Here is Scene — Today | Location: House
Title: Phantom Touches
POV: First person (Her perspective)
Word count: ~2000 words
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The silence was unnatural.
Not the comforting kind of quiet that comes when the world goes to sleep, but the kind that hums in your bones. It had weight. Texture. A silence so loud it drowned out the sound of my own breathing. I stood in the center of my living room, barefoot on cold marble, robe cinched tight, and yet I felt stripped bare.
He hadn't touched me.
But he had.
Not with hands.
With words.
With thoughts.
With something worse than any physical violation—his obsession.
I moved from room to room, checking locks I'd already checked a dozen times. Bolts. Chains. The alarm light blinked green. Safe. But what good was safety when Elijah Darko didn't need to enter to invade? He lived inside everything now—my walls, my mirrors, my heartbeat.
The phone on the kitchen counter buzzed again. I flinched, even though I was expecting it. It had started right after the alley. After I mistook that stranger for him. After the madness in that man's eyes showed me something I didn't want to see in myself.
That I wasn't afraid.
I was fascinated.
I picked up the phone with trembling fingers.
Unknown Number:
"I touched your dreams last night."
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to laugh.
Instead, I typed: "Who are you?"
The dots danced, vanished. Then came the reply:
"You know. You just don't want to say my name. Because saying it means you're mine."
I backed away, phone clutched to my chest like a weapon. But there was no defense against this kind of madness. No barrier strong enough to keep him out. Because Elijah didn't knock.
He whispered.
In the cracks.
In the quiet.
In the places I used to feel most safe.
I rushed to the bathroom. My breath came too fast, and my vision blurred. I splashed cold water on my face, watching droplets fall like tears that wouldn't come.
Then I saw it.
In the condensation forming on the mirror, three letters appeared.
M I N E
I screamed and stumbled back, knocking over the stool by the vanity.
This wasn't happening.
It couldn't be.
I wiped the mirror with the back of my hand, smearing the word into foggy nothing. My heart beat like a war drum against my ribs. He hadn't been here—he couldn't have been.
But still…
Still, the scent of him lingered.
Cedarwood.
Leather.
Sin.
It haunted my pillows, my skin, my soul.
I collapsed onto the couch, pulled my knees to my chest, and stared at the ceiling. Somewhere between exhaustion and terror, I started to cry—but not out of fear.
Out of longing.
I missed the feeling.
The chase. The games. The thrill of knowing someone wanted me so completely they would erase themselves to become my shadow.
Even if it was sick.
Even if it was him.
Especially because it was him.
Another buzz.
I didn't even flinch this time.
Unknown Number:
"You dream of my hands. Tell me… were they gentle last night?"
I swallowed.
Typed: "You're delusional."
His reply came fast.
"You didn't mind when I traced your ribs with my name."
I shot up.
No one knew about the ink.
A fake name, burned onto my skin two years ago on a dare—a joke with consequences. Not his real name. But a name that now felt prophetic.
DARKO, etched in cursive near my ribs. A secret. A lie. A whisper in ink.
I had told no one.
No one but myself.
And now him.
He knew.
I threw the phone across the room. It hit the wall, bounced off, landed facedown.
But I could still feel it.
His gaze.
Watching me.
Worshipping me.
Owning me.
I wrapped my arms around myself. But there was no warmth. Just cold sweat and the phantom trail of his fingers over my skin.
They weren't real, I told myself.
But they felt real.
Too real.
My thighs clenched instinctively, heat blooming where only memory should live.
"Stop it," I whispered.
To myself.
To him.
To the parts of me that no longer belonged to me.
But the phone buzzed again.
I didn't pick it up.
I didn't need to.
I already knew what it would say.
"You can try to forget. But your body remembers."
And it did.
It remembered the first time I saw him.
The way he moved like smoke and shadows at the ballroom.
The way his eyes undressed me in one glance.
The way his absence now tore me open, piece by piece.
I curled up, nails digging into my skin.
Was I losing it?
Was he a figment?
Was this madness?
Or had I just fallen into the gravity of someone who saw me fully—naked, dangerous, broken—and didn't flinch?
My phone buzzed once more.
Unknown Number:
"Open the door."
I froze.
No. He couldn't be—
Knock.
Soft. Deliberate. Unhurried.
Like he already knew I would obey.
Chandeliers dripped like frozen stars from the ceiling. Every laugh was rehearsed, every glance a transaction. The ballroom glittered with gold and guilt. And me? I was just another mask among a thousand painted faces.
I didn't want to be there.
I was tired of being seen but never known.
But then he stepped in.
Elijah Darko didn't belong in that place—not because he wasn't dressed for it, but because it felt like the room adjusted itself around him. Like the shadows curled closer. The music stumbled. The air thickened.
And I—
—I forgot how to breathe.
He didn't smile.
He didn't need to.
He looked at me like he already owned me. Like my existence had simply been waiting for his gaze to make it real.
I should have looked away.
But I didn't.
I lifted my glass, sipped champagne that tasted like melted metal, and let my lips curl just enough to be dangerous. His eyes followed the motion—sharp, lazy, brutal. He didn't look at my dress. He looked beneath it. He saw past the fabric and the flesh. Right into the ache.
No one had ever done that before.
He crossed the room without permission.
He didn't ask if I was alone. He didn't offer his name. He just said, in a voice low enough to wreck me:
> "You wear your secrets like a second skin."
I laughed. Too loud. Too sharp. A defense mechanism I'd perfected.
"Do you always stalk strangers, or am I just lucky?"
He leaned in. No smile. Just breath on my cheek.
> "You're not a stranger. You just haven't figured it out yet."
My stomach twisted.
It should've felt like a red flag.
But it felt like prophecy.
"Let me guess," I said. "You're the kind of man who plays with fire."
He looked at me with that obsidian gaze.
> "No. I'm the kind of man who teaches fire how to burn."
My legs nearly buckled.
We didn't dance.
We just stood there—two disasters in human skin—circling a detonation neither of us tried to stop.
He disappeared ten minutes later.
No name.
No number.
Just his scent on my wrist and a hollow ache in my throat.
But the next day, a package arrived at my door.
Inside was a single black glove.
And a note that said:
> "A taste. When you're ready for the rest, find me in the places light forgets."
I should have run then.
But I didn't.
I wore the glove.
I looked for the shadows.
And I started dreaming of him—of phantom touches, of breath against my neck, of madness that sounded like my own voice whispering yes.
Back to Present — Today Her House
My hands trembled as I held the memory like a weapon, like a prayer.
It had started that night.
With a look.
With a sentence.
With a storm disguised as a man.
My phone buzzed again. One more message.
Unknown Number:
You remember now, don't you?"
Yes.
God help me—yes, I do