The Watching: Prey in the Frame

11:58 p.m.

The screen flickers. Grainy resolution, pixels struggling to hold form in the amber glow. A park bench sits crooked in the frame, its iron legs half-sunken into damp soil. Shadows stretch long and jagged, spilling into the empty spaces between paths.

It’s almost beautiful. Almost.

He leans closer, the webcam feed bathing his face in cold blue light. His breath fogs the air in front of him, short and shallow, and the desk beneath his elbows creaks with his weight.

The cursor hovers.

Click.

The camera pans left, motorized and deliberate. Slow enough to tease, to make every inch of revealed darkness feel like a strip being peeled away.

He knows this spot. Walked it a hundred times, mapping the rhythms of its silence. The park lives in his head like a second home—each bench, every lamp, all the exits carved into his memory like a map of inevitabilities.

11:59 p.m.

Movement.

It’s small, insignificant, like a moth flickering in the corner of the frame, but his pulse quickens anyway. He drags the camera back, snapping it into focus.

There.

A figure.

They’re pacing beneath the lamppost, their shadow stretching ahead of them like an obedient dog. A woman, maybe mid-30s, bundled against the cold in a coat too thin for December. Her hands are stuffed into her pockets, head down, her steps uneven and restless.

He smiles.

The screen renders her in shades of gray, her features smudged and soft, but there’s something in the way she moves. Like she doesn’t belong here, her body out of sync with the park’s rhythm.

He knows the type.

They always come here for the same reason.

She stops. Looks up. Her face catches the light—brief, blurred, barely enough to form an image—but his breath hitches anyway.

Her lips move. A small puff of breath escapes, visible even in the low-quality feed, and he tilts his head, imagining the sound of her voice. Soft, maybe. A little hoarse.

12:01 a.m.

She sits.

Sinks onto the bench, her silhouette slumping forward as her elbows rest on her knees. She pulls something from her pocket—a phone, its screen glowing brighter than the surrounding lamps—and the reflection paints her face with fleeting clarity.

He leans closer. The chair beneath him squeals, a sound swallowed by the static hiss of the webcam feed.

Her eyes flick toward the camera.

He freezes.

The moment passes. She’s looking through it, not at it, her attention somewhere beyond the lens. Her fingers swipe across the phone screen, her face painted in shifting shadows.

She doesn’t know he’s there.

He exhales.

12:03 a.m.

The camera pans wider, its mechanical hum grinding against the quiet. He scans the empty paths, the motionless trees, the parked cars beyond the gates.

No one else.

The smile returns.

Click.

He locks the camera back on her. It’s a game now, the kind where the rules don’t exist. The kind where the winner gets to write the ending.

She stands again. Her body language is taut, uncertain, like she’s waiting for something that won’t come. Her phone dangles from one hand, her head swiveling as if she’s searching for a sign.

His fingers tighten on the mouse.

12:05 a.m.

The feed crackles, pixels distorting her shape, stretching her into something unnatural for the briefest moment. He slams the desk, and the screen steadies again.

She’s walking now. Back the way she came, her pace quickening, her shadow chasing her down the path.

The camera doesn’t follow her. It can’t. Its reach stops at the edge of the frame, the park gates cutting her off like a severed limb.

He stares at the empty screen.

The lamppost flickers, once, twice, and then the image stabilizes again.

He shifts back in his chair, his knuckles cracking as his hands flex and relax. His breathing is steady now, a low tide rolling in under the surface of his chest.

12:07 a.m.

He closes the tab. The screen goes black, reflecting his face in sharp angles and dull eyes.

His mind fills in the rest. The park’s rhythm, her unsteady gait, the precise distance between her last known position and where he waits.

She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s already his.

12:10 a.m.

He grabs his coat.

The knife waits on the counter by the door, gleaming faintly under the eager light. He pockets it with practiced ease, the weight of it a reassurance.

The park is only five minutes away.

Enough time to let the silence stretch.