The stranger returns
843 Words
Lena didn’t sleep.
Every time she closed her eyes, Sophie’s laugh came back, bright and alive, only to vanish behind the dull thud of memory—the sound of people pounding on her door, the rush into the hall, the stretcher, the overturned shoe. And then the diary’s words, bold and merciless: I told you not to share me.
She kept replaying it over and over in her head, bargaining with herself. If she had been faster, if she had locked her drawer, if she had fought harder—Sophie would still be here. The weight of that thought pressed down on her chest like someone had laid a huge stone across her ribs.
She wanted to destroy the book. She pictured tearing the pages out, feeding them one by one into the flame of a lighter, watching them curl and blacken until the words could never come back. But the idea made her palms sweat. She couldn’t explain it—just the thought of trying made her stomach twist with nausea.
It was as if the diary was waiting for her to try. As if it would lash back, worse than before.
So she shoved it deep into her desk drawer again, burying it under class notes, as if paper and wood could keep its voice quiet.
The next morning, Lena felt like a ghost drifting through campus.
She sat in lectures, pen unmoving on her notebook. She walked through the hallways without seeing faces. Her world had narrowed into a tunnel: herself, the book, Sophie’s absence.
By afternoon, she ended up in the library. It wasn’t a choice—it was instinct. The silence, the smell of old paper, the rows of shelves where she could hide between strangers. She needed somewhere to breathe.
She picked a table near the back, opened her laptop, and stared at a blinking cursor that refused to turn into words.
That’s when it started again.
The prickling on the back of her neck. The weight of eyes.
Slowly, carefully, she lifted her head.
He was there.
The scarred boy.
Standing in the aisle of shelves not far from her table. A book in his hands. Not pretending this time. Just watching her, openly, like she was a puzzle he’d already started to solve.
Her chest tightened. The scar traced across his cheek looked even sharper in the harsh library lighting, a fresh welt against pale skin. In his hands, he held an old volume—its spine cracked, its cover a dull brown cloth.
She squinted, trying to read the faded title. Local Folklore and Legends of the Valley.
Her pulse hammered. Legends. Folklore. This couldn’t be a coincidence.
Her body moved before her brain caught up. She pushed back her chair and crossed the space between them, the scrape of her shoes loud in the quiet.
He didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. Just waited as she came close enough to smell the faint tang of old leather from the book he held.
“Who are you?” she hissed, her voice low and sharp, barely a whisper but edged with fury.
His eyes flicked down to hers. They weren’t cruel, like she expected. They weren’t mocking. They were steady. Serious. And, disturbingly, sad.
“You shouldn’t have touched it,” he said. The same words as before. His voice was soft, but it carried weight.
Her breath caught. Rage flared in her chest. “What is this thing? What does it want?”
His jaw tightened. His eyes darted past her shoulder—toward the librarian at the front desk, who was peering over her glasses at the commotion.
The boy shook his head once, a small, warning gesture, then closed the book with a soft thud. “It’s chosen you,” he murmured. “Now it’s too late.”
And before she could reach for him, before she could demand answers, he turned and vanished into the maze of shelves. His figure melted between the books, footsteps light and quick.
She chased two steps, but when she rounded the corner—nothing. Just empty aisles and the smell of dust.
That night, Lena couldn’t stop pacing.
Her dorm room felt smaller than ever. Sophie’s bed was stripped bare, the absence more haunting than any ghost. Shadows stretched long against the walls, and every creak of the pipes made her skin crawl.
Finally, she stopped pretending. She yanked the desk drawer open and dragged out the diary.
The cover was cold this time. Cold like a door handle in winter.
Her hands trembled as she set it on the desk. She didn’t even need to open it. The message was already there, bleeding across the cover in curling black script.
"Did you like his eyes?"
She froze.
"They’ll be the last thing you see"
The words gleamed as if the ink had only just dried, sharp and smug. The diary was no longer just warning her. It was gloating.
Her throat went dry because she knew that this wasn’t over. It was just beginning.
- Writer
