The silence in the coffee shop was heavy, broken only by the rhythmic tapping of rain against the glass. Ethan's heart hammered against his ribs. The woman standing before him looked like a mirage—a ghost he had tried to bury for ten long years.
"Mia?" he whispered again, his voice cracking.
The woman flinched at the name. She didn't say yes, but she didn't say no either. She reached out a trembling hand toward the blue diary, her skin pale and cold.
"I... I need that back," she said. Her voice was soft, like a distant memory of silk and starlight. It wasn't exactly like Mia's, but it had that same haunting cadence.
Ethan didn't hand it over. Instead, he stood up, the chair screeching against the floor. "Where did you get this? This handwriting... this name... it belongs to someone who died a decade ago."
The woman's eyes welled up with tears. She looked around the shop, appearing terrified that someone might be watching them. "You don't understand, Ethan. Some things are better left in the shadows."
Ethan froze. She knew his name. He hadn't introduced himself. "How do you know who I am?"
Before she could answer, a black sedan pulled up outside the shop. The headlights flashed twice through the rain. The woman's face turned ghostly white. Without another word, she snatched the blue diary from the table, but in her haste, a small, folded blue note slipped out from the pages and fell onto the floor.
She didn't notice. She ran out into the rain and disappeared into the car.
Ethan rushed to the door, but the sedan was already speeding away, its red taillights fading into the gray mist of Brooklyn.
He walked back to his table, his mind spinning. His eyes fell on the small blue note lying near his feet. With trembling fingers, he picked it up and unfolded it. It wasn't a letter. It was a list of three addresses in the city—and the first one was his own office building.
At the bottom of the note, there was a date: March 3rd, 2026.
That's today, Ethan realized, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.
He flipped the note over. On the back, in that same neat handwriting, were four terrifying words:
"They are still watching."