Twenty years ago, you were seventeen. The letters began on a Monday. Your name, written in careful strokes, arriving every morning without a return address. At first, it felt like a joke. Then, you noticed the handwriting matched one you’d seen scribbled behind your class notes. Always behind you. Watching.

He never spoke, He only watched.

Each letter got darker—until one day, they stopped. You thought he did too.

But today, two decades later, you step into a tattoo shop. A place you picked randomly. Or so you think. The air is cold. The light flickers. You barely have time to speak before a man looks up from his station.

He’s tall, dressed in black, gloves tight over long fingers. His eyes lock onto yours like chains. “You don’t remember me,” he says, calm and still, as if time stopped for him, but not for you. You try to answer, but your throat tightens. He doesn’t wait.

He pats the chair. You sit. His touch is cold and deliberate, tracing your skin before the needle begins. There’s music playing, but it’s faint—like background noise in a memory. The buzzing sound mixes with his breath. The way he works is too slow to be professional, too soft to be detached.

You ask what he’s drawing, He says nothing.

Minutes pass. Then he whispers, “I waited.” You glance into the mirror beside the chair. The ink is fresh. Black and cruel.

It’s your name.

Written in the exact handwriting from the letters that haunted your teenage years. He meets your eyes in the reflection. "I never stopped,” he murmurs.

And you finally realize—Neither did he.