Chapter 13: Somebody’s Watching
One knock.
Not loud. Not demanding. Just enough—like whoever stood outside already knew Kai was listening and didn’t need to prove anything else.
The apartment seemed to lock itself in place around him.
Blue monitor light painted the walls in cold color. Rain tapped softly against the window in a steady rhythm that felt too normal for what was happening. The computer fans hummed like nothing in the world was wrong. And yet Kai could barely hear any of it over his own heartbeat.
One hundred and ten thousand people watched his stream. Messages flew so fast they stopped looking like words and started feeling like noise.
But Kai only focused on one thing.
The door.
"Luna," he said, voice rougher than he expected. "What do you mean different shoes?"
There was a pause on the line, but not the kind that came from hesitation. It felt deliberate. Focused. Like she was looking at something only she could see clearly.
"The first picture," she said finally, "the person standing closest to your door was wearing black sneakers."
Kai lowered his eyes to his phone again, as if staring harder would make it clearer.
Her voice continued.
"The second picture, the one farther down the hall, had white soles."
His stomach tightened.
"I can’t even see that," he muttered.
"I can."
That answer landed wrong in his chest. Not because she knew it, but because she knew it immediately. Like she hadn’t even had to think.
The chat had caught on to the shift.
Peepee_666:
WAIT THERE ARE MULTIPLE PEOPLE???
Boobykiller_051:
NAH IM LOGGING OFF
WetHamster_420:
BRO GOT DLC STALKERS
Jacksonvill3_89:
WHY IS EVERY Chapter OF THIS STREAM GETTING WORSE
Kai didn’t respond. He couldn’t. His attention kept snapping back to the door, to the silence beyond it, to the idea that silence might not actually mean absence.
His phone buzzed again.
Another unknown number.
He opened it without thinking.
A photo loaded instantly.
The building lobby.
Empty. Dim. Familiar enough to make his stomach twist.
Less than a minute old.
Under it:
still here :)
Another message came almost immediately after. Different number. No image this time.
leave him alone.
Kai stared at both messages like they were speaking two different languages in the same breath.
"The lobby," he said quietly. "Someone’s downstairs now."
"I see it," Luna replied instantly.
Then, after a pause, she added, "Show me."
Kai let out a short, humorless laugh.
"Yeah, sure. Let me just livestream my stalker situation to a hundred thousand people."
"...Fair point," she admitted.
The smallest trace of normality flickered between them, but it didn’t last.
The knock came again.
Three taps.
Closer.
Kai froze.
That didn’t make sense. The sound was coming from the same door, the same distance. Doors didn’t get closer or farther. But his body still reacted like something had changed anyway.
He stepped back slowly.
Once. Twice.
The stream saw everything. Every hesitation. Every shift of his posture. Viewer count ticked upward again, climbing past one hundred thousand like it was feeding on the situation.
What should have been the biggest moment of his career felt like a trap tightening instead.
A donation flashed across the screen.
RealDerekVoss donated $75,000:
End the stream.
Another immediately followed.
RealDerekVoss donated $25,000:
Seriously.
Chat erupted, but Kai barely saw it.
Peepee_666:
THIS MAN SPENT 100K TO SAY LOG OFF
WetHamster_420:
RICH PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT
TaxFraudEnjoyer:
BRO USING MONEY AS PUNCTUATION
Kai dragged a hand down his face.
The worst part wasn’t the money.
It was that Derek was right.
He should’ve ended it already. Any rational person would’ve ended it the moment the first knock didn’t feel normal anymore. But he was still here, still streaming, still letting the entire internet watch him unravel in real time.
Because stopping meant losing something too.
The attention. The momentum. The thing his brain had quietly started treating like oxygen.
And realizing that made him feel sick.
"Kai," Luna said softly. "You don’t have to stay live."
No judgment in her voice. Just concern.
That somehow made it worse.
He looked at the viewer count again.
One hundred thirteen thousand.
A number that should’ve felt like success. Instead it felt like exposure.
"Do you know what’s messed up?" he said quietly.
No one answered immediately. Not chat. Not Luna.
So he kept going.
"If this happened six months ago... I’d probably be happy."
The words hung in the room heavier than anything else so far.
Because they were true.
Attention was what he chased. Attention was what made everything feel real. Without it, the streams felt like talking into an empty apartment.
But this...
This wasn’t what he meant.
The headset crackled softly.
"That’s not messed up," Luna said.
Kai shook his head slightly. "Pretty sure it is."
"No." Her voice stayed steady. "You wanted people to notice you."
He didn’t respond right away.
Because she was right.
And that was becoming a pattern he didn’t like.
"Everyone wants that," he muttered.
"The messed up part," she said gently, "is thinking attention and affection are the same thing."
That landed harder than anything else that night.
Kai went still.
The chat kept moving, but he wasn’t reading it anymore. The room felt narrower. The rain outside sounded farther away. Even the glow of his monitors seemed too bright.
Because she’d put a name to something he’d never wanted to examine too closely.
Attention was easy.
Affection was supposed to be different.
Supposed to stay.
His phone buzzed again.
Another unknown number.
He opened it automatically out of habit.
Then froze.
A photo loaded.
His building.
Taken from across the street.
Rain streaking through the shot. Streetlights reflecting off wet pavement. And in one of the windows—
his window.
The exact glow of his monitors visible from outside.
Under it:
found you :)
Everything in his body went cold.
The chat noticed instantly.
Peepee_666:
NOPE
Boobykiller_051:
NOPE NOPE NOPE
WetHamster_420:
CALL THE POLICE
No jokes this time. No memes. The energy collapsed into something sharper.
Luna’s voice changed instantly.
"Kai."
"Yeah," he said, but it came out thinner than he meant.
"That picture was taken from outside."
"Obviously."
"No." Her tone sharpened. "The rain stopped twenty minutes ago."
He looked at the image again.
At the street. The pavement. The droplets visible under streetlight glow.
His stomach dropped before his brain caught up.
Because she was right.
Outside his apartment, the rain had already ended.
Which meant the photo wasn’t current.
Which meant someone was lying.
Trying to make it feel current.
Trying to make it feel like they were right there.
Another message arrived immediately after.
Different number.
he’s inside the building now.
No emoji.
No smile.
Just that.
And for the first time all night—
the fear stopped being abstract.
