Picture Perfect

You were on the subway home from work one Friday evening. The day at the office was horrible and you were exhausted. Janet was having a baby, Carl and Eve both got promotions, and Dave got a new car. It seemed everyone was having extremely good luck these days. Good news showered the floor and you were starting to wonder if you could write balloons and party supplies off on your taxes.

You trudged up the three flights of stairs to your New York City apartment that was way smaller than you expected it to be for paying fifteen hundred dollars every month. With that money, you wondered why the elevator in the building was still broken, even after two and a half months. You kicked your shoes off, not caring that one landed in the kitchen and the other hit the wall and fell behind the chair. That was a tomorrow problem. Right now, the only problem you had was that you weren't drunk yet.

You were tired of hearing about your coworkers' accomplishments. Sure, you were happy for them, but you wanted to know when it was your turn for a change. Life was always the same. Nothing new happened for you. You were still single, childless (which wasn't entirely a bad thing), and you still rented an apartment from a shitty landlord whose definition of updated countertops quite literally meant painting over the old ones.

Half of a bottle of wine later and you were drunk, playing on your phone. Tik Tok and Instagram and Twitter soon became boring, so you went through your camera roll. You got rid of old screenshots you didn't need and backed several more up to the cloud. You swiped through your hundreds of photos until you came across one unfamiliar to you until you focused on it hard enough.

The colors of the bedding hit you first. The pattern resembled the blocky one on your comforter. The color of the carpet matched the gray of the one in your bedroom. The body laying on the bed matched your form and your hair. Someone had taken a picture of you while you were sleeping.

You tried to rack your brain to come up with a suitable explanation. Maybe a boyfriend had taken your picture on your phone and you hadn't seen it until now? You had a hard time believing that. You hadn't had any males in the house for several months and the timestamp of the picture was dated for a week ago.

You swayed as you stood up from the couch. You went to all of the doors and windows in your apartment and tested every single one to see if it was unlocked. All of the windows except for your bedroom window were locked. The bedroom window had a fire escape right outside. You latched it shut and found a board to wedge into the space to keep it closed. You went back into the living room and sat down on the couch, inspecting the picture again. You tried to see if there was a reflection in the glass or on any shiny surfaces to get an idea of who broke into your home. You were scared to call the police. They would most likely think you were crazy.

You felt your heart race faster in your chest. Your hands were turning clammy and you could barely breathe. You were shaking in fear. Someone had come into your home. Broke into your space. Who knows what they took. What they could do to you. You wondered if this picture of you sleeping was the only one they had.

You tried to think of anyone who would want to stalk you, but no one came to mind. As many friends that you had, none of them seemed creepy enough to break in and take pictures of you.

There was a shift in the walls that echoed a creek throughout the living room, causing you to jump out of your skin. Your jerking movements caused you to spill wine on your shirt. When you caught your breath, you got up and went into the bathroom. You took off your clothes but threw them into the hamper. You didn't have the energy to deal with the stain.

You tried to chalk the picture up as a figment of your imagination. Your stress and the alcohol did not mix well, but as you laid down to go to sleep, rest did not come easily. You woke up several times in the middle of the night. Your paranoia getting the best of you. You thought you saw a person standing in the corner of your room one of those times, but when you blinked rapidly, it disappeared and faded into the rest of the shadows in the room.

A loud boom woke you up at six forty-three in the morning. The sun barely peaked out from behind the clouds. The rain had already started to pitter against the glass of the windows. You flung the covers back and reached for your phone, but it wasn't on the nightstand where you left it. You followed the charging cord and saw it had slipped on the floor between the bed and the stand. That surely could have been a mistake on your part during the night.

You opened the camera roll to see that the picture of you was gone, and a sigh of relief rolled through your lungs. You flicked through the more recent ones until your fingers froze over the screen. There was a new picture. A masked person took a selfie, right next to your head. You quickly deleted the picture and threw the phone across the bed. It bounced off the corner and fell to the floor with a thud. You stared at where it sat on the ground screen up for a few minutes until you gathered up the courage to grab it. You unlocked it and saw a badge on the camera icon. Your breathing grew more rapid with every breath. Every hair on the back of your neck stood up. Your finger shook as you hovered over the icon. You opened the app and saw the selfie picture was still gone, but what you saw made your blood run cold. The old picture was replaced with a new one. The angle was against the closet door and the picture was of you, looking at your phone on the floor. Under the tag, it read, "say 'cheese."