Isabella's Point Of View
I woke with a start, breath ragged, sheets clinging to my skin, heart hammering like a drum in my chest. The dream—or whatever it had been—still burned behind my eyes. His voice, low, deliberate, intoxicating, lingered in my mind: "Next time… it won't just be a dream."
I swallowed hard, pressing my palms against my face, trying to ground myself. But the apartment… it felt different. Smaller. Darker. The shadows in the corners seemed to stretch, coil, move. My pulse spiked again.
And then I heard it.
A soft, deliberate knock at the door.
My chest froze. I couldn't breathe. Not properly. Every instinct screamed at me to hide, to run, to lock every door and leave this apartment behind forever. But… a part of me, the reckless, foolish part, that same part that had betrayed me in the dream, wanted to see. To know. To confront.
I whispered to the empty apartment, "It can't be… it can't be him."
The knock came again. Louder this time. Deliberate, patient, impossible to ignore.
My hands trembled as I edged toward the door. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to stop, to run, to hide—but I couldn't. The black card in my hand burned with the memory of him, the warning, the promise.
I peeked through the peephole.
Nothing.
But then I noticed it—a shadow, moving just out of sight, deliberate. Not like a thief. Not like a stranger. Someone who knew exactly where I would be, what I would do.
I swallowed hard, trembling. "Sid…" I whispered, though I knew he wasn't supposed to be real. Not yet.
The door clicked. Slowly. Almost teasingly. My heart leapt. My hands shook so violently I almost dropped the card.
And then… the voice. Soft, low, impossible to place outside my own mind.
"Sleep well, Isabella?"
I gasped, spinning back, scanning the apartment. Nothing. Empty. Silent. Too silent.
My pulse thundered. My hands were ice-cold. And yet… even as fear coiled in my chest like a snake, heat flared in my stomach, a dangerous, magnetic pull I couldn't deny.
He was here.
Not in the dream. Not just in my head.
Here.
And I knew, with a sick thrill curling in my chest, that nothing—no sanctuary, no lock, no street, no wall—would keep him from me.
I swallowed, heart hammering, breath shallow. And I realized: I wasn't just terrified anymore. I was trapped. In him. In his world. In his game.
And the worst part? I wanted him to step forward.
The knock came again. This time, accompanied by the softest, coldest whisper:
"Open the door, Isabella. Or I'll come in anyway.
I froze.