6. Quell
Chapter six
Quell
I wake up certain someone has been in my apartment again.
Not the faint echo of a dream, not a trick of sleep, but something more.
The air shifts, different somehow, and it crawls over my skin.
My eyes open to the same old ceiling, dawn light slanting through the blinds, but it isn’t the same.
My body knows before my mind: someone has touched my things, breathed in here, stood exactly where I am lying now.
And weirdly, under the pulse of being invaded, I feel this strange, empty calm.
I’ve never been this paranoid before, but while I can understand losing pieces of paper, I can’t explain them magically appearing on my notebook while I’m out.
Unless I put it there myself without realizing.
No, I’d remember that, surely.
But then, did I wash my mug last night? If I can’t remember that… maybe I am stalking myself by forgetting what I’m doing. This paranoia that I’m being watched is not a feeling I particularly like.
I lie there, breathing in and out, waiting for something. No footsteps, no shifting shadows in the doorway. Alone, but not really.
Standing up, I move on autopilot. Grab my slippers, glasses and dressing gown. The sleeve catches on my dry fingertips, rough from my frantic drawings. I flex my hands, watching the skin pull tight, and for a second I wonder if someone else is watching too.
The apartment is quiet as always. Nothing looks out of place. The mugs are still stacked crooked by the sink because, no; I didn’t wash up. My sketchbooks sit in their pile on the coffee table. My money is still screwed up in the tin… and yet.
I move through the rooms slowly, picking out the tiny wrong things.
The chair at my drawing table is off by maybe two degrees.
The curtain is folded differently. And when I reach for the trash can to toss a tissue, I notice one of my old sketches has been unfolded and then refolded; the creases aren’t how I crumple my failures.
“I know you were here,” I tell the empty room, feeling crazy even as the words leave my mouth.
I pad to the kitchen, fill the kettle, and set it to boil. If someone came into my home, went through my sketches, took the one that shows… what? The future? Some crime, past or not yet done? Then they know everything already. No point in hiding.
The kettle rattles and hisses. I grab my favorite mug, the blue one with the chip at the rim, and drop in a tea bag. My hands aren’t shaking. I move slowly and deliberately. If anyone is watching, let them see I am not scared.
“If you’re watching,” I mutter, not loud, just enough for my voice to make a sound. “You might as well know I drink my tea with honey.”
I stir the tea. The spoon taps the side of the mug, steady and even.
The sound fills the quiet, like a clock ticking in this new world where I am never alone.
I carry my mug to the window. Stand there, looking out at the morning.
Then, quick, no hesitation, I reach up and yank the blinds open all the way.
Light crashes in, filling every inch of the room.
Let them look. Let them see everything.
I drink my tea. Warmth creeps through my chest. My face blinks back at me from the window: pale, steady. The apartment stretches behind me, wide open now, nothing hidden. I should feel exposed. Instead, I straighten up.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I say, even though no one is there to hear. “In case you wanted to know.”
In the bathroom, I undress. Slow, careful.
I fold my clothes and stack them on the counter.
I turn the water on, as hot as it will go, and let the steam fill up the room until the mirror fogs over.
When I step under the spray, I picture eyes following me.
Noting every scar and blemish. Like the large scar on my shoulder blade from when I fell down the stairs as a kid.
I should want to hide. Instead, I stretch out, letting the water run over every inch.
When did fear get so tiring? When did hiding stop making sense?
I step out of the shower, skin prickling and warm, the thin old towel barely enough to wrap around me.
The mirror is a clouded oval, so I wipe it with my palm until I can see myself peering through.
Same face. Same shadows under my eyes. Still the person who seems to draw death closer, like it’s a stray cat I keep feeding.
“What do you see when you look at me?” I ask, but it isn’t really a question to myself. Not anymore.
I leave the bathroom door open as I brush my teeth.
Run the comb through my hair slowly and carefully, the bristles dragging water down my neck.
I press moisturizer into my cheeks, my forehead, rubbing it in circles.
Everything I do feels like it has weight now, like someone is watching and I want them to see I am doing it right.
Not anxious. Just… deliberate. If there are eyes on me, then every ordinary thing becomes a message: I’m here.
I know you’re there. I’m not hiding. I'm not as hopeless as I seem.
In my room, I pick out clothes with the same focus. Clean underwear. Jeans that don’t have holes in the knees. A sweater that doesn’t look like I wipe my hands on it after drawing. I want whoever is watching to see that I know. I want them to know I am choosing to let them every step of the way.
As I button my jeans, the thought hits me: the person who has been here, or maybe still is, they aren’t just looking. They are reaching out. They see my sketches. They understand the nightmares. They look at my art and find something of themselves in it.
And instead of being scared, I feel my mouth tilt up, just a little, in a lopsided grin.
And they respond by taking a piece of it with them.
This isn’t just an invasion. It is… communication.
Aliens sending me messages in the form of bodies.
A killer alien communicating telepathically with me.
Maybe they don’t even know they are doing it.
Hiding upstairs and accidentally sending empathic waves while we sleep.
For three whole seconds, I believe that.
Enough to make me think I should check out the floor above, where I never go.
Then I remember it involves going out for something other than coffee. Yeah, I’m not that crazy.
Not yet, anyway.
No. It’s not an alien. It’s a man. Not a man, the man. The man I drew without prompting on the strange paper that put itself on my notebook after buying itself from a shop I don’t use.
I give up debating my paranoia and sit at my drawing table, running my fingers over the face I drew. My stalker is real, and slightly smudged under my fingers.
Now he is waiting to see what I’ll do next.
I reach for a fresh sheet of paper, the heavy, expensive kind I usually save for commissions. My pencil hovers over the blank, textured surface. Most days, my hand moves on its own, channeling visions I don’t understand. But not today. Today, I am making the choice.
“I’m going to draw something for you,” I say. To the air, the walls, wherever the eyes are hiding. “Something real.”
The pencil touches down soft and scratchy.
I start with the outline of my apartment, not how it looks from where I sit, but from above.
The living room with its cluttered drawing table.
The kitchenette and its narrow counter. Doorways to the bathroom and bedroom.
I add details, one by one: the stack of sketchbooks on the coffee table, the leaning tower of mugs by the sink, the pile of laundry I meant to do yesterday.
My hand moves, steady, deliberate. None of the wild twitch of my visions, no fever in the wrist. This is something else. Not channeling, but creating. I want my watcher to see that I can look, too.
Where would he put the cameras? I try to see my apartment through someone else’s eyes. Above the cabinets, maybe, tucked in the shadows. In the smoke detector over my drawing table. Or in the ceiling light fixture in the bedroom.
I draw each spot, careful lines, mapping out sight lines from cameras to the places I spend most of my time. In the corner, I add a tiny figure at a desk. Just a sketch, a curve of the back, shoulders hunched, the glow of a screen on a blank face. I write a single word beneath it: You .
When I finish, I lean back and look at what I’ve done.
Not a nightmare, not a vision, just a map of now.
An answer of sorts. My drawings of the cameras makes me chuckle.
I’ve no idea what hidden cameras look like, but on the drawing they look like claws.
Little talons digging into the corners of my home.
I tear the page from my sketchbook. The rip sounds huge in the quiet. I stand and carry it to the bookshelf, right where I think a camera might be hidden. The angle would catch my desk, and most of the room.
“I know you’re watching,” I say, voice low but steady, as I prop the drawing against a row of art books. “I know you took my drawing.”
I step back, making sure the page is visible. The figure I label stands out, impossible to miss. My heart keeps its rhythm, not wild, not cold. Just steady, like it always is, even now. Even with this.
“I don’t know who you are,” I continue, speaking straight at the drawing, at the invisible cameras I know are there. “But you know me now. You’ve seen what I see.”
Silence.
It feels tight, stretched thin, like the moment between lightning and thunder. I am not alone anymore, not in this gift, or curse, or whatever it is. Someone else has stepped in, someone who sees what I see, who recognizes something in the mess of my visions.
I let my fingers drift along the edge of the drawing table. The grooves are deep in places, worn smooth in others, a record of every hour I spend here. Now it is part of someone else’s record too.
"I'm not afraid of you."
I hear my voice and realize it is almost true. The fear hasn’t left, but it has folded itself into something else. Curiosity, maybe. Or resignation. Or that strange, raw closeness you get when someone sees you down to the bone. Probably the only person in the world who sees me.
Heading to the window, I glance out, as if my imaginary stalker is going to be standing there waiting.
Outside, the world is still spinning on its usual axis. People walk dogs, scroll their phones, live small lives untouched by death-visions or the sense of eyes in the dark. I envy them a little. The simplicity of not knowing.
But only for a second.
I turn, letting my gaze sweep over the apartment. My apartment, though it doesn’t quite feel like mine now. The drawing is still there, right where I left it, a message, or a dare, waiting in the open. Will there be an answer? Or will the watcher stay hidden, just collecting, giving nothing back?
Doesn’t matter. Something is different. I am not just a dumping ground for nightmares anymore. I will do something. I answer back.
I cross to the drawing and nudge it, making sure it is dead center. Then I lean in, lips almost brushing the paper, and whisper two words I know will land. "Your turn."
I guess I’ll see what he does after my daily visit to the coffee shop for my caffeine fix and my attempt at normal socialization.