I was always a bit of a party animal, only stopped going to clubs and bars every night once I got engaged. Once the engagement fell through, I went right back to my old habits, dancing and drinking whole nights away and taking just about every club drug you can think of. I was on my first night of clubbing without my fiance sending me a hundred texts asking where I was, and that knew that bachelor's life was the life for me. The feeling of blissful freedom wouldn't last, though.
One day I was having fun at a night club as usual, with a new girl I met at a different club a few nights prior. We'd already down quite a few cocktails and we were both more than a little bit tipsy. She suggested that we have a go at dancing. I knew it was a bad idea. My vision was blurry, and my stomach was one sudden move away from emptying itself. Nevertheless, I couldn't turn down a
cute girl's invitation to dance, just on principle alone. We had a good time dancing with each other under the flashing strobe lights of the club. Things were getting a little hot and heavy, between us for a moment there, I thought I might actually get lucky that night, if you know what I mean. At one point, she took me by the hand and started pulling more suggestive dance moves with me as her partner. I thought I'd hit
the jackpie. But before I could get too happy, I noticed something from the corner of my eye that made me stop dancing. I turned my head and saw her, standing alone in a dark corner of the club. Was my ex fiance. She was pale and filthy. The white cloth of the dress you wore was tattered and covered in dirty The heat in my body drained away, replaced by a chill of fear that bit right into my bones.
What's wrong, asked the girl I was with. It's nothing, I told her, just had a little too much to drink, that's all. Ah. She sounded disappointed. Well, that's a shame. I was hoping we could dance for a bit longer. You want to call me a cab No, I'm good. I'll just walk back. I could do with some fresh air anyways. I stumbled out of the club, while the girl I was hoping to go home with stayed behind to keep drinking alone. A girl like her probably won't
stay alone for long in a place like that. Though I cursed myself for missing my chance to score just because of something that happened in my past. It seemed like my ex fiance was still holding me back even after I cut her out of my life. I walked through the empty streets, the alcohol still not fully flushed out of my system, yet my blurred vision made it hard for me to see anything around me, while my splitting headache made it hard for me to care much
about it. I must have looked like the sort of wondering drunkard parents would warn their teenagers about when going outside at night, the sort of guy you'd crossed the street to avoid. At one point, I tripped over an uneven towel on the sidewalk. I managed to steady myself in time not to fall on my face, but all the booze I drunk splashed around in my stomach. I felt a burning sensation rising from the pit of my stomach and up into my esophagus. I lurched forward with
a wretch. I chipped my hand over my mouth to keep my mouth from vomiting as I fought back my own gag reflex. I couldn't hold it back at the end and scrambled towards the closest trash can to throw up. I ran into an alleyway that led to a dead end and threw open the lid of the nearest trash can. My headache somewhat subsided after I emptied everything I drank that night into that trash can. Slowly, but surely, my normal vision returned to me as well. I brushed myself
off and got ready to leave the alleyway. I wanted to take a good long nap at home to forget what I'd seen at the club. Maybe then I could actually enjoy the next time I went to the club. I turned around to walk out of the alleyway, only to see something that froze me in my tracks. My ex fiance was standing at the entrance of the alleyway,
blocking my only exit. She was wearing the same white dress she wore back at the club, but now that my vision was clearer, I could tell it was actually a full blown wedding dress, the same one she intended to wear at our wedding and the same one she wore when I permanently ended our relationship. You promised me, she said, in a raspy voice. You promised, you promised you'd be with me forever. I didn't know what to
say or what to do. Panicked, I stumbled backwards and fell with my eyes still fixed on that ghastly visage of a woman I once loved. Pain shot through my body as I landed on the hard cobblestone, but it was nothing compared to the terror that gripped in my heart. With no options left, I backed up against the wall of the dead end and closed my eyes. Tears trickled down my cheeks. I prayed that I was just on a bad trip from something I took back at the club.
I don't know how long I was there, but by the time I finally gathered the courage to open my eyes, it was morning and my ex fiancee was nowhere to be seen. I hurried back to my house that day and went straight to the backyard. I grabbed a shovel from the shed and started digging, Determined not to let the memory of my ex fiance hold me back from living my life. I told myself that was all she was, a bad memory, meant to be forgotten. Trum and mine
must have conjured her up back at the club. There was no way it could have been her stalking me at the club, because I knew exactly where she was. After all, I was the one who buried her. The blade of my shovel hit something hard within the dirt. I tossed my shovel away and roked away the dirt with my bare hands. Still lying there in the shallow grave I dug months ago was the rotting corpse of
my ex fiance. She was still wearing the dress she bought for her wedding, though it was riddled with holes made by hundreds of withering worms. Maggot's had eaten away most of her head and face, exposing the cracked, open skull she got the night I killed her. I breathed a sigh of relief. If she was still here rotting, there was no way it could have been her stalking me out at the club. Right My blood ran cold when I felt the foul breath of something dead and
rotting brush against the back of my neck. I didn't dare turn around for fear of what I might find. Although I was holding my dead fiance with my bare hands, I heard her raspy voice whisper in my ear as if she were right behind me. It was the last thing I would ever hear to the death. Do you spot My parents were overprotective of me when I was young.
I couldn't really blame them, though. For as long as I could remember, I've had only one eye and a good portion of my left face was covered in burn marks. According to my parents, I got them when I was still just a baby during a house fire in a different time. I can't remember any of it myself. I guessed that my near death experience as a baby must
have made my parents overprotective of me. They never let me go outside on my own, and when I did go outside under their supervision, they would always make me cover my burnt face under a hood or a hat. I wasn't even allowed to go to school since they were afraid i'd get picked on by the other kids for my apparents. Because of that, my mother had homeschooled me since I was old enough to speak. For a long time, I did everything they told me to, like
the obedient daughter they wanted me to be. But like most kids, I got more and more rebellious as I got older. When I was about twelve, I started sneaking out of my house when my parents were at work or asleep, not to smoke or drink or anything. For the most part, all I did was take walks in the park to take in the fresh air. Since my dad worked the night shift and my mom liked to sleep early, the only times I could sneak out were
during night and late evening. I didn't mind, though, I was happy for a chance to get out of the house without my parents watching my every move. Back then, I was blissfully still unaware that there were terrible people in the world who wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of even a little girl. As you can imagine, some people in town started gossiping about a little girl with a scarred face walking around a mostly empty park in the middle of the night. I'm pretty sure I became an
urban legend amongst the kids and teenagers too. Looking back, that must have played a factor in what would later happenapon It all started during one of my nightly walks. I was strolling through the local park with the blue hood of my jacket pulled over my face like I had a hundred times before. The flickering lights of the neglected street lamps meant to illuminate the trail gave me just enough light for me to see ahead with my one eye, though I still had to be careful not
to bump into anything. I strolled through the darkness with only the crickets and the caddy DIDs to keep the company. Listening to their shrill cries resonating through the cold night air gave me a sense of freedom that I could never get cooped up in my parents' house. It almost distracted me enough to not notice that I was followed. Having lived most of my life with only one eye, my sense of hearing had to compensate for it by
being sharper than most. From the sea of nocturnal noises around me, I was able to pick out what sounded like footsteps on the cobblestone behind me. The sounds seemed to be trying to mask itself by matching my own footsteps, and it was doing a pretty damn good job at it too. Every time I took a step forward, I heard the sound echo ever so faintly behind me. I doubt anyone without an unusually sharp sense of hearing like
mine would have heard it. I decided to test my suspicion by stopping halfway through a step to throw my follower out of sync with me. I froze right before my foot could touch the ground and make a noise. The moment I did, I heard a single footstep ring out behind me, Although it was barely audible amongst the ambient noises, to me, it might as well have been a deafening danger siren. My heart beat skyrocketed, and I broke into a sudden sprint, not even bothering to look back.
I was somewhat relieved when I didn't hear anyone running after me from behind. Still, I ran like a bat out of hell back home, just in case. When I got home, I snuck back inside through my bedroom window and locked both it and my bedroom door. Once I had calmed down enough, I tried to convince myself that the person following me was just someone curious about the urban legend of the ghost girl the burnt face, and
not something much worse. That night, I stayed up watching the window until I saw my father's car pull into the house. Seeing his car set my mind at ease. Even if the person from the park followed me home, I knew that my father would keep me safe as long as he was around. I was homeschooled by my mom the next day while my dad watched the TV. It was a lesson in mathematics were something equally boring. I struggled to stay up, especially after having little to
know sleep the night before. My mother was quick to notice and asked if I was all right. I'm fine, I told her, while I was also stifling a yawn. You don't look fine to me. She closed the math textbook and patted me on the back. Go get some rest, sweetie. I'll fix you something to eat. Thanks, Mom, I said with a smile. I trushed up to my bedroom and got ready for a midday nap. But before I let my head hit the pillow, I went to my window to close the curtains. When I did, I saw something
that sent chills down my spine. A man was standing half hidden behind the fence. He looked like a normal guy in his thirties, wearing clean but drably colored clothes. However, the fact that he was staring straight at me was enough to make me sweat. I closed the curtains and huddled up in my bed, hoping that he'll go away soon. I heard the sound of a doorbell come from downstairs.
Only seconds later, I peeked through the curtains. Despite myself, I saw the man who'd been watching me waiting right at the front door. The door opened and my father stepped outside to talk to him. I couldn't tell what they were talking about, but the longer the conversation got, the more and more angry my father seemed. Without any warning, my father punched the man in the face. The man fell on the ground, and my father kept pummeling him again and again until his face was a black and
blue mess, dripping with blood. Though he might have been my starker, I couldn't bear to see someone get beaten so badly. I closed the curtains and curled up on my bed with tears in my eyes. Moments later, I heard my father knock on my bedroom door. Sweetie, we have to go now, he told me, with panic in his voice. I didn't think to question him and quickly followed him out of the house and into the car,
passed my unconscious stalker lying on the porch. My mother joined us in the car, and soon we were speeding out of the neighborhood. I wanted to ask where we were going, but the distress of my parents' faces told me that they probably didn't know either. Not long after we left, I noticed the car following us from the back seat window. I had never seen the car before, but I could see the bruised face of my stalker
behind the wheel. His left eye was swollen shut, and blood trickled from his nose and the corners of his lips. My eyes were fixed on him. When the car came to a sudden stop, I turned around to see what made us stop. Relief washed over me when I saw a barricade of police cars in front of us, But when I looked at my parents, their faces did not share my relief. Dead they seemed frightened and on the verge of panic. Before I could ask what was wrong, they both jumped out of the car and ran, only
to be apprehended and cuffed by the police officers. Everything was a blur after that. My parents and I were taken to the station and police cars. My supposed stalker was taken there as well, but unlike my parents, he wasn't being cuffed. Once we were at the station, I finally got an answer to what the hell was going on, and why on earth my stalker wasn't arrested while my parents were. A sympathetic police officer explained everything to me
while I listened to him in silent shock. Twelve years ago, an unsolved case of arson caused a house fire that claimed the lives of a young family. The charred bodies of the parents were found in the smoldering wreckage, but their infant daughter was nowhere to be found. That infant daughter was me. My real parents had died in the same house fire that took my left eye and burnt my face. People who I thought were my parents were actually my kidnappers, kidnappers who had gotten away with their
crimes for over a decade. Police suspected that they might have been the arsonists who started the fire that claimed my real parents' lives in the first place, all because they wanted a child of their own but couldn't have one due to medical reasons. My stalker was actually a private investigator hired by my real uncle to find me when everyone else thought I died in the fire. I now live with my uncle. He is a kind man,
and he does his best to care for me by himself. However, I can't help but wonder if my life would have been better had I never learned the truth about my family. I used to date a really clingy girl. She said that she was just being protective of me while we were dating, but I didn't really see it that way. She'd text me every night, asking me about my day or how I was doing, and if I didn't reply right away, she started guilt tripping me to call her back. It was I'm a cute at first, but after a
while it started to feel overbearing. We eventually broke up after almost a year of dating. She seemed to take it pretty well, though we were quiet whenever we ran into each other during class or out in the town. One day, I found out that she got a part time job at the cafe I liked to study at during the weekend. She made my coffee exactly the way she knew I liked it, and we started talking again. The awkward post breakup tension between us melted away every
time I visited the cafe. She even made sure to save a blueberry muffin for me on days she knew i'd visit. Soon, we were talking with each other like normal friends again. I couldn't be happier for a time. I even felt like we had a chance of getting back together. After all, that feeling wouldn't last, though, my sister came to visit one weekend. We hadn't seen each other since we went to different colleges, so we were
looking forward to catching up. We decided to get some pizza together at an Italian restaurant right across the cafe my girlfriend worked at. The waitress led us to an open air, two person table on the second floor, beside the fenced ledge. It looked like the sort of seat you take your date to for a romantic view. There was even a rose in a vase decorating the table. I swear I saw the waitress smirk when she showed
us to the table too. She must have thought that my sister and I were a couple, which fair enough, we didn't really look like each other despite having the same parents. I took after our dad while she looked more like our mom. Neither of us pothered to correct her, though. If they were gonna give us special treatment just because they thought we were a couple, then we weren't about to complain. Not long after we sat down, I got
a text on my phone. I looked at it and saw that it was my ex asking me how it was doing. We'd been texting again as of late, anyway, so I didn't think much of it. Hey, no texting at the table, my sister said in jest, just as I was about to type back a reply. If you don't pay attention to your food, the flies will eat them. She used the exact same words our mom did whenever either of us checked our phones during dinner, even got
the inflections in her voice down too. Of course, I was a little annoyed that my younger sister was trying to boss me around, but she had a point. I quickly replied to my ex, saying that I'll text her back later, and turned off my phone. My sister and I talked for over two hours about how we were doing in college. When I told her that I was single again, she said she had a few female friends in her own college that were still single. She went
as far as to offer me their numbers. I wasn't all that interested, but decided to humor my sister anyway to make her feel helpful. More than anything else, I turned my phone back on to save the numbers. The moment I did, I was bombarded with notifications for over a hundred text messages and dozens of voicemails. Every single one of them were from my ex. The last text since almost an half hour ago simply read looked down. I looked down from the ledge of the seat and
felt my stomach churn and panic. Standing on the streets below us was my ex girlfriend, still wearing her barista uniform. Her wide, bloodshot eyes stared right at me and threw me. The look on her face was a horrifying mix between anger and batshit crazy. She held her phone in one hand, and then the other a long kitchen knife, gripped so tight that her knuckles were white. A chill shot through my body as I showed the text to my sister. Her face went pale as she looked down over the
ledge as well. The moment my sister's eyes met my exes, my exes gaze turned from my obsessive infatuation to burning hatred. She clinched her teeth so hard that I could have sworn blood seeped from her teeth. Without warning, she threw the kitchen knife in her hand at my sister with a surprising force. The tip of the blade clinked against the ledge fence and clattered back onto the ground, but it startled my sister enough that she fell out of her chair. That got the attention of a nearby waiter,
who came over to help her up. We quickly explained the situation to him, and the police were immediately called. My ex girl was dragged, chicking and screaming into a police car, all the while she shouted about how she and I belonged together and that the girl I was eating with didn't deserve me, not knowing that that girl was actually my sister. When the police searched her apartment for more evidence of her stalking, they found hundreds of
photos of me plastered on the walls. Some of them were from our time together, but many of them were of me by myself. There were pictures of me studying at the cafe or walking home alone, all taken without me ever noticing. In the corner of the apartment was a small shrine with a framed picture of us when we were together, surrounded by the empty cups of every
coffee I'd ever ordered from her at the cafe. My sister is still traumatized about the whole thing, but she's been getting the help she needed, and despite everything that's happened, I hope that my ex would get the help she needs now too,