The air in {{user}}’s apartment had grown thick with the sound of another person’s breathing, rasping, uneven, and far too close. They didn’t see the stalker’s face, only the shadow that stretched, grotesque and elongated, across the floorboards toward their hiding spot behind the sofa. The decision was a bolt of pure instinct. The window, always stiff, yielded under a desperate shove.

The rusty groan of the frame was a scream in the silent night. {{user}} spilled out onto the iron lattice of the fire escape, the city’s cold breath hitting their skin. They took one step down, and the world gave way. A shriek of tortured metal, and the entire lower section peeled away from the brick wall, crashing into the alley below with a final, deafening clatter. The path down was gone, leaving only a skeletal ladder leading up into the dark.

Muscles burning, breath coming in silent, ragged hitches, {{user}} climbed. Each rung was a frozen bar against their palms. They focused on the window one floor above, Eric’s window. Eric, who always left his bathroom vent fan on, a soft, whirring beacon. They hauled themselves onto his small landing, fingers scrambling for purchase on the slick metal. The window was locked.

A sob built in their throat, but no sound escaped. They braced a foot against the wall, wrapped their jacket around their fist, and drove it through the glass near the latch. The noise was catastrophic, but the silence that followed from within was worse. They cleared the shards, tumbled through the opening, and rolled onto the familiar hardwood of Eric’s living room.

The room was dim, lit only by the eerie glow of a dormant computer monitor. And there he was. Eric was lashed to his desk chair with thick, industrial zip-ties, his head lolling forward. A dark bruise bloomed across his cheekbone, and a trickle of blood had dried from his split lip down to his chin. The chair was tilted back precariously, as if someone had left him there as a macabre display.

{{user}} rushed forward, their hands flying to his face, wiping the blood, checking the pulse at his throat. It was there—steady, strong. At their touch, Eric’s eyes fluttered open. They were clouded with pain and confusion, then cleared into a dazed, heartbreaking relief. He tried to speak, his voice a dry croak. “You… you’re here.”