Once you stopped laughing with your panic, you did what any other logically thinking person would do and rang the police. And you waited at your front door, not touching anything within your home in case you tampered the evidence further. You were already scolding yourself for eating the food prepared for you. What if it had been poisoned? You thankfully didn’t feel any worse off with your cold, if anything, you felt loads better.

Still, the anxiety ran high within you until the two officers finished checking everything over.

“It looks like the person who did this knows you intimately,” Constable Park said with a brief frown. “We’ll run the fingerprints we’ve managed to find through our system to see if they’re in it but I’m not sure what more help we can give you, Miss L/N.”

“Thank you, Constable, I appreciate your efforts all the same.”

“You said you’re a famous author, right?”

You grimaced. “I wouldn’t say famous.”

“I’ve heard of your name before,” Officer Yoon mentioned with a sheepish grin when you glanced at him in surprise. He chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck. “My girlfriend reads your stories.”

“Ah. Please tell her I said thanks.”

“Could I actually get your autograph to give to her? I’d be in her best books for-”

“Dowoon!” Constable Park cut in sternly, causing the taller man to shrink back.

“I don’t mind,” you offered and headed back to your office for a pen and paper. You stopped when you noticed your favourite pen was missing. Surmising it had been moved during the police search; you reached for another pen and then wrote down a quick message for the young officer’s girlfriend before signing it.

You stopped again, staring at the message still displayed on your screen.

Your biggest fan.

Constable Park was back at your side again and you glanced up at him. “You mentioned just now about me being known and the message here…”

“Just make sure you keep the doors locked and maybe invite someone around to stay with you for the time being. As harmless as it’s all been, we do have more than one fingerprint detected today. Since you live alone and haven’t had anyone over in some time, we can confirm there was a second person in here last night. I know it’s easy to spend time being grateful to your avid followers but be careful with who you share your personal information with.”

A chill shuddered its way down your spine and you nodded hastily, taking the card the man held out. He smiled comfortingly. “If you have any other problems, Miss L/N, this is my direct line. Contact me right away, okay?”

“Thank you, Constable Park,” you replied weakly, reading the card and finding that his first name was Sungjin. You smiled when you looked back up at him. “I appreciate it.”

“Alright Dowoon, let’s head out and I’ll be in contact when we’ve checked the database,” Sungjin – Constable Park – stated and you nodded once more as you handed the autograph to his colleague. Dowoon grinned bashfully and thanked you all the way back to your front door, where you fare-welled the pair.

And promptly locked and latched the front door.

You had lived alone since your early twenties, too independent to work well with roommates. Whilst you had started out in a small, frigid apartment, you had cherished the space alone to create your fantasies into novels. You had only moved to your modest villa within the last year and adopted Binks, the only company you needed on a daily basis outside of your characters.

You weren’t recluse by any means, you just preferred your own company. Socialising was exhausting for your introverted ways, and even though you wanted to play it safe, you slumped down on the couch after the police left and groaned at how exhausting today had been so far.

“I’m sick, that’s adding to it,” you said out loud, and then caught yourself doing so, snapping back upright in your position. “I talk out loud to myself a lot, don’t I?”

Of course, your belongings didn’t reply. And Binks had gone into hiding when Sungjin and Dowoon were here, being afraid of men entirely.

Thinking over the care the stranger had given to even your cat, you decided they had to be female. It didn’t ease your mind any assigning a gender to this person. But it did help you feel as if you were getting somewhere with the mystery behind it.

“And once the police run all the necessary checks, hopefully, I’ll have more answers,” you announced, groaning when you had realised you spoke out loud again. “Oh, whatever! I don’t have to keep my thoughts locked up inside my head or spoken through my fingertips into a word document either! My house, my life!”

And with that, you got up and went back to your desk where you tried to seek out some normalcy for the rest of your day.

You checked emails before conversing with Lily who was animatedly retelling you of her reactions to the final part of the manuscript you sent her. You mentioned to her about what happened too. Lily, however, seemed to be more concerned about something you had written, after exclaiming over your safety. You watched the video screen where your editor, and probably the person who knew you the most aside from your mother, struggled with something.

You frowned. “What is it?”

“You didn’t put your usual The End at the final part for me.”

“Yes I did,” you corrected, leaning back in your chair. “You know me. I always put it at the end of every manuscript so you can’t nag me for more words. The End means I’m not adding to this story anymore!”

“You didn’t put it, Y/N,” she repeated, glancing up at you curiously through her laptop’s camera. “You put something else.”

“Look, I’ll prove it to you,” you announced with pure conviction, clicking on the word document icon on the taskbar and then stopped momentarily when you finally noticed that the story was still open. “That’s strange. I know I closed out of it last night.”

“Out of what?” she asked as you clicked on the tab and watched the document appear on the screen.

You immediately gasped. There, after the final scene of Charli and Brian, was no longer The End as Lily had announced. Instead, the words, To Be Continued had been placed there.

“I didn’t put that there,” you whispered and Lily laughed, unconvinced.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Y/N! Who else would have?”

“I sent it to you right after I finished and I swear I had The End written there.”

“Maybe your writing muse changed it on you,” she teased but you didn’t join her in the amusement. She sensed your shock and blinked a couple of times before focusing back on you. “You really didn’t do it?”

“What if they changed the whole story?!” you shrieked as you jumped to the worst conclusion, scrolling up until you found the line that Brian had spoken to Charli about waiting for an eternity for her. You relaxed a little when everything appeared to be in order. “Maybe I’ll name the third book in this series, Eternity.”

“Wow, just like that, you calmed down,” Lily observed and then nodded. “I like that.”

“I don’t know. I’m just a little sensitive.”

“You were taking medicine last night for the cold, right?” You nodded at Lily’s question and the woman smiled knowingly. “Maybe you took too much at once and hallucinated a little. Or out and can’t remember much.”

“I’m changing it back to The End,” you told her, typing it as you did so. Closing the document, you smiled brightly at the video call. “I’m not adding any further words to Captivated, you hear me? You work your editing magic and I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Yes, Boss!” she cheered, waving to end the call and you powered off your laptop then, making sure to shut the lid down as well.

After finding Binks, you scooped him up in your arms, checked all the doors a final time before heading off to bed for much-needed rest.

You were still a little sick, after all.

You awoke to the sound of your phone ringing the following morning and blearily reached out to silence it. “Hello?”

“Miss L/N?” a deep voice asked and you sat up a little, blinking away your sleep. “This is Constable Park. We met yesterday regarding your intrusion issue?”

“Sungjin,” you immediately said and then gripped at your blankets at your first name slip-up. Clearly, you were still grappling with becoming alert enough for proper etiquette.

He chuckled lightly. “Yes, shall I call you Y/N?”

“If it makes the situation still work well, be my guest.”

“Well, I’m not sure how happy you’ll be to have me calling you by your name, Y/N, in a moment.”

“No?”

“The results are in and there’s no fingerprint matching that in our database. Whilst that’s bad news for us to immediately act upon it, it doesn’t diminish the fact that someone had been there either.”

Despite being under your blankets, you ran cold, wrapping your spare arm around you to try and warm yourself back up. “I see. Does this mean you can’t do anything?”

“I’m afraid so. If you find anyone suspicious in your house or lurking around the outside, don’t hesitate to call me, okay?”

“Of course, thank you, Sungjin.”

“You’re the first person I’ve been called out to that’s called me by my first name, you know.”

“Do you find me rude for doing so?”

“It’s refreshing,” he admitted and you couldn’t help but smile at the thought of being something different for the man. You then bit at your lip, realising you were overreacting all because a man in uniform had stepped into your home.

Okay, so Sungjin was really handsome. And you were deprived of seeing such handsome outside of your stories. Whilst he was no Brian Kang, he would definitely make for a great love story counterpart in a new world. Perhaps he helped the main protagonist and became her protector. Or maybe –

“Y/N?” Sungjin said and you blinked rapidly out of your racing thoughts, coughing a little to cover your embarrassment. “You okay?”

“Sorry, I’m still recovering from this fever,” you admitted, fanning at your face for effect. “Did you say anything else?”

“Yeah, I just told you to keep safe, okay? I don’t need to be worrying about you needlessly, right?”

Oh, you were so going to get up right after this phone call and start typing out these ideas flashing through your mind. However, you gave a moment more to the police officer and confirmed you would call him at the first sign of trouble before ending the call.

Springing up from your bedding, you dashed into your office and perched on the edge of your chair as you opened your laptop and turned it on. You were relieved to find everything in your office in the right place as you opened a new word document and tapped furiously on your keyboard to get down all your ideas for your new police officer au story.

And when you were finally done, you leaned back in your chair and giggled. You weren’t always inspired by people who stepped into your world, but this was solid content you couldn’t ignore.

“Perhaps it’ll help me live out my Sungjin desires too,” you admitted sheepishly before glancing at your pen stand. You remembered about the missing pen and searched on top of your desk and then scooted your chair back to look on the floor. “Where did you go, favourite pen?”

Not finding it anywhere, you pouted right as your stomach grumbled. “Ah,” you said weakly, clutching your stomach in your hand. “I best feed myself and Binks. Hopefully, that pen will turn back up.”

Once you had eaten and quietened Binks’ demands for his morning affection, you got dressed and readied yourself for a trip out to the grocery store. Next, you had to write out a list of what you needed and went back into your office, sitting down at your desk and reaching for some paper.

Your attention turned to your laptop, where you found your favourite pen sitting upon it. “What the…”

And looking up at the screen, another message awaited you.

Sorry, I didn’t realise I had taken it with me after writing you the notes.

Glancing around yourself, you froze with the fear that rose within. You hadn’t heard anyone inside the house during this time. Yet, there was proof someone had come in again. You looked to the window, it was firmly shut. There was no way anyone could have gotten inside the house without walking passed you first.

You then started to shake.

Had they been in here all night long again?

Just as you went to get up and fetch your phone to ring Sungjin back, you noticed a second tab open on the document screen.

It was Captivated. And once again, the last words read, To Be Continued.