The Woman in Red & Black

I felt like I was paralyzed inside the coffin. I could barely breathe and tried to move because of the tight space. I tried to open it, yet it was too heavy. I scratched the lid over and over again, but I felt like someone buried me from under. It felt suffocating to be inside here, unable to move.

That's when I realised I was just having sleep paralysis. I couldn't bear anymore twists of any sorts in my life full of madness. It was just a night terror. I felt confused during my awakening of sleep. I tried to look around for clues, puzzled, asking myself the bare question of "What the hell?" without any other inquiries for just 'What the hell?', merely.

That's when I fell back asleep, just to wake up the following morning.

Please, no more false dream-realities! I HAD ENOUGH!!!

I just lied down… thinking of my life. I sat up, adjusted my vision, reminisced my thoughts, became dissociated, which makes it worse with the theta stage of my brain frequency from being half awake.

I got up, almost fell down as I held onto the computer desk, fireworks in my visions because of the blood from my head from lying down all night drastically dropping down my body. Finally got myself a bit stable and functional right after a few seconds.

Then, headed outside of the bedroom expecting I would be in North Carolina living with my brother's new family. However, it wasn't. This has to be another alternate universe I am living in.

I am still at my home in the Philippines, specifically in the village of San Juan Nepomuceno, in the district of Betis of Guagua Town, and the province is Pampanga. Let's see… in the island of Luzon, at the far south of North Central Luzon. No no, I am in Region III of the Philippines. Ah, yes! That is it!

I remember now. Sometimes my mind does not know where I am, or who I even am, not to mention my stupid age, to be truthful.

And yes, I realised that my father, well… he passed away from a heart attack because he couldn't afford more medications for his cholesterol, liver, triglycerides, and high blood pressure all because he had to focus what's left of our money for his prostate cancer. Which hurt him the most this entire time, living with him.

That's when I got online on the computer, realising that in this world, it could probably be the apparent reality that I do have a stalker. Her name is Mei. I don't know where she lives, but she usually sends pictures of me from the previous places I've been, takes pictures of myself without my consent and just sends them to me. She even has a shrine dedicated to me. She has the cup I bought from my favourite cafe, Cafe Beanismo, the rival of Housebrew where they are right beside each other at the gas station right in front of my old school, Saint Mary's Academy, in San Roque of Guagua.

That cup, she usually sends me videos of herself making out with the exact same part where I put my mouth to drink from the cup. I could only see her luscious lips dyed by a black lipstick, and her tongue swirling around it as if she's tempting to seduce me. How do I know this? Well, obviously, that cup has my name marked on it by a Pentel pen. And I usually drink at the back of the cup's name so people will know who I am.

And that is where she was trying to seduce me by making out with that exact same area of the cup.

She would usually spam me with messages on all my socials. Showing the most insane red flags. No matter how many times I block her, she creates triple times more alternate accounts.

She even threatened to black mail me that could cause legal issues if I ever "cheated" or "broke up" with her despite I never agreed on a relationship.

She must be delusional to think that I don't even know this person and she would just act out around telling everyone I am her boyfriend.

I swear to God, there are a lot of people in Pampanga always bullying me for "dating a crazy person" despite I don't even know who this person is!

But, if I were to be honest. I do am kind of lonely, but would it even be worth it to at least ask her out on a date? I know I have self-esteem issues when my ego is too low, which is all the time nowadays after someone gave me a reality check for having an inflated ego, and of course my charming and charismatic narcissism had died down into a spiral of depression and anxiety.

Having myself to be self-loathing most of the time if I wasn't writing at the moment.

Before we even met online, it so happened that someone joined the WebNovel Discord Server. And I was always kind to the newcomers and would sometimes flex my skills to the point an author friend of mine had to make an inside joke/meme about it.

Such as a picture of an anime character of a volleyball show on CrunchyRoll having his hands holding together, smiling, with the captions saying, "EXCUSE ME- me who wrote 110k words within a week: sussy baka uwu", which it became so viral in WebNovel to the point where they had to make thousands of variations of the meme itself.

I was just known for my bipolar mania and caffeine addiction that makes me write that fast. Which it didn't go well at all, if I were to be honest.

It was my biggest flex ever that someone had to be toxic having the audacity to say, "No one asked." which would fire back because my friends there support me.

I posted that one meme once when there was a newbie coming into the chat and this person, Mei, was shocked and thought of me as a bigshot, not just because of that. It was also because she knew I was a published author on Amazon and Google Play with over 10 books published, yet most of them were delisted to become a compilation of volumes in one novel in the platform itself. Just to get more recognition and since WebNovel pays better.

I slid into her direct messages to talk to her, where she shows a bit of unstable excitement, acting as if we were close friends already, despite I barely met her.

She even called me her "Hubby" even though we never talked about dating yet. She had signs of erotomania. For those who don't know, Erotomania is a clinical disorder where an obsessed number one fan believes they are dating their favourite celebrity.

But I just let this slide anyway, since myself being an egoist makes me feel better.

To the point where we actually agreed on dating. But when I read her mind with my psionic vampiric power. That's when I realised she's been stalking me for months, way before I even published my first work on WebNovel.

That's when I asked her in a charming and jesting way if she only came to the server just to find me and meet me because she was my biggest fan of my books.

I was joking when I asked this, but she admitted it. She acted extremely clingy and super close to me. I don't know whether I should be happy or terrified of what my future with her would be like.

But it shouldn't be as bad when I was with Toby, right? RIGHT?!

Because she knows too much about me that I never told her! She can even predict what I'm about to say, as if she memorised my speaking patterns. And she even talks exactly like me, as if she mirrored my entire personality and downloaded into her brain as an input to her new identity.

She barely read a few chapters of my book, which she claims to be honest about. But she knows more of my life than my books. It feels like she's been watching me since I was born or something.

I thought she knew my life because I talk in metaphors in my books as a representation of my reality and my experiences with my entire life.

But she swore she read a bit of it, but literally knows everything about my life. That's when things tensed for me. Knowing the fact that whether I should even ask her out today or not.

But it's been getting lonely here. So, I stared at my phone, thinking hard.

"Should I even ask her out today? Or not…?"

I have to think about it, I should relax and go get a cigarette. Wait no! I have to ask her out. It's the only way to calm her obsession over me. Otherwise I'd end up tied up in her basement and eat nothing but cans of beans for days.

Worse, it could end up in a non consensual BDSM dungeon for both of us.

I picked up the phone and dialled her number.

It rang and rang, and rang. But she wasn't picking up.

I sighed and just lost hope for myself. Why am I even calling her? Why am I even asking her out? Do I like her? Wait, do I HAVE FEELINGS FOR HER?! My stomach is feeling weird, and my heart is throbbing hard and fast. It feels like I'm palpitating, but… not in a bad way. It almost feels like… I am in love with her. Is this what Stockholm's syndrome feels like?