Over the past year I had grown a habit of walking about my town late at night. Everybody else has already fallen asleep, and there’s a vague feeling of emptiness that swallows up the whole neighborhood. It would be dead silent if it weren’t for the whistle of the wind or the droning buzz of the tall, metallic streetlights. It’s that lack of things to hear or see that give the night such a calming effect, especially when one’s mind is filled with a million thoughts and emotions carried from the daytime. During the day, there would be so many distractions during a walk: The greens, reds, and oranges of the overhead trees, the clear blue sky mottled with picturesque fluffy clouds, or the sharp reds, yellows, and violets from the neighbors’ flower gardens. You would hear birds chirping, dogs barking, radios humming, friends chatting, and a hundred vehicles roaring by. The night, as lonely as it is, was the only place that I could get away and mull things over without distractions or temptations. When I began this hobby, I was stressed over my friends, my work, and my growing list of responsibilities as I started approaching adulthood. I found refuge in those long walks, but not anymore. My wanderings led me to stressors and terrors far beyond anything I’d put up with during the day.

                It began in mid-autumn. I was having a particularly rough day, with some low test scores serving as the cherry on top. As soon as midnight struck, I wandered out across the neighborhood. The only item I took with me was an envelope that I had been tasked with delivering in the morning. As usual, the moonlight worked its charm, and after an hour I felt refreshed and primed for tomorrow. The only issue left to resolve was sending the envelope off to its new home. I approached the row of mailboxes that stood at the base of my hill, covered in an orange hue by the overhead streetlight. As I deposited the letter, I noticed that the carrier signal flag was already upright. It was an explainable coincidence that I didn’t put any thought into. This coincidence, however, was the beginning of a nightmare.

                The following months were when the coincidences started to pile up. Twice, when I walked to the running track at the top of the hill, I found the overhead lights had already been switched on. In another instance, I had been given the chore of taking the trash bin to the curb, however, when I returned from my nightly routine, it was already at the side of the road. I originally assumed one of my parents had woken up and wheeled it out, but I know better now. Once, in November, I felt hungry during one of my nighttime wanders and walked to the only 24-hour gas station in town, looking to buy a snack.

                “Back already?” the employee at the counter smirked.

                I hadn’t been to that station in weeks. I just nodded to the cashier and checked out. Then, as I headed home, I saw a second walker. They were walking perpendicular to me, crossing an intersection in the distance. I had been walking for nearly a year at this point, and this was the first time I had ever seen someone else traveling the streets in the dead of night. At first, I feared that I had dawdled too long and that others were waking up. My phone declared that it was still only 3 A.M. At this point, the pile of coincidences and anomalies had unnerved me, but the first true fear set in a week later. Snow had fallen for the first time of the season, enough to coat the grass in a silver, unbroken sheet. I was returning home from a brief 30-minute walk, when I noticed some disturbances in the snowy blanket covering my yard. Footprints. They only led from one street to another, but it scared me, nonetheless. I would have noticed the prints if they had been there when I left, but I hadn’t. Someone had walked through within the last half-hour.

                The cruelest aspect to this scenario is the paradox of peace. If your doctor was sabotaging your medication so that you kept returning to him, your problems would be caused by the means you try to solve them. The night was my doctor, which I relied on to alleviate my anxieties and fears. Now, it had stopped alleviating and started causing them. So, as these fears ramped up, where did I go for comfort? The same moonlit streets which were haunting me. I saw the other walker again. Once, then twice, and before long, I caught glimpses of them every time I stepped out underneath the black sky. We never walked close enough for me to see their face, at least not yet. It felt like every time I saw them, they were closer than when I last noticed. The walker, as I dubbed it in my mind, wore dark clothing, including a black hoodie, with the hood drawn. It was not out of the ordinary, being the middle of winter, but it was enough to further creep me out. The walker was also taller than average, at least several inches above 6’. I wasn’t clueless, I was aware that they were certainly responsible for the footprints, and possibly the other anomalies, maybe as a sort of stalker. I took much care to stay far away, but in hindsight, I can say that I didn’t stay far enough.

                The distance between the walker and I closed steadily, with each sighting, as winter faded, and the snow melted back into the ground. Finally, the gap closed completely. I was at the running track, cornered at the top of the hill, when I discovered them, watching me. They were standing on the street, facing me. The icy feel of pure dread surged through me, and I stopped dead in my tracks. There was no ignoring it now. My choices were either to run or confront them, and I chose, mostly out of misplaced optimism, to confront the walker. I started walking towards them, and they turned away. I started running towards them, and they ran too. I started shouting simple questions, like ‘who are you?’, ‘why were you watching me?’, and ‘why are you running?’, they ignored me. As they ran away, or more accurately, as they pretended to run away, my fear was replaced with courage and anger, which lasted until I grabbed its hoodie, and it turned around. This thing, which was clearly over a foot taller than me, had my face. Hair, freckles, glasses, all of it – perfectly copied onto a body that was not mine. The horror of the situation returned, and this time I chose to run.

                The next two weeks were the worst of my life. During the day, nothing seemed out of place. School, work, and home life continued as always, but whereas they were once the struggle that made me miserable, now they didn’t compare to what I had seen. The days passed by rapidly. My friends said I seemed spaced out. My grades dropped. I had worse problems. When the sun set and the darkness rose, the nightmare continued. I once praised the nighttime for being so empty and having so few sights and sounds to be distracted by. Now, I realize that the night was never empty. And the silence that I loved now haunted me, because I now knew it wasn’t a result of nothing needing to be heard, but a result of something choosing to stay quiet, something I’d much rather be able to hear coming. I stayed inside, of course, and I locked each door and window on every floor of my house. However, I couldn’t sleep, and my curiosity was powerful. I often looked out the windows, examining each shadow in case it was harboring a hooded fugitive. My searching was in vain, because when the walker did appear, it wasn’t hiding anymore. I would go to a window, and it would be outside, in clear view, staring directly at me. That happened several times every night, until I finally exhausted myself enough to fall into an uneven sleep. I began to hallucinate, hearing sounds that came from nowhere, or seeing hooded figures in the corners of unlit rooms. I continued to lose my mind until I broke. After two weeks, I saw the walker through a window, standing in the open, and I snapped. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and flung the front door open to sprint right at that monster.

                It pretended to flee again, and I, having learned nothing, chased it again. I followed it down the hill, away from the mass of houses above, briefly around the muddy rim of an empty cornfield, and over a tiny creek into a meager patch of woodland. It darted through trees and below branches, and I did the same after it. Until my foot caught on a root, leaving me to faceplant onto the cold earth. My ankle was sprained. I couldn’t walk, let alone run. The walker stopped and turned back towards me. Just as before, my anger fell away and froze into heart-pounding terror. I shakily held the knife up, preparing to defend myself. It smiled, for the first time. My own smile. Directed at me, curled up on the ground, shivering. It approached me, with that same smile growing with each step. My heart seemed to explode inside me, and my fingers froze up. My head felt light, and my vision darkened. At the worst moment, I lost my consciousness, as the walker crept closer.

                I woke up in the emergency room, surrounded by parents and police officers. I sobbed and shouted out everything that had happened with the walker over the previous months. Of course, they didn’t believe me. The psychiatrist ruled everything off as an overactive imagination, teased on by stress, exhaustion, and the empty canvas that the nighttime streets presented. I was satisfied with that explanation. It seemed that my mind spiraled out of control after the first few coincidences. I wanted to believe that, at least. Life returned to normal – I caught up on sleep and stayed indoors. Everything was alright, after all. I awoke, last night, and realized I was thirsty. I took a trip downstairs to fill up on water, when I looked out the kitchen window. There, standing in the orange glow of the streetlight, was the walker, staring back at me with my own eyes.