My Mafia Stalker

Spiralling

Three days have passed since the last photo. Or at least, Ali thinks it’s been three. Time has stopped making sense. The days blur together, hours dissolving into each other like spilled ink. She doesn’t sleep much anymore. When she does, she dreams of flashing lights and camera shutters that sound like whispers.

She’s back in her own apartment. Mia begged her not to come home, but Ali couldn’t stay there. Every creak of the floorboards in Mia’s flat had felt like an accusation, like someone tiptoeing outside her door. She’d left while Mia was at work, left a note that said, I’m fine. I just need to see for myself.

But she isn’t fine.

The walls of her apartment seem closer now. The air feels stale, trapped. She’s stopped opening the windows altogether. Every sound from outside makes her flinch. She keeps her camera with her constantly, like a talisman. Sometimes she talks to it.

“You saw him,” she whispers to it one morning, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “You’ve seen everything. You know I’m not crazy.”

The camera doesn’t respond, of course, but she feels calmer when it’s near. She traces the edge of the lens with her fingertip, like she’s touching a friend’s hand.

She hasn’t called Mia since coming back. She knows she should, but she doesn’t know what to say anymore. She can’t keep explaining what no one believes.

On the second night back, she hears footsteps in the hallway again—soft, deliberate, pacing back and forth outside her door. She freezes, listening. The sound stops, then resumes. Slowly. Closer.

Ali crawls toward the door and peers through the peephole.

Empty.

But she can still hear the footsteps.

She backs away, heart racing, and grabs her camera. She switches it to video mode, points it at the door, and hits record. The red light blinks faintly in the dark.

She waits for hours. The footsteps fade, return, fade again. She doesn’t move.

When dawn finally bleeds through the curtains, she replays the footage. Nothing. Just static. A faint flicker now and then, but no one in the hallway. No footsteps. No sound at all except her own shallow breathing.

She rewinds it again, slows it down, staring so hard her eyes blur. Still nothing.

Ali presses her palms over her face and lets out a shaky laugh that sounds too loud in the quiet room. “Of course. Why would there be anything? He’s smarter than that.”

But later, when she pauses the video, she notices something strange. For a split second—barely a frame—there’s a reflection in the brass of the doorknob. It’s her, holding the camera. And behind her, something tall, a shadow stretching along the floor.

Her stomach drops.

She shuts the laptop, pushes it away, and spends the rest of the day pacing.

By the next morning, her sense of reality is beginning to thin. The edges of her world feel soft, unreliable. Sometimes she catches herself forgetting basic things—what day it is, when she last ate, whether she’s actually spoken aloud or just imagined it. She’s begun hearing faint clicking noises even when her camera is off.

When the phone rings, the sound makes her jump. She stares at it for a moment before answering.

“Ali?” It’s Mia. Her voice is cautious, like she’s speaking to a child. “Are you home?”

Ali presses the phone to her ear. “You shouldn’t call here.”

“Why not?”

“He might be listening.”

Mia sighs. “Ali, listen to me. I talked to a detective. They checked the building again. No one’s been in or out except residents. There’s no sign of anyone following you.”

“That’s what they think,” Ali snaps. “He’s not some random stranger, Mia. He knows how to hide. He knows me.”

“Ali—”

“I saw him in the reflection,” she says quickly. “On the doorknob. I saw him behind me.”

Mia goes quiet for a moment. “Ali, do you hear yourself? You’re seeing things. You’ve been under so much stress. Please, just come stay with me again. We’ll get some rest, okay?”

Ali’s voice drops to a whisper. “He doesn’t want me to leave.”

“Who?”

“The one watching.”

There’s a long pause. Then Mia says softly, “Ali, I think you need help. Real help. Let me call someone—”

Ali hangs up.

She sits on the floor, phone still in her hand, breathing hard.

Help. That’s what everyone keeps saying. Like she’s the problem. Like the fear isn’t real, just some trick of the mind.

But she knows better.

That evening, she forces herself to pick up her camera again. Maybe if she documents everything, she can prove it—not just to Mia, but to herself. She spends hours taking photos of every corner of her apartment: the hallway, the windows, the bathroom mirror, even inside her closet. Each click of the shutter makes her pulse quicken.

When she’s done, she uploads them to her computer. The photos look ordinary. Empty. But as she scrolls, something starts to change.

In one photo—just a small detail in the background—she notices what looks like the edge of a shoe near the doorway. She zooms in until the pixels blur, but she can still make out the shape.

In another photo, there’s a faint outline in the reflection of her television, something standing where she knows no one was.

Her throat tightens. “You’re here,” she whispers to the screen. “I knew it.”

She stays up all night editing, adjusting contrast and brightness, desperate to make the figure clearer. But the more she tweaks, the more distorted the image becomes, until all that’s left is noise—gray static and shadow.

By morning, her eyes burn from staring too long. She shuts the computer and stands up too quickly, the room spinning. The walls feel uneven, tilting slightly toward her.

Her camera sits on the table, lens pointed at her like an eye.

“Stop looking at me,” she mutters.

She covers it with a towel, but after a moment, she can still feel it watching. She throws the towel off again, grabs the camera, and stuffs it into a drawer.

Still, the sensation doesn’t go away.

That afternoon, Mia shows up unannounced. Ali opens the door reluctantly, her face pale and drawn.

“Ali,” Mia says softly, stepping inside. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks,” Ali mutters.

Mia glances around the apartment, uneasy. “You haven’t been out in days, have you?”

“I don’t need to.”

Mia sighs and kneels beside her. “Listen to me. You’re scaring me. I found a counselor who specializes in trauma. We can go together. Just talk. No pressure.”

Ali stares at her for a long moment, eyes glassy. “You think I’m making this up.”

“I think you’re hurting,” Mia says carefully. “And I think your mind’s trying to protect you from something you don’t want to face.”

Ali laughs quietly. It’s not a happy sound. “You think this is all in my head?”

“I don’t know. But you can’t keep living like this.”

Ali stands abruptly and walks to the window. “Do you see him?” she asks.

Mia follows her gaze. “Who?”

“The man by the streetlight.”

Mia squints. The sidewalk below is empty except for a couple walking their dog. “Ali, there’s no one there.”

Ali presses her palm against the glass. “He’s right there. Don’t you see? He’s waving.”

Mia grabs her shoulder gently. “There’s no one waving, honey.”

Ali’s voice cracks. “He’s real.”

Mia doesn’t argue. She just wraps her arms around her, and for a moment, Ali lets her. The warmth feels foreign, almost unbearable.

“I’ll stay tonight,” Mia says finally. “I’m not leaving you alone.”

Ali nods, too tired to protest.

That night, the two women sit in the living room, a movie playing quietly in the background. Ali can’t focus on the screen. Her gaze keeps drifting toward the window, the dark glass reflecting their shapes. Sometimes she thinks she sees movement there, a flicker of something standing behind them.

At one point, Mia gets up to make tea. Ali stays seated, staring at her reflection. She can hear the faint sound of the kettle in the kitchen, the soft clinking of cups.

Then, faintly, beneath the sound of boiling water, she hears it—click.

Her stomach drops.

She looks at the window again. Her reflection is still there—but now, there’s a third figure standing just behind her shoulder.

The cup slips from her hand and shatters.

Mia rushes in. “What happened?”

Ali’s breathing is ragged. “He’s here,” she whispers.

Mia kneels beside her. “Ali, no one’s—”

“He’s here!”

Mia grabs her by the shoulders, trying to steady her. “Look at me! There’s no one here!”

But Ali’s eyes are fixed on the window. “He’s smiling again.”

The lights flicker once, then twice. The TV goes black.

Mia gasps softly. “Power outage,” she says quickly, as though trying to convince them both.

Ali laughs—a low, trembling sound that doesn’t sound like her own. “He likes the dark.”

Mia fumbles for her phone, turning on the flashlight. “Ali, listen to me. We’re leaving. Right now.”

But Ali doesn’t move. She’s staring into the black glass, at her own distorted reflection.

When the lights finally come back, she blinks and the figure is gone.

Mia insists on packing a bag, dragging Ali out of the apartment. They spend the night at a small hotel downtown. Mia falls asleep quickly from exhaustion, but Ali lies awake staring at the ceiling, tracing shapes in the shadows.

Around three in the morning, she sits up suddenly, convinced she’s heard something—a faint mechanical click. She looks around. The sound comes again.

Her camera sits on the desk across the room, though she’s sure she left it in the drawer at home. The red light on it blinks once, steady and deliberate.

She walks toward it slowly. Her reflection stares back from the lens, wide-eyed and trembling.

She whispers, “Who are you?”

The red light blinks again.

Ali picks it up, hands shaking, and scrolls through the new photos.

Every image is of her—sitting on the bed, lying down, turning her head, reaching for the camera. Frame after frame, documenting every second of her own confusion.

The final photo is of her face now, as she’s staring directly into the camera.

She drops it onto the floor and steps back.

Mia stirs awake at the noise. “Ali? What are you doing?”

Ali doesn’t answer. She’s staring at the camera, tears filling her eyes. “He’s not real,” she says softly. “It’s me. It’s always been me.”

Mia blinks, half-asleep. “What?”

Ali’s voice cracks. “I’m the one taking the pictures.”

Mia sits up slowly. “Ali, you’re not making sense.”

Ali laughs weakly, pressing her hands to her head. “I see him everywhere because I made him. Every shadow, every reflection—it’s me. I can’t stop watching myself.”

Mia stands, reaching for her. “Ali, put the camera down.”

But Ali just shakes her head, backing toward the window. Her reflection shimmers faintly in the glass, two versions of herself overlapping.

“I can’t tell where he ends and I begin,” she whispers. “Maybe he’s not real. Maybe I’m not either.”

Mia’s voice breaks. “Ali, please.”

Ali turns back toward her, eyes hollow. “If he’s not real, why does it still feel like he’s here?”

The red light on the camera blinks one last time.

Ali looks down at it, then out the window again. Her reflection smiles back—just slightly, a fraction of a second too late.

And for the first time, Ali doesn’t know which one of them is real.