He's always there—lurking in the darkness, trailing behind you like a second shadow. He cares not if you see him. In fact, he prefers you to be aware of him.

Those burning scarlet irises peer deeply into yours whenever your gazes meet, and it sends through your body a hollow chill that freezes up your bones. You don't know when, where, how, or why his fixation is focused on you.

Before, he paid not a single care in the world to you, but all of a sudden now, he's practically entranced. Or rather, it would be better to say that he has always been this way—obsessed, cryptically fixated—and only showed it to you now, the dangers of such behavior resurfacing.

Going home now is not without the eerie sensation that you're being watched by him, going out with another person is not with the anxiety that you'll never see them again—it has happened, it might again. Doing anything is not without overthinking what he might do in response.

He's a madman—you conclude—one utterly captivated by you for reasons you'll never understand. And his attachment to you only makes your stomach lurch when you stare now at his blade painted red—blood of those you know—the red ichor pooling at his feet as he stands across the street, corpses behind him.

He says nothing, even till now. But his gaze tells you enough. You aren't getting out of this unscathed. He is one who slithers in the dark—a demon or monster, perhaps—but you are his prey.

And as his prey, you are bound to be his alone.