CONSUME

06.

CHAPTER SIX

His smile was a captivating fascination that seemed beautiful but didn't manage to match the aggravated eyes. It was off putting, a sinister man with a smile so wide and eyes so dark, it was supposed to look kind but instead became vicious and alarming.
His touch burned her. It felt like she had been in the cold for hours and his touch grazed her skin so painfully that she wanted to wince. His arms snaked around her waist and she began to struggle. His words were so soft, so endearing, yet his calloused hands touched her harshly and she wanted nothing but to escape. The man began to laugh, as if mocking the sweet thought of escape and grabbed her hands in his. His grip was anything but tender and her hands began burning, he held her to his chest and the feeling of suffocating pushed against her ribs and tears began to fill up her eyes as his hands snaked up to her throat.

Before they could reach her neck she woke up in a cold sweat.

The insanity was eating away at her as her apartment became smaller and smaller. It had felt real enough for fear to linger in her chest as she began to come back to reality. It felt like he had been in her room. The thin line between dreaming and being awake was beginning to shatter her mind. It was something she had never experienced before and the paranoia was tampering with her mental health, enough to make her question herself.

Before thinking, her body moved towards the window and she carefully looked down the street.

Normal cars, nothing but normal cars.

Last night she had gotten home to a bouquet of flowers on her doorstep, another gift from whoever had begun to target her. It had been placed perfectly outside her door.

20 roses in her favorite color.

It made her terrified.

Whoever was watching her knew where she lived.

The first later hadn't been the last, nor had it been sent to someone else and she had found it. This was confirmation that it had just begun.

The sight of her doorstep had made her nauseous, nightmares beginning to plague her as her paranoia grew.

The fat cat rubbed against her leg and she almost yelped, not expecting the sudden touch. He moved his round body swiftly towards the kitchen and she followed, then stopping as she passed the hall.

The light was off.

She never left the light off. Never.

Her chest tightened and she let her eyes wander over the apartment. In the dark of the living room stood a large shape. It was hard to see but it was clear that a man was standing in the comfort of the dark, like a predator.

He was watching her.

He wasn't even hiding.

It terrified her that he knew he was threatening enough to not even bother with hiding, it was the behavior of a maniac. She thought about screaming and running but figured it would be the worst way to act. If he was enamored with her, she would use it against him.

"Where's my glasses?" She mumbled.

Pretending like nothing was wrong she followed after the cat, grabbing scissors from the cupboard and cutting open a small bag of wet food and leaving him to devour his bowl. She then stopped to swoop him up, scared to leave him.

Her phone was in her bedroom.

She wanted to dial nine one one, but wondered if the ringtone would go off in her living room, if he would be called in.