Echoing the Laments (Filipino)

Chapter One: Stalker

However, the first sound I consciously noticed that evening was the sound of breathing that was too close, too regular to be my own.

Behind my door, came-but the beat, mellow, as if someone just stood there, just stares

I became catatonic, pretending to sleep, my eyes locked on the slice of light entering through slits in my window treatment.

It had put out thin lines like scars all over the ceiling. The beating within me was so in sync with this power that I swear people outside were listening to the beating of my heart.

Breathing ceased after the thirtieth second. The corridor was quiet. And then, in an instant, it disappeared again from sight.

It had been happening for weeks: late-night sounds, mysterious gifts turning up on my desk, and the growing impression that I was being spied on when I turned my back.

“I wanted to believe it was just paranoia, but the gifts kept on coming. Roses, photos of myself in silhouette, an inscription in beautiful handwriting:

"I see you even when you do not see me."

The first one was torched – it had never occurred to me that this was something that required a little more organizational skill than that. The second was too much trouble to get rid of properly and had been resting there quietly all this time, hiding my funeral gloves

It was a sort of grey morning with rain. I wore my black shirt with the collar properly adjusted, and I went to the kitchen that was empty.

Ezra was already there; he was standing with one hip against the counter, a mug of coffee in his hand. His dark hair, mussed to perfection, was chiseled from what appeared to be marble, surrounding his face. He raised his eyes, and his piercing blue gaze locked immediately onto mine.

"You didn’t sleep again," he said. This was a statement, not a question. HE was not asking for information. HE was stating it. "You have that look," he said.

“You always notice,” I replied, managing a tired smile.

He shrugged. "I notice every detail about you.”

This is Ezra, my stepbrother for almost a year now. In theory, he was perfection. He was at the top of his class, mannered, and breathtakingly gorgeous.

Perhaps I could hypnotize the parents' friends into submission by smiling at them. However, in the company of just the two of us, there was something to the perfection that was vigilant and possessive. Something that I could just about put my finger on.

“I took a stool across from him. “You don’t have class today?” I asked.

“Cancelled,” he said readily. “I thought I’d drive you to work.”

“You don’t have to"

“I want to.” His tone was gentle, but his gaze was not. “You look tired. I worry.”

I looked down and began to trace the rim of my cup with my finger. “You don’t have to worry about me so much, Ezra,” I said.

He grinned thinly, but it never reached his eyes. "Who else will?"

There was little conversation between us. Rain pounded the windshield, and the rushing city slid past, gray skies, bare branches, enough weather to keep the restless restless.

Ezra's fingers closed tightly around my wrist, stopping me just as I reached to push open the funeral home door. He was cold, insistent.

“You’ll text me when you’re done,” he said.

“I always do.”

“Good. And if anybody bother you again, anybody... you tell me.

That word again. Again.

Yes, he knew the stalker was out there. Well, he at least knew that I had been getting followed, but it was the manner in which he said it that made something flip inside of me.

“Ezra, it

Closer, closer in he came, close enough so I could feel the warmth of his oxygen. “Promise me,” he repeated.

I swallowed hard. "I promise."

He didn't let go until I nodded. His hand lingered a fraction of a second too long before pulling away. The rest of the day blurred into a haze of embalming fluid and muffled conversation and the steady thrum of the cooler. A funeral home was a place of stagnation, never of solitude. Spirits lingered in its halls like darkness in night's mist. I didn't dare to meet their gaze anymore. It only emboldened them.

The employees left by the evening hours. I decided to stay behind and close the place, ensuring that I verified the last coffin in the display room. An aroma of lilies and disinfectants filled the air.

Then I saw him.

I thought it was one of the dead at first. There was a figure waiting at the end of the hall. His height was imposing, statuesque. His black hoodie was pulled down over his face. On his face was a white mask, blank except for two black eyeholes. He did not move.

My breath caught. “Hello?”

No response.

I inched ahead. The motion sensor light came on above. The figure turned his head, almost imperceptibly, like a curious animal.

“If this is some kind of joke, it’s not funny.” My throat dried up

He progressed very slowly. There was a trace of the smell of metal and the smell of rain about him. I was immobilized.

“The temperature lowered, and there was a buzz accompanying the light as it flickered. A flicker. There were always restless spirits behind him, three faint figures lingering in the corner.” Then, suddenly, the figure turned and was seen to disappear into the dark hallway.

I chased after him, with a pounding heart, but there was no one in the corridor either. The doors at the other end of the corridor were ajar, with only the night wind trying to push them further ajar. There is only a mere pattering of rain.

By the time I returned home, Ezra was standing by the window. He did not look back to check on my arrival but stood looking out into the night with his hand deep inside his pocket.

“You're late,” he said quietly.

"I had to lock up."

He turned around. He did not look very expressive. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said.

“Maybe I could have,” I replied, trying to laugh.

He did not smile. "Aiden!"

There was something about his voice that stopped me. He was not the type of man who would say my name gently and lovingly. There was always a warning within it.

However, in two strides, he crossed this room. And, of course, the smell, the Colgone, oh the powerful odor! Then the gesture, the movement wherein his upraised hand hit my cheek with his thumb.

There was the gentleness of that touch and the desperation.

"You’re shaking."

'I'm fine," I lied.

He drew nearer, his breathing a tickling sensation against my skin. "You should never lie to me," he said.

“Ezra.....

He took a slight step back, his eyes raking mine. “Was it him again?”

"I… think so."

"I told you I'd take care of it." Ezra jammed his jaws shut.

I took a step back. "You can't, you can't handle, handle someone like that, Ezra. You don't even know who that is."

He looked at me for a moment, and then his face split into a smile, thin and wry, the wrong smile for the occasion.

"Don't I?"

"

“I could hardly get the question out before he turned and walked away,” he says. “Lock your door tonight. Promise me.”

"I always do." "His voice was soft, but it was like glass," Maggie thought. "Good," he whispered, "because I would surely hate to think that some other man gets to see you the way that I do.

"The pounding of the rain against my window awakened me some through the night, and I couldn't sleep. Ezra's room was at the end of the hall, but it may as well have been right outside mine. The slightest groan in the floorboard would send my body into rigor.

was stuck on replaying the funeral home scenario. That mask, that look, the way he moved with such calm, almost familiarity-filled ease.

I drifted off to sleep, and the dreams began pouring into my head. I was back in the hallway at the mortuary, with the lights flashing. The man with the mask was right in front of me. I couldn’t see his face, but I could feel the rhythm of his breathing, which was steady just as it had been while he stood outside my door.

Raising his hand, he touched his cheek. His gloved hand felt cool and smooth. I could have pulled away, but I did not. The voice was low and muffled, but it sent chills running through me.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me, Aiden. People get hurt when they hurt you,” he says.

I was startled, the voice echoing in my brain. It was dark in my room, with the window open and rain dripping from the curtains. On my desk was something new, a red rose with drops of water on it, and a folded piece of paper.

My hands were shaking while I picked it up.

“You looked beautiful when you were scared.”

Your Watcher

My heart pounding, I turned towards the door. The house was quiet except for the faint noise of floorboards creaking in the hallway.

There was somebody out there.

I slid off the bed, and my bare feet slapped against the cold wooden floor. Slowly, I reached for the handle. Biting back a breath, I inched the door open. Just enough to glimpse the long hallway that was swathed in pale blue moonlight.

Ezra stood at the end of it, barefoot and shirtless, his head tilted slightly to one side, his eyes glinting with ice.

"Couldn't sleep either?" he asked quietly.

I froze. "You.you scared me."

He smiled faintly and drew closer. “I’m sorry. I heard something. Thought I’d check on you.”

I got a quick glimpse of that man. There was an open window just behind him. Drops of rain were scattered all over the wooden floor.

"Did you go outside?" I asked quietly.

He took a backward step, and our eyes met, and he gave me his best blank stare. The one that I recognized so very well. “Why would I?”

It was difficult for me to find a solution as well. My mouth is terribly dry.

"You're shaking again,” he said, his arm extending to push a soaked clump of hair out of my face.

"I

“Then stick with me,” he whispered.

He didn't withdraw. Neither did I. There is a silent gap between us. The only sound bridging this silent gap is the pouring rain outside. His thumb is still on my body with his touching my jaw.

“Ezra…,” I whispered, and what I meant by it, even by it to myself, is a mystery.

"Sleep tight, little brother," he said with a smile.

He turned and walked back down the hall, being swallowed up by the darkness. The sound of closing on his door was muffled, deliberate, and final.

It was actually not until I was finally able to return to my room that the rose remained on the desk. It took a long time for me to consider picking the rose. It was evident that the rose had been cut.

It had the smell of rain and metal on it, just as it did in the funeral home.

That’s when I saw it: the faint sign on the edge of the message.

"No ink. No water."

Blood.

But for the first time, I realized what I had been afraid to acknowledge. Whoever my stalker was… he actually knew me. He had been living in this

A/N: Chapter 1 to 5 might seem a little bit slow vut just trust the process, it gets way hotter from 6...

slow and steady...