Warnings for this part: mentions of violence

“Aren’t you tired?” your friend asked you worriedly.

You shook your head with a smile. “I’m okay.”

“You should really see a doctor,” she said, furrowing her eyebrows. “I’m worried.”

You sometimes couldn’t sleep at night. That’s what your friend knew. You had never revealed the reason to her. What was the reason for you not getting any sleep? Nightmares. It’s as simple as that. 

You had had a good childhood, a sweet family and nothing traumatizing had ever happened to you. You hadn’t been abused or harassed. Literally nothing terrible had ever happened to you. Still, you had the most terrifying nightmares. Your family and friends getting killed, you dying in the most painful ways one could imagine and dreams where people you had never met or seen were tortured to death.

Why didn’t you tell your friend about the reason? 

Those nightmares, you didn’t have them every night, you had them every now and then. Just like with the person who sometimes followed you, he didn’t appear every time you walked outside. You had those nightmares if that person had followed you during the day. That’s how it went.

No one knew about this person who followed you. You had kept it to yourself for the six years he had been following you. Why? You didn’t exactly want to be labeled insane. You didn’t think you were insane so, obviously, you didn’t want others to think so either. Hence, you didn’t tell anyone about him. Not to your family or best friend who you told everything else to. You didn’t want to tell them about the nightmares either because they would end up wondering what caused them and you would have to tell them about the person who had been following you.

“Eunkyung-ssi,” a coworker called your friend’s name. 

“Hmm?” 

“Could you come over here? I need your help with the cashier,” he scratched the back of his head.

He’s such a newbie.

You looked at the boy – whose name you had unfortunately forgotten – while Eunkyung hurried over to help him. He was a high-schooler who was working part-time at the store where you were working as a full-time employee. Your salary was low and you barely managed with it but you didn’t really mind. You were okay with having a lifestyle like that. Of course, having a lot of money would have been nice but you felt like that kind of lifestyle was not meant for you.

“______!” Eunkyung called your name and you looked at her. “Could you come take a look?”

You walked over to the two who were struggling with the cashier. “What’s going on?”

“It doesn’t open,” Eunkyung said, looking frustrated.

You looked at the old c