Just a Feeling

It starts in the stomach.

A small stone dropped into still water,

sending rings through everything.

Nothing has happened.

The street is empty.

The houses sleep behind dark windows,

their porch lights pooling weak gold

onto cracked sidewalks.

The night air is cold enough

to slip beneath my jacket.

Cold enough that I should blame it

for the shiver running up my spine.

I don't.

Because this isn't cold.

This is older.

The hairs along the back of my neck

lift one by one,

tiny witnesses raising their hands.

Something is behind me.

I know this

the way animals know storms are coming.

I hear only my footsteps,

yet I begin walking faster.

The sound follows.

Not another set of steps.

Just mine.

But now every footfall returns

a fraction too late,

echoing from somewhere

it shouldn't.

The pit in my stomach deepens.

I tell myself to turn around.

I don't.

Some fears survive precisely because

they are not examined.

The streetlight ahead hums softly.

Moths orbit its glow,

throwing frantic shadows across the pavement.

For a moment,

one of them stretches too tall.

Too human.

My breath catches.

Then it's gone.

Nothing.

Always nothing.

The worst part is that nothing

never feels reassuring.

By the time I reach my door,

my keys are already in my hand.

I unlock it too quickly.

Slip inside.

Lock it again.

Then stand motionless

in the entryway.

Listening.

The house creaks.

The refrigerator hums.

A vent exhales somewhere down the hall.

Normal sounds.

Familiar sounds.

Yet the stone remains in my stomach.

So I check.

The living room.

Empty.

The kitchen.

Empty.

Closets.

Corners.

The shower curtain.

Under the bed.

Every room offers the same answer.

No one is here.

I should feel better.

Instead, dread settles deeper.

Because the feeling never claimed

someone was in the house.

Only that I wasn't alone.

Hours later,

I lie in bed staring into darkness.

The blankets are warm.

The room is still.

My eyes keep drifting toward the doorway.

Nothing stands there.

Nothing moves.

Nothing breathes.

Yet sleep circles me without landing.

Every time I begin to drift,

something inside me jerks awake.

Not a sound.

Not a sight.

A certainty.

The same certainty that followed me home.

The same certainty sitting now

at the edge of the bed.

Waiting.

I never see it.

Morning arrives eventually,

gray and harmless.

The feeling dissolves with the shadows.

But even in daylight,

I remember it.

That ancient warning.

That invisible weight.

The knowledge that for one long night,

every instinct I possessed

was screaming the same thing:

Don't look behind you.