
Then: So is the version of me you escaped.

The door handle turned slowly and gently. Like he was afraid of waking me.

Some loves end, some haunt. And some never let you go.
Because monsters don’t die.
They evolve.
And they always come back for what they believe belongs to them.

.....THE END......