Speaker 1: I was always a bit of a party animal, only
Speaker 1: stopped going to clubs and bars every night once I
Speaker 1: got engaged. Once the engagement fell through, I went right
Speaker 1: back to my old habits, dancing and drinking whole nights
Speaker 1: away and taking just about every club drug you can
Speaker 1: think of. I was on my first night of clubbing
Speaker 1: without my fiance sending me a hundred texts asking where
Speaker 1: I was, and that knew that bachelor's life was the
Speaker 1: life for me. The feeling of blissful freedom wouldn't last, though.
Speaker 1: One day I was having fun at a night club
Speaker 1: as usual, with a new girl I met at a
Speaker 1: different club a few nights prior. We'd already down quite
Speaker 1: a few cocktails and we were both more than a
Speaker 1: little bit tipsy. She suggested that we have a go
Speaker 1: at dancing. I knew it was a bad idea. My
Speaker 1: vision was blurry, and my stomach was one sudden move
Speaker 1: away from emptying itself. Nevertheless, I couldn't turn down a
Speaker 1: cute girl's invitation to dance, just on principle alone. We
Speaker 1: had a good time dancing with each other under the
Speaker 1: flashing strobe lights of the club. Things were getting a
Speaker 1: little hot and heavy, between us for a moment there,
Speaker 1: I thought I might actually get lucky that night, if
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. At one point, she took
Speaker 1: me by the hand and started pulling more suggestive dance
Speaker 1: moves with me as her partner. I thought I'd hit
Speaker 1: the jackpie. But before I could get too happy, I
Speaker 1: noticed something from the corner of my eye that made
Speaker 1: me stop dancing. I turned my head and saw her,
Speaker 1: standing alone in a dark corner of the club. Was
Speaker 1: my ex fiance. She was pale and filthy. The white
Speaker 1: cloth of the dress you wore was tattered and covered
Speaker 1: in dirty The heat in my body drained away, replaced
Speaker 1: by a chill of fear that bit right into my bones.
Speaker 1: What's wrong, asked the girl I was with. It's nothing,
Speaker 1: I told her, just had a little too much to drink,
Speaker 1: that's all. Ah. She sounded disappointed. Well, that's a shame.
Speaker 1: I was hoping we could dance for a bit longer.
Speaker 1: You want to call me a cab No, I'm good.
Speaker 1: I'll just walk back. I could do with some fresh
Speaker 1: air anyways. I stumbled out of the club, while the
Speaker 1: girl I was hoping to go home with stayed behind
Speaker 1: to keep drinking alone. A girl like her probably won't
Speaker 1: stay alone for long in a place like that. Though
Speaker 1: I cursed myself for missing my chance to score just
Speaker 1: because of something that happened in my past. It seemed
Speaker 1: like my ex fiance was still holding me back even
Speaker 1: after I cut her out of my life. I walked
Speaker 1: through the empty streets, the alcohol still not fully flushed
Speaker 1: out of my system, yet my blurred vision made it
Speaker 1: hard for me to see anything around me, while my
Speaker 1: splitting headache made it hard for me to care much
Speaker 1: about it. I must have looked like the sort of
Speaker 1: wondering drunkard parents would warn their teenagers about when going
Speaker 1: outside at night, the sort of guy you'd crossed the
Speaker 1: street to avoid. At one point, I tripped over an
Speaker 1: uneven towel on the sidewalk. I managed to steady myself
Speaker 1: in time not to fall on my face, but all
Speaker 1: the booze I drunk splashed around in my stomach. I
Speaker 1: felt a burning sensation rising from the pit of my
Speaker 1: stomach and up into my esophagus. I lurched forward with
Speaker 1: a wretch. I chipped my hand over my mouth to
Speaker 1: keep my mouth from vomiting as I fought back my
Speaker 1: own gag reflex. I couldn't hold it back at the
Speaker 1: end and scrambled towards the closest trash can to throw up.
Speaker 1: I ran into an alleyway that led to a dead
Speaker 1: end and threw open the lid of the nearest trash can.
Speaker 1: My headache somewhat subsided after I emptied everything I drank
Speaker 1: that night into that trash can. Slowly, but surely, my
Speaker 1: normal vision returned to me as well. I brushed myself
Speaker 1: off and got ready to leave the alleyway. I wanted
Speaker 1: to take a good long nap at home to forget
Speaker 1: what I'd seen at the club. Maybe then I could
Speaker 1: actually enjoy the next time I went to the club.
Speaker 1: I turned around to walk out of the alleyway, only
Speaker 1: to see something that froze me in my tracks. My
Speaker 1: ex fiance was standing at the entrance of the alleyway,
Speaker 1: blocking my only exit. She was wearing the same white
Speaker 1: dress she wore back at the club, but now that
Speaker 1: my vision was clearer, I could tell it was actually
Speaker 1: a full blown wedding dress, the same one she intended
Speaker 1: to wear at our wedding and the same one she
Speaker 1: wore when I permanently ended our relationship. You promised me,
Speaker 1: she said, in a raspy voice. You promised, you promised
Speaker 1: you'd be with me forever. I didn't know what to
Speaker 1: say or what to do. Panicked, I stumbled backwards and
Speaker 1: fell with my eyes still fixed on that ghastly visage
Speaker 1: of a woman I once loved. Pain shot through my
Speaker 1: body as I landed on the hard cobblestone, but it
Speaker 1: was nothing compared to the terror that gripped in my heart.
Speaker 1: With no options left, I backed up against the wall
Speaker 1: of the dead end and closed my eyes. Tears trickled
Speaker 1: down my cheeks. I prayed that I was just on
Speaker 1: a bad trip from something I took back at the club.
Speaker 1: I don't know how long I was there, but by
Speaker 1: the time I finally gathered the courage to open my eyes,
Speaker 1: it was morning and my ex fiancee was nowhere to
Speaker 1: be seen. I hurried back to my house that day
Speaker 1: and went straight to the backyard. I grabbed a shovel
Speaker 1: from the shed and started digging, Determined not to let
Speaker 1: the memory of my ex fiance hold me back from
Speaker 1: living my life. I told myself that was all she was,
Speaker 1: a bad memory, meant to be forgotten. Trum and mine
Speaker 1: must have conjured her up back at the club. There
Speaker 1: was no way it could have been her stalking me
Speaker 1: at the club, because I knew exactly where she was.
Speaker 1: After all, I was the one who buried her. The
Speaker 1: blade of my shovel hit something hard within the dirt.
Speaker 1: I tossed my shovel away and roked away the dirt
Speaker 1: with my bare hands. Still lying there in the shallow
Speaker 1: grave I dug months ago was the rotting corpse of
Speaker 1: my ex fiance. She was still wearing the dress she
Speaker 1: bought for her wedding, though it was riddled with holes
Speaker 1: made by hundreds of withering worms. Maggot's had eaten away
Speaker 1: most of her head and face, exposing the cracked, open
Speaker 1: skull she got the night I killed her. I breathed
Speaker 1: a sigh of relief. If she was still here rotting,
Speaker 1: there was no way it could have been her stalking
Speaker 1: me out at the club. Right My blood ran cold
Speaker 1: when I felt the foul breath of something dead and
Speaker 1: rotting brush against the back of my neck. I didn't
Speaker 1: dare turn around for fear of what I might find.
Speaker 1: Although I was holding my dead fiance with my bare hands,
Speaker 1: I heard her raspy voice whisper in my ear as
Speaker 1: if she were right behind me. It was the last
Speaker 1: thing I would ever hear to the death. Do you
Speaker 1: spot My parents were overprotective of me when I was young.
Speaker 1: I couldn't really blame them, though. For as long as
Speaker 1: I could remember, I've had only one eye and a
Speaker 1: good portion of my left face was covered in burn marks.
Speaker 1: According to my parents, I got them when I was
Speaker 1: still just a baby during a house fire in a
Speaker 1: different time. I can't remember any of it myself. I
Speaker 1: guessed that my near death experience as a baby must
Speaker 1: have made my parents overprotective of me. They never let
Speaker 1: me go outside on my own, and when I did
Speaker 1: go outside under their supervision, they would always make me
Speaker 1: cover my burnt face under a hood or a hat.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even allowed to go to school since they
Speaker 1: were afraid i'd get picked on by the other kids
Speaker 1: for my apparents. Because of that, my mother had homeschooled
Speaker 1: me since I was old enough to speak. For a
Speaker 1: long time, I did everything they told me to, like
Speaker 1: the obedient daughter they wanted me to be. But like
Speaker 1: most kids, I got more and more rebellious as I
Speaker 1: got older. When I was about twelve, I started sneaking
Speaker 1: out of my house when my parents were at work
Speaker 1: or asleep, not to smoke or drink or anything. For
Speaker 1: the most part, all I did was take walks in
Speaker 1: the park to take in the fresh air. Since my
Speaker 1: dad worked the night shift and my mom liked to
Speaker 1: sleep early, the only times I could sneak out were
Speaker 1: during night and late evening. I didn't mind, though, I
Speaker 1: was happy for a chance to get out of the
Speaker 1: house without my parents watching my every move. Back then,
Speaker 1: I was blissfully still unaware that there were terrible people
Speaker 1: in the world who wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of
Speaker 1: even a little girl. As you can imagine, some people
Speaker 1: in town started gossiping about a little girl with a
Speaker 1: scarred face walking around a mostly empty park in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night. I'm pretty sure I became an
Speaker 1: urban legend amongst the kids and teenagers too. Looking back,
Speaker 1: that must have played a factor in what would later
Speaker 1: happenapon It all started during one of my nightly walks.
Speaker 1: I was strolling through the local park with the blue
Speaker 1: hood of my jacket pulled over my face like I
Speaker 1: had a hundred times before. The flickering lights of the
Speaker 1: neglected street lamps meant to illuminate the trail gave me
Speaker 1: just enough light for me to see ahead with my
Speaker 1: one eye, though I still had to be careful not
Speaker 1: to bump into anything. I strolled through the darkness with
Speaker 1: only the crickets and the caddy DIDs to keep the company.
Speaker 1: Listening to their shrill cries resonating through the cold night
Speaker 1: air gave me a sense of freedom that I could
Speaker 1: never get cooped up in my parents' house. It almost
Speaker 1: distracted me enough to not notice that I was followed.
Speaker 1: Having lived most of my life with only one eye,
Speaker 1: my sense of hearing had to compensate for it by
Speaker 1: being sharper than most. From the sea of nocturnal noises
Speaker 1: around me, I was able to pick out what sounded
Speaker 1: like footsteps on the cobblestone behind me. The sounds seemed
Speaker 1: to be trying to mask itself by matching my own footsteps,
Speaker 1: and it was doing a pretty damn good job at
Speaker 1: it too. Every time I took a step forward, I
Speaker 1: heard the sound echo ever so faintly behind me. I
Speaker 1: doubt anyone without an unusually sharp sense of hearing like
Speaker 1: mine would have heard it. I decided to test my
Speaker 1: suspicion by stopping halfway through a step to throw my
Speaker 1: follower out of sync with me. I froze right before
Speaker 1: my foot could touch the ground and make a noise.
Speaker 1: The moment I did, I heard a single footstep ring
Speaker 1: out behind me, Although it was barely audible amongst the
Speaker 1: ambient noises, to me, it might as well have been
Speaker 1: a deafening danger siren. My heart beat skyrocketed, and I
Speaker 1: broke into a sudden sprint, not even bothering to look back.
Speaker 1: I was somewhat relieved when I didn't hear anyone running
Speaker 1: after me from behind. Still, I ran like a bat
Speaker 1: out of hell back home, just in case. When I
Speaker 1: got home, I snuck back inside through my bedroom window
Speaker 1: and locked both it and my bedroom door. Once I
Speaker 1: had calmed down enough, I tried to convince myself that
Speaker 1: the person following me was just someone curious about the
Speaker 1: urban legend of the ghost girl the burnt face, and
Speaker 1: not something much worse. That night, I stayed up watching
Speaker 1: the window until I saw my father's car pull into
Speaker 1: the house. Seeing his car set my mind at ease.
Speaker 1: Even if the person from the park followed me home,
Speaker 1: I knew that my father would keep me safe as
Speaker 1: long as he was around. I was homeschooled by my
Speaker 1: mom the next day while my dad watched the TV.
Speaker 1: It was a lesson in mathematics were something equally boring.
Speaker 1: I struggled to stay up, especially after having little to
Speaker 1: know sleep the night before. My mother was quick to
Speaker 1: notice and asked if I was all right. I'm fine,
Speaker 1: I told her, while I was also stifling a yawn.
Speaker 1: You don't look fine to me. She closed the math
Speaker 1: textbook and patted me on the back. Go get some rest, sweetie.
Speaker 1: I'll fix you something to eat. Thanks, Mom, I said
Speaker 1: with a smile. I trushed up to my bedroom and
Speaker 1: got ready for a midday nap. But before I let
Speaker 1: my head hit the pillow, I went to my window
Speaker 1: to close the curtains. When I did, I saw something
Speaker 1: that sent chills down my spine. A man was standing
Speaker 1: half hidden behind the fence. He looked like a normal
Speaker 1: guy in his thirties, wearing clean but drably colored clothes. However,
Speaker 1: the fact that he was staring straight at me was
Speaker 1: enough to make me sweat. I closed the curtains and
Speaker 1: huddled up in my bed, hoping that he'll go away soon.
Speaker 1: I heard the sound of a doorbell come from downstairs.
Speaker 1: Only seconds later, I peeked through the curtains. Despite myself,
Speaker 1: I saw the man who'd been watching me waiting right
Speaker 1: at the front door. The door opened and my father
Speaker 1: stepped outside to talk to him. I couldn't tell what
Speaker 1: they were talking about, but the longer the conversation got,
Speaker 1: the more and more angry my father seemed. Without any warning,
Speaker 1: my father punched the man in the face. The man
Speaker 1: fell on the ground, and my father kept pummeling him
Speaker 1: again and again until his face was a black and
Speaker 1: blue mess, dripping with blood. Though he might have been
Speaker 1: my starker, I couldn't bear to see someone get beaten
Speaker 1: so badly. I closed the curtains and curled up on
Speaker 1: my bed with tears in my eyes. Moments later, I
Speaker 1: heard my father knock on my bedroom door. Sweetie, we
Speaker 1: have to go now, he told me, with panic in
Speaker 1: his voice. I didn't think to question him and quickly
Speaker 1: followed him out of the house and into the car,
Speaker 1: passed my unconscious stalker lying on the porch. My mother
Speaker 1: joined us in the car, and soon we were speeding
Speaker 1: out of the neighborhood. I wanted to ask where we
Speaker 1: were going, but the distress of my parents' faces told
Speaker 1: me that they probably didn't know either. Not long after
Speaker 1: we left, I noticed the car following us from the
Speaker 1: back seat window. I had never seen the car before,
Speaker 1: but I could see the bruised face of my stalker
Speaker 1: behind the wheel. His left eye was swollen shut, and
Speaker 1: blood trickled from his nose and the corners of his lips.
Speaker 1: My eyes were fixed on him. When the car came
Speaker 1: to a sudden stop, I turned around to see what
Speaker 1: made us stop. Relief washed over me when I saw
Speaker 1: a barricade of police cars in front of us, But
Speaker 1: when I looked at my parents, their faces did not
Speaker 1: share my relief. Dead they seemed frightened and on the
Speaker 1: verge of panic. Before I could ask what was wrong,
Speaker 1: they both jumped out of the car and ran, only
Speaker 1: to be apprehended and cuffed by the police officers. Everything
Speaker 1: was a blur after that. My parents and I were
Speaker 1: taken to the station and police cars. My supposed stalker
Speaker 1: was taken there as well, but unlike my parents, he
Speaker 1: wasn't being cuffed. Once we were at the station, I
Speaker 1: finally got an answer to what the hell was going on,
Speaker 1: and why on earth my stalker wasn't arrested while my
Speaker 1: parents were. A sympathetic police officer explained everything to me
Speaker 1: while I listened to him in silent shock. Twelve years ago,
Speaker 1: an unsolved case of arson caused a house fire that
Speaker 1: claimed the lives of a young family. The charred bodies
Speaker 1: of the parents were found in the smoldering wreckage, but
Speaker 1: their infant daughter was nowhere to be found. That infant
Speaker 1: daughter was me. My real parents had died in the
Speaker 1: same house fire that took my left eye and burnt
Speaker 1: my face. People who I thought were my parents were
Speaker 1: actually my kidnappers, kidnappers who had gotten away with their
Speaker 1: crimes for over a decade. Police suspected that they might
Speaker 1: have been the arsonists who started the fire that claimed
Speaker 1: my real parents' lives in the first place, all because
Speaker 1: they wanted a child of their own but couldn't have
Speaker 1: one due to medical reasons. My stalker was actually a
Speaker 1: private investigator hired by my real uncle to find me
Speaker 1: when everyone else thought I died in the fire. I
Speaker 1: now live with my uncle. He is a kind man,
Speaker 1: and he does his best to care for me by himself. However,
Speaker 1: I can't help but wonder if my life would have
Speaker 1: been better had I never learned the truth about my family.
Speaker 1: I used to date a really clingy girl. She said
Speaker 1: that she was just being protective of me while we
Speaker 1: were dating, but I didn't really see it that way.
Speaker 1: She'd text me every night, asking me about my day
Speaker 1: or how I was doing, and if I didn't reply
Speaker 1: right away, she started guilt tripping me to call her back.
Speaker 1: It was I'm a cute at first, but after a
Speaker 1: while it started to feel overbearing. We eventually broke up
Speaker 1: after almost a year of dating. She seemed to take
Speaker 1: it pretty well, though we were quiet whenever we ran
Speaker 1: into each other during class or out in the town.
Speaker 1: One day, I found out that she got a part
Speaker 1: time job at the cafe I liked to study at
Speaker 1: during the weekend. She made my coffee exactly the way
Speaker 1: she knew I liked it, and we started talking again.
Speaker 1: The awkward post breakup tension between us melted away every
Speaker 1: time I visited the cafe. She even made sure to
Speaker 1: save a blueberry muffin for me on days she knew
Speaker 1: i'd visit. Soon, we were talking with each other like
Speaker 1: normal friends again. I couldn't be happier for a time.
Speaker 1: I even felt like we had a chance of getting
Speaker 1: back together. After all, that feeling wouldn't last, though, my
Speaker 1: sister came to visit one weekend. We hadn't seen each
Speaker 1: other since we went to different colleges, so we were
Speaker 1: looking forward to catching up. We decided to get some
Speaker 1: pizza together at an Italian restaurant right across the cafe
Speaker 1: my girlfriend worked at. The waitress led us to an
Speaker 1: open air, two person table on the second floor, beside
Speaker 1: the fenced ledge. It looked like the sort of seat
Speaker 1: you take your date to for a romantic view. There
Speaker 1: was even a rose in a vase decorating the table.
Speaker 1: I swear I saw the waitress smirk when she showed
Speaker 1: us to the table too. She must have thought that
Speaker 1: my sister and I were a couple, which fair enough,
Speaker 1: we didn't really look like each other despite having the
Speaker 1: same parents. I took after our dad while she looked
Speaker 1: more like our mom. Neither of us pothered to correct her, though.
Speaker 1: If they were gonna give us special treatment just because
Speaker 1: they thought we were a couple, then we weren't about
Speaker 1: to complain. Not long after we sat down, I got
Speaker 1: a text on my phone. I looked at it and
Speaker 1: saw that it was my ex asking me how it
Speaker 1: was doing. We'd been texting again as of late, anyway,
Speaker 1: so I didn't think much of it. Hey, no texting
Speaker 1: at the table, my sister said in jest, just as
Speaker 1: I was about to type back a reply. If you
Speaker 1: don't pay attention to your food, the flies will eat them.
Speaker 1: She used the exact same words our mom did whenever
Speaker 1: either of us checked our phones during dinner, even got
Speaker 1: the inflections in her voice down too. Of course, I
Speaker 1: was a little annoyed that my younger sister was trying
Speaker 1: to boss me around, but she had a point. I
Speaker 1: quickly replied to my ex, saying that I'll text her
Speaker 1: back later, and turned off my phone. My sister and
Speaker 1: I talked for over two hours about how we were
Speaker 1: doing in college. When I told her that I was
Speaker 1: single again, she said she had a few female friends
Speaker 1: in her own college that were still single. She went
Speaker 1: as far as to offer me their numbers. I wasn't
Speaker 1: all that interested, but decided to humor my sister anyway
Speaker 1: to make her feel helpful. More than anything else, I
Speaker 1: turned my phone back on to save the numbers. The
Speaker 1: moment I did, I was bombarded with notifications for over
Speaker 1: a hundred text messages and dozens of voicemails. Every single
Speaker 1: one of them were from my ex. The last text
Speaker 1: since almost an half hour ago simply read looked down.
Speaker 1: I looked down from the ledge of the seat and
Speaker 1: felt my stomach churn and panic. Standing on the streets
Speaker 1: below us was my ex girlfriend, still wearing her barista uniform.
Speaker 1: Her wide, bloodshot eyes stared right at me and threw me.
Speaker 1: The look on her face was a horrifying mix between
Speaker 1: anger and batshit crazy. She held her phone in one hand,
Speaker 1: and then the other a long kitchen knife, gripped so
Speaker 1: tight that her knuckles were white. A chill shot through
Speaker 1: my body as I showed the text to my sister.
Speaker 1: Her face went pale as she looked down over the
Speaker 1: ledge as well. The moment my sister's eyes met my exes,
Speaker 1: my exes gaze turned from my obsessive infatuation to burning hatred.
Speaker 1: She clinched her teeth so hard that I could have
Speaker 1: sworn blood seeped from her teeth. Without warning, she threw
Speaker 1: the kitchen knife in her hand at my sister with
Speaker 1: a surprising force. The tip of the blade clinked against
Speaker 1: the ledge fence and clattered back onto the ground, but
Speaker 1: it startled my sister enough that she fell out of
Speaker 1: her chair. That got the attention of a nearby waiter,
Speaker 1: who came over to help her up. We quickly explained
Speaker 1: the situation to him, and the police were immediately called.
Speaker 1: My ex girl was dragged, chicking and screaming into a
Speaker 1: police car, all the while she shouted about how she
Speaker 1: and I belonged together and that the girl I was
Speaker 1: eating with didn't deserve me, not knowing that that girl
Speaker 1: was actually my sister. When the police searched her apartment
Speaker 1: for more evidence of her stalking, they found hundreds of
Speaker 1: photos of me plastered on the walls. Some of them
Speaker 1: were from our time together, but many of them were
Speaker 1: of me by myself. There were pictures of me studying
Speaker 1: at the cafe or walking home alone, all taken without
Speaker 1: me ever noticing. In the corner of the apartment was
Speaker 1: a small shrine with a framed picture of us when
Speaker 1: we were together, surrounded by the empty cups of every
Speaker 1: coffee I'd ever ordered from her at the cafe. My
Speaker 1: sister is still traumatized about the whole thing, but she's
Speaker 1: been getting the help she needed, and despite everything that's happened,
Speaker 1: I hope that my ex would get the help she
Speaker 1: needs now too,