Rain shattered neon into shards of glass.
The city bled with color—red lights smeared into puddles, blue flickered across broken asphalt, yellow warped in greasy windows. Everything fractured, nothing whole.
She walked through it, pale beneath the storm. Hair clung to her face, black strands plastered like ink. Perfume clung too, faint even under the rain. Sweet at first. Almost too sweet.
She moved quickly, clutching her coat as if fabric could shield her from the night. From the eyes. Because there were always eyes.
Shadows stretched and twisted. Headlights blinked past like hunting knives. The air smelled metallic, wet iron. Perfume cut through it in little bursts each time she breathed.
You pity her. Almost.
Her heels clicked against slick pavement, sound swallowed by the storm. She looked fragile. She wanted to look fragile. The city was good at turning fragility into spectacle.
Behind her—steps. Or maybe the echo of her own. Rain confused things, multiplied them. But the rhythm wasn't right. Wrong.
She didn't turn.
She cut into a narrow street where neon couldn't follow. Lights bled only halfway before drowning in dark. Puddles rippled at her ankles.
A shape moved. Too fast. Too close.
The air thickened. Perfume sweetened the dark, then soured.
Her breath caught—
A hand closed around her wrist.
A grip like iron.
Not gentle. Not soft. Her pulse hammered against it, trapped and frantic.
The street collapsed into sound: rain drumming, glass crunching under shoes, the rasp of a stranger's breath too near.
Heartbeat. Rain. Breath.
Heartbeat. Rain. Breath.
Her own thoughts fragmented.
Don't scream. Don't breathe. Don't—
The hand yanked. She stumbled. Pavement tore at her knees. The night roared, and for a moment she couldn't tell if the rain was water or blood.
…
Alley. Rain. Grip.
Again.
She jerked awake, heart still trapped in the stranger's fist.
Perfume strangled the air of her apartment—her own perfume spilled last night, roses turned sour. The bottle lay shattered in the corner where it had slipped.
Glass glittered on the floor like fragments of neon dragged home from the street.
The storm still whispered at her window, a quieter version of itself.
She lay very still.
Her breath was loud.
Her pulse was louder.
The alley replayed behind her eyelids. Not once. Endlessly. A loop with no release. The grip never loosened. The rain never stopped.
Perfume rotted the dream.
Perfume rotted the air.
…
She sat up slowly, coat still clutched around her shoulders. The apartment smelled of mildew and smoke. Perfume clung too—sweet then sour, roses drowned in damp concrete.
She rose carefully, barefoot among the glass. Each shard reflected her in slices—an eye here, a mouth there, a face cut into fragments.
Reflections stalked her: puddles, windows, broken glass. His gaze.
She reached the window, pressed her forehead to the cold pane. The city glittered below, a thousand fractured lights. A city that always watched.
Her lips parted.
She whispered into the glass, almost to herself.
"Maybe I wanted to be caught."
…
The café glowed like a lantern against the storm. A single square of yellow light trembling in a city drowned by rain.
The windows were fogged, every pane smeared by breath and condensation, neon fractured into blurs. Outside, the storm carved the streets apart. Inside, everything pressed warm and close—burnt coffee, sugar, wool coats dripping rain, strangers pretending not to notice one another.
She slipped in, carrying the storm with her.
A dark coat, edges soaked, trailing water across the tile. Her hair clung damp to her cheek. The storm had marked her, branded her, and she looked like something the night itself had tried to swallow and failed.
Nobody looked up. In this city, fragile things blurred into the background. They vanished.
Except him.
He was already there.
Corner table. Notebook open. Pen tapping a slow, patient rhythm.
She stopped mid-step. Too sudden to be a chance. Her breath stilled when she saw him.
His head lifted. Eyes caught hers. A flicker—recognition, or something deeper—before his mouth curved into surprise. A smile soft, careful, almost shy.
"Sorry—do I know you?" His voice was gentle, polite, wrapped in the safe disguise of a stranger.
Her answer cut too fast. "No."
Sharp. A blade of denial.
Perfume followed her in—freed by the heat, unmasked from the rain. Roses, warm at first, then suffocating. The scent filled the small café like a secret. He breathed it in, almost slow, almost possessive.
She chose a table across the room. Back turned. Distance carved. A fragile performance of ignorance.
But in the café's fogged window, the reflections betrayed them—her shadow facing his, eyes locked through glass.
Neither broke away.
The waitress came. She ordered tea. He ordered nothing.
Ink pooled where his pen tapped.
She sipped slowly. Porcelain trembling faintly against saucer. Her hands weren't cold, but they shook anyway.
Silence thickened—a dialogue of glances, heavier than the rain.
Her eyes wandered—puddles pooling neon at the curb, strangers hunched against the storm, reflections stretching long and skeletal in the wet. She kept returning to the glass, to his outline doubled in the window. There, in the warped sheen, his eyes looked darker. He is watching less carefully. More honest.
She didn't turn. But she saw him. Always.
"Strange weather," she said at last, words thrown like coins into the air. A test. A shield.
His voice came soft, without looking up. "It suits the city."
Their words hung there. Thin, deliberate. Not enough to bridge the space. More than enough to reveal it.
The notebook opened wider. He wrote something. Then turned the page. Wrote again.
Her tea cooled. Forgotten. Her hand traced the cup's rim instead, fingertip following circles like a nervous ritual.
But the glass betrayed her. Reflections didn't lie. In its haze, her eyes lingered too long on the curve of his wrist, the moving pen, the pulse beneath his skin.
The storm pressed harder, rattling the café's thin walls. Drops raced each other down the glass, carving the neon into streaks. The whole building seemed caught inside a heartbeat—thud of rain, hiss of wind, the slow pulse of two strangers pretending.
He tapped his pen again. Sharp. Exact.
She flinched. The porcelain rattled faintly, echoing the sound.
Heartbeat.
Tap.
Heartbeat.
Tap.
The rhythm spread, a pulse inside the café. It threaded through the air between them, a line neither could cut.
Finally, she stood. Too quick, too sudden. Chair scraping sharp as a scream.
"I should go," she said. To the room. To herself. To him.
He lifted his eyes at last. Calm. Measured.
"Be careful," he said. "The streets don't forgive fragility."
Her lips curved faintly. Not quite a smile. Not quite thanks.
Almost.
She left. Rain swallowed her whole.
He didn't move. Not yet. Only closed the notebook, palm lingering like it held a pulse. Then he rose, smooth, unhurried. Paid for nothing. Walked into the storm.
The door shut. The café emptied.
But the window kept their shadows. Reflections seated together long after the people were gone.
…
Outside, the storm smothered the street. Neon bent across puddles, headlights fractured into broken glass.
She walked fast, coat pulled tight. Perfume trailed faint and damp, half-ruined by rain.
She didn't look back. Not once.
And yet—
For a heartbeat, she thought she wasn't alone.
A dark figure at her side. Steps matched to hers. A second breath under the rain.
Her pulse leapt. She turned.
Nothing.
Only shadows. Only the storm.
But the rhythm remained—heartbeat, rain, footsteps not her own.
She kept walking. Faster.
The city swallowed her. The shadows followed anyway.
…
The storm didn't stop. It never stopped.
Rain thickened again as she reached her building. An old apartment block hunched against the sky, windows blank, concrete slick with water. The kind of place where shadows lingered longer than people.
She fumbled keys at the entrance. The glass door caught her reflection—blurred, faceless, dripping. Another reflection moved behind hers for a second. She spun—
Only rain. Only darkness.
The lock clicked.
She stepped into the lobby. Dim light buzzed overhead, sickly yellow, flickering once, then steady. The air smelled of wet plaster and old pipes. The storm pressed faintly against the walls, muffled but insistent, like a heartbeat buried under skin.
Her shoes left water on the floor as she crossed the lobby. Each step loud, too loud, echoing against empty walls. She told herself the sound was hers. Only hers.
But echoes have a way of multiplying.
By the stairs, she hesitated. The elevator sat dead, a sign taped across its door: OUT OF ORDER. The stairwell gaped open, dark, the smell of rust and damp drifting out like a warning.
She climbed. One flight. Two. The sound of her breath caught between floors. The sound of footsteps—hers, always hers.
She stopped. Silence crashed in. Her pulse pounded in her throat.
Then—creak. One step below.
She moved faster. Keys clenched tight in her fist like a blade.
Her door at last. Apartment 4C. She shoved the key into the lock, breath shaking, every muscle tight with the fear of being too late. The hall behind her stretched empty, shadows swallowing the edges.
The lock gave way. She slipped inside, slammed the door shut, turned the bolt.
Silence.
She stood there, coat dripping, keys trembling in her grip. Breath loud.
Nothing moved.
The apartment welcomed her with stale warmth. The hum of the fridge. A single lamp left burning low, casting more shadow than light.
She let the coat fall. Shoes kicked aside. She pressed her back against the door for a moment, eyes closed.
Safe.
Or almost.
…
The perfume came first.
Not hers.
Stronger, sharper, choking.
Her eyes snapped open.
The room smelled wrong.
She crossed the living room slowly, each step deliberate, as if moving too fast would tear the illusion apart. Shadows crawled across the walls where the lamp's light faltered.
On the table—her perfume bottle. Upright. Perfect. The glass unbroken, but the stopper loose. Scent spilling, thick in the air.
Her hand hovered above it. Trembling. The glass caught her reflection—fractured, distorted. Someone else's shadow seemed to stand behind her in the curve.
She turned fast.
Nothing.
Only silence. Only shadows.
She fled to the bathroom. Splashed water across her face, forcing breath steady. The mirror fogged with steam from the building's old pipes. Her reflection wavered, blurred, doubled.
She whispered: "It's fine. You're fine. No one's here."
Her reflection didn't whisper back.
It smiled.
Brief. Fleeting.
She stumbled back. Water dripping down her neck. Heartbeat pounding so loud it drowned the storm outside.
When she looked again, the mirror showed only her. Pale. Trembling. Fragile.
Almost.
She crawled into bed fully dressed. The storm pressed against the window, a thousand hands clawing at the glass. She buried herself under the weight of blankets, but the perfume still lingered, threading into her breath, wrapping around her throat.
Sleep came like drowning.
And in the dream, the alley returned.
Rain falling. Neon bleeding across the wet pavement.
His hand around her wrist.
A grip like iron.
Not gentle. Not soft.
She pulled away. The hand pulled back. She ran. The hand never released.
Perfume thickened the air. Sweet. Then strangling.
Her reflection stumbled in puddles at her side, a second version of herself—trapped, running, smiling.
The hand tugged harder. Shadows closed in.
She opened her mouth to scream—
And woke with the taste of glass on her tongue.
…
She woke up choking on the storm.
Not outside. Inside. Her chest rattled with it, her ribs too narrow to hold the rain that wanted to get in. Sweat clung to her skin, heavy as water. Sheets twisted around her legs like restraints. The perfume hadn't left with sleep. It lingered, thick and sweet, woven into her breath like it had seeped straight into her lungs.
The window quivered. Rain struck the pane in sharp bursts, then softer, then sharp again, like a heartbeat that refused to settle.
She sat upright too fast. The lamp still burned in the corner. Weak yellow. Thin. It made the shadows stretch unnaturally, longer than the room allowed.
Her eyes found the table.
The perfume bottle. Still upright. Still perfect.
Except—
The stopper was gone.
Her pulse slammed against her throat.
Bare feet hit the floor before she realized she'd moved. The boards were cold, colder than they should have been. She crossed the room in careful steps, each one quieter than her breath. The glass gleamed faintly under the lamplight, fractured reflections running across it like veins. She bent closer.
Empty.
The liquid was gone.
A single line of shine slid down the side of the bottle, across the table, and dripped slow to the floor. Not a spill. A pour. Deliberate.
The air was syrup-thick with scent now. Sweet at first. Then cloying. Then choking.
Her hand flew to her mouth. She stumbled back. Her eyes found the mantle, the mirror above it.
Her reflection waited.
Still. Too still.
The girl in the mirror breathed evenly, calmly, as if nothing was wrong. Her lips curved. Not wide. Not obvious. Just enough to be a smile.
Her own lips didn't move.
The lamp flickered.
Dark.
Bright.
Dark again.
When the light steadied, her reflection was only her—pale, damp-haired, trembling.
She pressed herself against the wall, nails digging at the wallpaper. Her knees pulled tight to her chest, like she could fold small enough to vanish. The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen filled the silence. Slow. Constant. A borrowed heartbeat.
She stayed there until her legs ached. Until her eyes burned from refusing to blink. Until the scent dulled from suffocating to almost bearable, as if her body had surrendered.
Only then did she crawl to the bed again.
Not safe. Never safe. But exhausted.
She lay flat on top of the blankets, eyes on the ceiling where water stains curved like veins. The storm clawed at the windows, nails of rain tapping glass. She counted each one like a second hand on a clock.
One. Two. Three.
At four, she realized something.
The taps weren't even.
Some were from outside.
Some weren't.
Her body locked rigid.
The next tap was inside. Against the mirror.
She didn't look. She couldn't.
Instead, she shut her eyes tight enough to hurt. Pressed her palms hard against her ears. Forced herself into darkness.
Sleep didn't come easy. It dragged her under like a riptide, violent, merciless.
And in the dream, the alley was waiting.
Rain bled neon across the ground. Perfume clotted the air.
A hand around her wrist—iron, unbreakable.
Not gentle.
Not soft.
She tore at it. It tore back. She ran. It ran with her. The hand never loosened.
Her reflection stumbled in puddles at her side, always one step closer. She opened her mouth to scream—
Perfume flooded her throat.
She whispered, hoarse, strangled, not knowing if it was thought or speech:
"Maybe I wanted to be caught."
Her reflection whispered it too.
And when she turned her head, you were there. Watching. Waiting. Just as you are now.
…
Morning didn't come gently.
The storm had thinned, but the sky outside her window was still iron-grey, clouds packed so heavy that light barely leaked through. It wasn't day. Not really. Just a paler shade of night.
Her alarm hadn't gone off, but she woke anyway. The kind of waking that wasn't rest, just surrender.
She sat up slow. The lamp was still burning. She hadn't switched it off. The bulb hummed faintly, fighting to stay alive.
The perfume was gone. The bottle sat empty, as if it had never held anything at all. The stopper was back in place.
Her reflection on the mantle said nothing.
But she didn't look long enough to check if it smiled.
…
The city was slick and raw outside. Puddles in the street reflected the wires overhead, turning the whole world into a net she couldn't climb out of. Neon signs flickered like wounds that hadn't closed.
She walked fast, coat tight around her, eyes lowered. But every shop window she passed held a shadow in its glass. Sometimes hers. Sometimes not.
At the crosswalk, she stopped. The rain softened for a moment. A breath.
Then she felt it.
The stare.
Across the street, under the awning of a closed bookstore, he stood.
The boy.
The storm dampened him to silhouette, but she knew it was him. The way he carried stillness like it was armor. The way his eyes never moved even when the rest of the world did.
They held for a second too long.
The signal changed. She crossed.
When she reached the other side, he was gone.
Or maybe he had never been there.
…
By afternoon, she was back at the café.
Same corner. Same chipped saucer under her cup. Same hum of too-bright lights overhead.
The storm had eased, but the windows still wore streaks of rain, and every pane warped the outside into trembling colors. Inside, the air clung heavy with roasted beans, burnt sugar, and wet wool.
She stirred sugar into coffee she wouldn't drink. Her hand shook, so she kept stirring, metal clinking glass, a rhythm that almost hid her breath. Almost.
She was waiting.
For footsteps. For a shadow. For something that always came when she told herself it wouldn't.
And then—
He was there.
No door slam. No rush of air. Just presence. A shift in the room's weight.
He didn't ask if the seat was taken. He sat across from her as if it had always belonged to him.
The café hushed, or maybe the world did. Voices blurred. Chairs scraped in muffled tones. Steam curled upward and vanished. Everything beyond this table thinned to backdrop.
He didn't smile. Neither did she.
His eyes dropped—not to her face, but to her wrist. Bare now. No grip around it. Not yet.
"You look tired," he said. Calm, almost tender.
Her laugh was too soft to be heard. "You always watch too closely."
"Maybe you like being watched."
"Maybe I do."
The words were too sharp, too quick. A blade she shouldn't have unsheathed. But they hung there between them, suspended, daring.
He leaned back slightly, studying her. His stillness was worse than movement—like a predator conserving energy. His gaze never wavered, and in the warped reflection of the window beside them, his shadow leaned closer than his body did.
She leaned forward, just enough for her hair to brush the rim of her cup, just enough for her shadow to spill across the table into his.
"Maybe I wanted to be caught."
Silence. The kind that wasn't empty, but full. Thick enough to cut.
The coffee between them went cold.
The rain started again outside, softer this time, like an audience holding its breath.
And you—still here, still reading—you felt it too. The shift. The pull. The hook tightening.
Not gentle.
Not soft.