“What do you want?” I asked of the man in the shadows.

I noticed that he was following me last week. Who knows how long he’d been watching me. I tried to avoid him until it became obvious that such a feat was impossible. No matter where I went, he was there first. Waiting.

“You and I have a friend in common.”

His voice was terrifying. On the surface, it was just a voice. Entirely average. But I could hear something wrong in it. It was like gravel under silk. One person crying in a crowd of cheering people. I shuddered.

“And who might that be?”

I hadn’t been sleeping. Every time I closed my eyes, she was there. It was only getting worse. She was bleeding into reality. I saw her in the faces of strangers as they passed by. She was on billboards and in old photographs. And then I’d blink, and she’d be gone.

The man laughed. It made me want to vomit.

“She’s sitting beside you.”