I always thought Sarah was just eccentric.

Her late-night rituals and penchant for incense didn’t bother me too much.

But last weekend, she asked me not to go into her room.

“Just a little project of mine,” she explained with a wink.

Curiosity got the better of me when she went out of town.

As I opened her door, my senses were hit by the overwhelming scent of candles.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

Plastered across her walls were photographs – of me.

Hundreds of them.

As I moved closer, I realized they weren’t just images.

They were covered in scribbled notes, details about my routine, even little clippings of my hair.

My heart pounded as I backed away, but then something on her desk caught my eye.

The folder was marked “The Plan.”

And inside, the first page simply read… “Phase 1: Observation.”

My breath caught in my throat, a cold stone of fear lodging itself deep in my chest.

I flipped the page, my hand trembling so badly the paper rattled.

“Phase 2: Isolation.”

Underneath were names.

My best friend, Claire. My brother, Thomas. My mum.

Next to each name were notes, horrible, calculated observations about how to drive a wedge between us.

“Tell Maya that Claire was talking about her behind her back.”

“Hint to Thomas that Maya is struggling with money and too proud to ask for help.”

It was a systematic guide to dismantling my entire support system.

I felt sick to my stomach, leaning against the desk to steady myself.

This wasn’t just eccentric.

This was predatory.

Sarah, the quiet girl who always offered me tea, had been studying me like a specimen.

Every friendly chat, every shared complaint about work, was just data for her twisted project.

I had to get out.

I stumbled out of her room, pulling the door shut with a quiet click that sounded like a gunshot in the silent apartment.

My own room, my sanctuary, suddenly felt like a cage.

I grabbed a duffel bag from my wardrobe and started throwing things in.

Clothes, my laptop, my toothbrush.

My mind was a blur of panic and betrayal.

Where could I go?

I pulled out my phone, my thumb hovering over Claire’s number.

But the note from the folder flashed in my mind.

Could I trust anyone?

What if Sarah had already started?

What if her “plan” was already in motion?

My fingers scrolled down and landed on a newer name: Daniel.

We had only been dating for a couple of months, but he was sweet and attentive.

He felt safe.

He answered on the second ring.

“Hey you,” his warm voice was a balm on my frayed nerves.

“Daniel, something’s happened,” I whispered, my voice cracking.

“I need to get out of my apartment. Can I come over?”

“Of course,” he said immediately, his tone shifting to one of deep concern.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I can’t explain now. Just… I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

I hung up before he could ask more questions, shoving my phone and wallet into my bag.

I took one last look around the living room, a space I had shared with a monster.

Every object seemed tainted.

The mug Sarah had given me for my birthday.

The blanket she’d bought for our movie nights.

It was all part of an elaborate lie.

As I reached for the door, I heard a key in the lock.

My blood ran cold.

She wasn’t supposed to be back until tomorrow.

The door swung open, and there was Sarah, holding a small grocery bag.

Her smile faltered when she saw me standing there with my duffel bag.

“Maya? What’s going on? I thought I’d come back early to surprise you.”

I couldn’t speak.

My mind was screaming.

Run!

“Are you… leaving?” she asked, her voice small, confused.

That’s when the fear turned to anger.

“Don’t you dare pretend you don’t know,” I hissed, my voice shaking with rage.

“Your room, Sarah. Your ‘project’.”

Her face went pale.

She dropped the grocery bag, an apple rolling across the floor.

“Maya, you don’t understand.”

“Oh, I think I understand perfectly,” I shot back, taking a step towards the door.

“You’re sick. You’re obsessed. All those pictures? The notes? The ‘plan’?”

“It’s not what you think,” she pleaded, taking a step towards me.

“Stay away from me!” I yelled, flinching back.

Tears welled in her eyes. “Please, just listen to me for five minutes. I can explain everything.”

“There’s nothing to explain. I’m leaving. And then I’m calling the police.”

The word “police” hung in the air between us.

Her face crumpled. “If you do that, you’ll be making a terrible mistake. The worst mistake of your life.”

Her words were so strange, so filled with genuine panic, that they gave me a split-second of pause.

It was just long enough for her to speak again.

“It’s not a plan to hurt you,” she said, her voice desperate.

“It’s a plan to save you.”

I stared at her, my hand frozen on the doorknob.

It sounded like the most ridiculous lie I had ever heard.

“Save me from what?” I scoffed. “Your creepy stalker shrine?”

“From him,” she whispered, her eyes wide with fear. “From Daniel.”

I laughed.

A bitter, broken sound.

“From Daniel? You’re insane. I just got off the phone with him. He’s the only person I feel safe with right now.”

“No,” Sarah insisted, shaking her head frantically. “That’s what he wants you to feel. That’s how he operates.”

She backed away slowly, her hands held up in a placating gesture.

“Go back into my room, Maya. Please. Look at the other folder. The one under the desk.”

My curiosity warred with my instinct to flee.

What could possibly be in another folder?

“I’m not going back in there with you,” I said, my voice firm.

“I won’t come in,” she promised. “Just look. Please. If you still want to leave after that, I won’t stop you.”

Something in her raw desperation convinced me.

My heart still hammering, I walked back to her room, the scent of vanilla and something else… something metallic… hitting me again.

I knelt down and looked under her desk.

Tucked away in the shadows was another folder, this one black and unmarked.

I pulled it out and opened it.

The first page was a photograph.

It was a picture of Daniel, but he looked younger, and he was standing next to a woman I’d never seen before.

She was smiling, but her eyes looked haunted.

I flipped the page.

It was a newspaper clipping, old and yellowed.

The headline read: “Local Woman Missing, Boyfriend Questioned.”

The boyfriend in the grainy photo was Daniel.

Except his name wasn’t Daniel. It was Mark.

I kept turning pages, a horrifying story unfolding before me.

Page after page of articles.

Missing person reports.

All from different towns, different states, over the last ten years.

Five different women.

Each one had dated a man who looked exactly like Daniel, but with a different name each time.

And each one of them had vanished without a trace.

The last page was a printout of a forum for families of missing people.

A post was circled in red ink.

It was from a woman whose sister had disappeared five years ago.

Her name was Laura.

The photo on the first page.

The post detailed her sister’s relationship with a man named “Mark.”

How he had isolated her from her friends and family.

How he had made her feel like he was the only person in the world she could trust.

The signature at the bottom of the post read: Sarah Jenkins.

My knees gave out and I sank to the floor, the folder’s contents spread around me.

It all clicked into place.

The photos of me on the wall. They weren’t a shrine. They were a study.

Sarah wasn’t trying to figure out how to harm me.

She was trying to understand how he saw me.

The notes about my routine, my friends, my vulnerabilities… she was mapping out my life to see where he would strike.

“The Plan” wasn’t her plan.

It was her reconstruction of his plan.

“Phase 1: Observation.” He watches his target.

“Phase 2: Isolation.” He separates her from her support system.

The hair clippings… my God, the hair clippings.

She must have been testing them, looking for tracers, for sedatives… anything.

I stumbled out of the room, my legs like jelly.

Sarah was standing in the living room, tears streaming down her face.

“My sister Laura was the third one,” she said quietly, her voice thick with a grief that was years old but still raw.

“By the time we realized what he was doing, it was too late. He was gone, and so was she.”

“He’s never been caught. He changes his name, moves to a new city, and finds someone else.”

“I’ve spent the last five years of my life tracking him, trying to get ahead of him.”

She took a shaky breath.

“I saw him with you at that coffee shop two months ago. My blood ran cold. I knew I had to get close to you, to watch over you.”

“I rented this apartment the next day. I’m sorry for how it looked, Maya. I was so scared of telling you the truth. I thought you wouldn’t believe me, that you would tell him and he would just… disappear again. With you.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

A text from Daniel.

“Everything okay? Getting worried.”

I showed the screen to Sarah, my hand shaking.

Her face hardened.

“He knows you’re scared. He knows you’re running from something. He thinks you’re running to him. This is his final move. The rescue.”

Another buzz.

“I’m coming over. Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe.”

“Lock the door,” Sarah said, her voice low and urgent. “Now.”

I scrambled to the door and threw the deadbolt.

We could hear footsteps pounding up the stairs.

A knock on the door. Soft, concerned. “Maya? It’s me. Open up.”

I backed away from the door, my eyes wide with terror.

Sarah stood her ground, her phone in her hand, her thumb hovering over the call button.

“Go away, Daniel,” I managed to say, my voice barely a whisper.

The knocking stopped.

There was a moment of silence.

“Her name is Sarah, isn’t it?” Daniel’s voice was different now.

The warmth was gone. It was flat. Cold.

“She’s been telling you lies about me, hasn’t she? Poor, paranoid Sarah. She’s been following me for years. She’s the one who’s obsessed.”

He was trying to twist it, to turn Sarah into the villain.

Just like his pattern predicted.

“Open the door, Maya. Let’s talk about this.”

Then the handle started to jiggle violently.

A loud bang echoed as his shoulder hit the wood.

Sarah pressed the call button.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“A man is trying to break into our apartment,” Sarah said, her voice impossibly calm.

“His name is Daniel Carter, but his real name is Mark Peterson. He is wanted for questioning in the disappearance of at least five women.”

Another crash against the door. A crack appeared in the frame.

“He’s coming through the door! 24 Maple Street, apartment 3B.”

We huddled together in the corner of the living room, listening to the wood splintering.

The door burst open just as the wail of sirens grew louder in the street below.

Daniel – or Mark – stood there, his face a mask of fury, his charming facade completely gone.

When he saw us, and heard the sirens, a look of pure hatred crossed his face.

He took one step inside, then another, his eyes locked on me.

But he was too late.

Two police officers appeared at the top of the stairs, weapons drawn.

“Freeze! Hands in the air!”

It was all over in a matter of seconds.

They had him on the ground, his hands cuffed behind his back.

As they led him away, he looked back at me, his eyes filled with a chilling emptiness.

The monster was real. And he had almost gotten me.

In the weeks that followed, everything came out.

Sarah’s meticulous research, her years of tracking, became the backbone of the case against him.

They found evidence in his apartment that linked him to the other missing women.

He had been planning his final move on me for that very weekend.

Sarah hadn’t just been eccentric.

She had been a guardian angel in disguise.

Her strange rituals were a desperate, brilliant attempt to get inside the mind of a predator to save his next victim.

We don’t live in that apartment anymore.

We moved to a new place, with better locks and a brighter view.

Sarah and I are more than just roommates now.

We are sisters, forged in a fire I never could have imagined.

Her “project” is finally over.

Sometimes, I find her just sitting by the window, a peaceful look on her face I never saw before.

She’s not just an avenging sister anymore. She’s just Sarah.

And I am not a potential victim. I am just Maya.

Life teaches you that the things you fear are not always what they seem.

Sometimes, the person who seems the strangest, the one you’re quick to judge, is the one with the biggest heart.

They might be fighting a battle you know nothing about.

They might even be fighting it for you.

True protection doesn’t always come in a familiar package.

Sometimes, it comes in the form of a quirky roommate, a wall of photos, and a love so fierce it’s willing to look like madness to keep you safe.