Twenty-four steps. Each, a fleeting echo chasing after the last. Overlapping sounds forming an abstract image of the empty street, drawing impossible landscapes in your mind’s eye, as the failing street lamps flicker in a buzzing throe. Shadows dance, stretching out before you, behind you, casting yourself in multitudes as if to warn you: you are not alone.

Of course you know that I am here. A mere twenty-four steps ahead of you.

I match your pace.

Twenty-three.

Twenty-two.

You listen carefully, but you never once look up at me. They don’t echo, my steps, not like yours. That’s what’s irritating the rational animal in you the most—the wrongness of this moment. Yet, you feel my presence clearly. You sense it. The beating of your heart betrays your fears. The pearls of sweat on your brow tell all.

Sixteen steps. They are erratic now. Unevenly spaced, confused. You want to turn, run, escape. Yet closer we move. Something compels you, despite the horror in your veins. These shadows that surround you, that circle you in the flicker of light and darkness, they push you onward. The hairs on your neck stand up, and you can’t turn around. The feeling as if something is right behind you, resting gently on your shoulders. Turn now and face it, or step forward, follow your echoing footsteps—no choice better than the other. A creature like prey, lost between decisions.

Step by step. We’re so close now. But what if it’s not real, the thing that urges you on, urges you into my path? Then turn around, make the beast unreal, dispel your shadows. Run, run for your life. And pray to your god that the other now at your back isn’t faster than you. Pray that it’s not too late already.

Ten steps. Ten precious paces from us sharing the same point in space. A chance encounter in the intimacy of the dark. Of all the streets on which to find yourself, why must it have been the one that I now prowl? Just a different corner turned, a few minutes earlier to catch the last bus. Any other choice and we would have missed each other. Yet, each step tells you differently. There is a purpose in our gravity. A meaning to the unnatural drive that carried you here. The rational thing in you thrashes against the idea, but the beat of your heart drowning out the echo of your feet, it knows. It feels it.

I have always been with you.

There it is. The shiver on your arms, the tickle in your spine. The knot in your throat. We are meant to be together now. I savor this moment of revelation, the anticipation of what’s to come.

A few more steps. The lights flicker. The shadows draw us together, a shrinking circle of clashing realities. You and I. Two of one. I smell your terror, taste the bitter cold on your shaking lips. So close.

We pass. Barely a whisper apart, we both tremble as the world freezes. Time, a long forgotten memory. A distant lie. The street lamp buzzes, dies for a heartbeat unending, before finding its strength again.

One more step. Just one more, and you make it past this nightmare. A single step to wake up. You hold your breath in a vain effort to hide, to fade for the mere moment it would take. Then you dare it, compelled by something morbid deep inside of you. You don’t want to, watching yourself from a far corner in your mind, as you steal a glance in my direction. Look at the monster, make it unreal. Assure yourself, face the dark. Your eyes meet mine—locked at you since the moment I chose for you to turn into this empty street. There is no life left in what you witness. No breath charges my breast. No warmth in those pale-blue eyes. Just a flash of white in a merciless smile. A surge of light caught by something sharp, something wicked.

Your heart’s aflutter; a pulsing cacophony gifting me the mimicry of life, a long-dead heartbeat rising to match yours. It must be a struggle, of course. But it won’t last, trust me. You will soon give in, give up. Pain turns to something else entirely. For a moment, we become one. A darkened beast pushed against the wall; a dreadful embrace in a shared delirium. Your echoes change from falling footsteps to faint murmurs. To a rustle of fabric, a gurgled moan, and the slick dripping of warm blood on cold stone.

There you lie, in the corner of a small alley. Leaning against the wall, eyes torn open wide, and an unmoving smile upon your cold, blue lips. Only a few drops of precious red run down the side of your neck. My fingers glide over them, yet no reaction escapes your body growing cold even now. I taste you one last time, remember your terror, your ecstasy. Would you believe me if I told you that I never wanted for this to happen? That my steps were carried by the same dark compulsion, fighting the same unmet need to turn away. To run, to escape.

I know your fear, my darling. I have felt it too, once. Yet, I will spare you the horror that beset me then. Instead, I will remember that I loved you for this short moment, this chance meeting of two strangers in the night. Predator and prey. A mercy I was not granted by the monster that made me do this to you, that forced this hunger on both of us. You were allowed to die where I was not.

This is where I leave you. Someone must find you, and perhaps those that care for you will find closure in your death. At least they know to mourn you. Eventually, the rising sun breaks in the coldness of your eyes. And of me remains no trace. It’s as if I never existed.