Yesterday started like any other day. A hot shower after work, hair wrapped in a towel, music humming through my Bluetooth speaker. I padded barefoot into my bedroom and reached for a dress hanging in my closet. It slipped from the hanger and fluttered to the floor.
As I bent down to pick it up, something caught my eye.
There, tucked low on the shelf behind an old shoebox, was a phone. Not mine. A cheap model. Its screen was dimmed but still active — a camera app recording — timestamped at 18 minutes and counting.
My stomach dropped.
I stood there frozen, the dress crumpled in my hand, the towel cinched tightly around me. My fingers hovered over the screen. Against every screaming instinct, I hit play.
The first several minutes were mundane. Just me, walking in and out of the room, humming to myself, wrapped in a towel, talking like I always do when no one's watching.
But at minute eleven, the screen went black. The picture disappeared.
And then came the voice.
It was low. Calm. Male.
“You think nobody sees you… but I do.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
It wasn’t a prank. It wasn’t distorted or silly or staged. It was measured. Intimate. Like the speaker had been watching me for a long time — and decided now was the moment to say so.
I placed the phone on the edge of the bed like it was a live grenade. My thoughts tumbled. Who left this? When? How? How long had I been watched?
I live alone. No roommates, no partner. Just me and my cat, Tofu. My apartment is on the third floor of an older, creaky building. No doorman. No security cameras. But I always lock my doors. Always.
Heart hammering, I grabbed the phone with a tissue and powered it down. I debated calling the police, the building manager, or my cousin Zaria — the one person I knew would show up fast and strong. I called Zaria.
She was there in under 20 minutes, still in her scrubs from her shift at the ER, hair escaping her bun like vines from a storm.
“Start from the top,” she said, locking the door behind her.
I replayed the video. Her face changed at the voice — brows knit tight, jaw set.
“Do you know that voice?” she asked.
“No,” I whispered. “I’ve been thinking and thinking, but no.”
Zaria took the phone apart with clinical precision. “No lock screen. No password. No apps except the camera. It’s been factory reset. Either someone’s really dumb… or terrifyingly careful.”
We decided not to call the police — not yet. No forced entry. No visible suspect. Just a creepy phone in a closet wasn’t going to get them moving.
So we searched.
Every room. Every cabinet. Under the couch. Inside suitcases. Even the laundry hamper.
Nothing else.
Except — one thing.
My jewelry box had been shifted. Slightly. Not opened. Not rifled through. Just… moved.
That night, I didn’t sleep. Every creak became a threat. Every shadow a shape. I couldn’t tell what scared me more: that someone had been here… or that they might still be watching.
The next morning, I brought the phone to a repair shop. A quiet, competent kid named Sohrab took it seriously.
“This is a burner phone,” he said. “No SIM, no Wi-Fi. All that’s here is the one video.”
Then he squinted at the screen. “Hold on.”
Inside the system logs were a string of dated folders—files created days, even weeks, before yesterday. All empty now.
“But you said there’s only one video,” I asked.
“There is,” he replied. “Someone deleted the rest. But the logs say they were here. I’ll try to recover them. Give me two days.”
Two agonizing days.
I stayed at Zaria’s apartment, sleeping in her guest room surrounded by her three overly friendly dogs. She had cameras on every entry and a baseball bat next to her front door. And still—I barely slept.
On night two, Sohrab called. “I got something.”
When I arrived, he had three videos open.
All taken weeks apart. All from different rooms in my apartment — the kitchen, my bedroom, even the bathroom mirror. Angles too precise for accidents. Like someone had entered, recorded, and left… undetected.
Then he paused one video and pointed.
“Do you know this guy?”
In the reflection of the microwave, a faint profile appeared—just for a second. But it was unmistakable.
Lachlan.
I hadn’t heard that name in two years. We’d dated briefly. It ended badly.
He’d grown possessive. Strange. Started showing up at my work. Left roses on my windshield for weeks. Eventually I blocked him on everything. He faded out.
Or so I thought.
Zaria and I went straight to the police. This time, we had names, dates, footage.
They called back two days later. “We spoke with Mr. Farrow. He denies everything. Says he hasn’t contacted you in over a year. No forced entry on record, and he gave us an alibi for the date in question.”
No arrest. No restraining order. Not enough proof.
But Zaria wasn’t about to let it go. “Then we’ll get proof.”
We installed cameras. One in the closet. One in the hallway. One by the front door. Motion-activated. Cloud-backed.
Then I moved back in.
It felt like walking into a haunted house. But this time, I was the ghost waiting.
Three nights later.
3:14 a.m.
A notification buzzed my phone: Motion detected – Closet Camera.
I opened the app.
A figure crept into frame. Hooded. Flashlight in hand.
He knelt. Slid a phone onto the shelf. And left.
His profile caught the light just long enough for confirmation.
Lachlan.
We sent the footage to the police. That same afternoon, he was arrested.
In his apartment they found a box of burner phones, a crudely drawn map of my building, and a notebook. Inside were pages of observations:
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Shower: 8:15 a.m.
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Red dress: Tuesday.
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Leaves at 7:42 a.m.
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Talks to cat often.
But the worst discovery was still to come.
He hadn’t acted alone.
Lachlan’s younger cousin, Moises, was an intern in my building’s maintenance team. Friendly, soft-spoken, always said hello. He had keys. He’d let Lachlan in — multiple times — in exchange for cash, food, and promises of helping him "win me back."
Moises was devastated during questioning. Said he didn’t know how far it had gone. Claimed he thought it was just about “reconnecting.” He even wrote me a letter — pages long. Full of regret. Shame.
And I believed him.
He was fired. Lachlan faces charges. There’s a restraining order now. And therapy, I hope.
As for me?
I got better locks. Upgraded my alarm system. Installed my own cameras. Tofu and I started taking walks together — baby steps toward reclaiming peace.
I’m not the same person I was before that dress slipped from the hanger.
But I’m stronger.
Zaria showed me what loyalty looks like. Sohrab reminded me that some strangers become heroes. And Moises? He proved that people can be used — but sometimes they try to make it right.
The most important lesson?
Trust your instincts.
If something feels off, it probably is.
And always—always—check the back of your closet.
If you read this far, thank you. Share this if it might help someone else catch the thing hiding in plain sight.