I have been stalking my ex-girlfriend. I have a good reason.

I want to preface this by stating that I am not a good person, though I try to be. I’ve had a troubling past, got mixed in with the wrong internet crowd, and a lot of toxic ideologies. I began stalking when I was 16, after my first girlfriend left me for another guy and I, in my pain, found myself reading about similar experiences in forums I shouldn’t have been in, and got the idea of “getting back at her” from said internet spaces.

As I grew up, I began agreeing more and more with some ideas about women that made me a pathetic and insecure man. I became severely attached to my partners and wanted to have total control, always fearful they might be cheating on me or doing something else to try and hurt me. It didn’t help that I was always rushing into relationships, always trying to avoid that sense of utter loneliness that came with being single. That came with partners who hurt me, partners I hurt, and some mutually-assured destruction. My insecurity and distrust made me a somewhat skillful stalker, and I secretly spied on my partners however I could.

I will not share the methods I used here, for that might invite others to try the same thing which is not my objective. When I was 24, my stalking and hateful behavior almost got me in jail. I got a restraining order, was required to attend anger management classes, and therapy. It was the first time I had to face consequences for my abhorrent actions, and while I’ll be the first one to admit that these consequences weren’t as severe as some people might want for people like me, they ended up actually helping in setting me straight.

My therapist was an older woman I’ll call Ms. Price. She helped me a lot in dealing with my issues, all the deep-seated hatred and insecurities I had. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be who I am today, six years later. She learned every bad thing I went through, every horrible thing did, and showed me kindness and understanding I never thought I deserved. Over time, she became a sort of motherly figure for me, and although at 26 I had made so much progress that my visits became more sporadic, I still kept in contact with her via email and social media.

Three years ago, I met Emma. A gorgeous girl with a bubbly personality and a heart of gold, always wearing muted greens and reds in sweaters and scarfs, silky brown hair reaching down her back, and a pair of round glasses that completed that cozy look that immediately made me feel attracted to her. Feeling like I could do better now that I had overcome a lot of my issues, I struck up a conversation with her.

Since our first interaction, I felt static in the air. She was such a fun person to talk to, everything she said got my immediate interest. Despite my sudden approach, she was nonetheless friendly and, after an impromptu first date, we found ourselves following each other on social media and exchanging phone numbers.

The instant attraction was mutual, that much was clear. We made plans to go out again the very next week, and over time our dates became more frequent as we became more involved in each other’s life. Emma was a light fantasy writer and had a blog in which she posted short stories on, she was fairly popular and even had a novel on the works. When I first got to read her works, I was immediately transported into the worlds she portrayed with pen and paper. Truly, my new friend had clear talent and that aspect made me fall for even more.

Still, I made sure to take it slow. I wanted the both of us to get to know each other better before asking her to be my girlfriend. After five months, however, Emma was the one that confessed her love for me. I was so happy to hear that from her, but I knew I couldn’t start a relationship with her without telling her about my past.

So I did. I told her everything, the things I’d done, the things that were done to me. I tried to be as raw as possible, not to excuse my actions in any way and to show I was trying to be a better man.

And sweet, sweet Emma, decided to give me a chance. She was truly an angel, and I promised to myself that I’d be the best boyfriend I could for her. Our relationship developed a lot quicker after that, and while I often found myself thinking of checking her phone for anything suspicious while she left it unattended, or trying to look through the list of people she followed in her accounts, I always stopped myself before I could act on it. I tried my best to trust her, and I was always honest about having those thoughts with her.

Sometimes, she’d show me the people she was talking to all on her own, trying to ease my worries when I was struggling the most. Emma cared deeply about me and wanted me to get better, her openness was so refreshing, and it was something I had never experienced before. Her support meant the most to me, and over time, I found myself able to feel at ease while being with her.

There were still times I felt a worry or need to do something stalker-ish, but it became a lot easier to manage, as I had no real reason to doubt Emma in the slightest. In my happiest moments, I considered both Emma and Ms. Price to be my saviors.

Everything changed about a year and a half into our relationship. Emma was an only child, and still very involved in her parents’ lives despite living on her own and being only a year younger than me. I couldn’t say the same about me, my parents hated me for becoming such an awful person, and they were unwilling to give me a second chance. I understood where they were coming from, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

It was wintertime, and Emma’s parents invited us to a trip in the mountains. By that point, we had been acquainted for a while, and thanks to their kindness—no doubt where Emma got that from—I felt like I had a family again.

Tragically, I was unable to go, as my work kept me especially busy on the days leading to Christmas day. Sometimes I wish I had gone, maybe things would’ve gone differently then. The day before New Year’s eve, a man called me on the phone, claiming to be a man named Hank, one of Emma’s uncles. He said I was listed as Emma’s emergency contact, and told me the bad news: Emma and her parents had gotten into an accident. Apparently, a bear managed to get into their cabin and things got ugly. The bear killed both her parents, and while Emma herself ended mostly unharmed, save for a few minor injuries, the experience severely traumatized her.

“Damn unfortunate to come across a bear during wintertime” he said solemnly. I couldn’t put it any better, and that very same day I found myself rushing to the hospital Emma was in.

The woman that laid on that hospital bed was almost unrecognizable. She had white bandages wrapped around her left arm and upper thigh, some splotches of dried blood clearly shown in various spots. Truly, the injuries didn’t seem that bad, but her expression… It was an expression I had never seen in her face. Neither anger nor sorrow, rather complete emptiness.

A nurse told me that she was still in an emotional shock, and that it might take weeks or even months for her to recover. As I tried talking to her, she replied to me in a dry, monotone tone. Her eyes looked dead, as if there was nothing left of the woman I loved. Later, I found she had incurred memory-loss.

Weeks passed, and I had her move in with me so I could take care of her. It was an uncomfortable time, but I genuinely wanted to take care of her and help her recover. She became clumsy, and she had forgotten even the most basic of things. I had to teach her things like how to eat properly and how to cook. She was re-learning many things, including some she taught me herself in the past, and most of her friends and family were severely worried for her well being. I sought the aid of specialists in the medical field, and was told it was most likely due to high stress or perhaps some head injury we didn’t know about. After getting some studies done, we were told they could find no such injury.

At least her ability to re-learn these skills wasn’t impeded in the slightest, and it seemed as if her mind was as sharp as ever. It was a tough time, and with memory loss, I was also forced to manage her social media and keep note of her passwords while she re-adjusted. This gave me a lot of unwanted power over all her messages and information, but I felt proud for being able to fight those urges with relative ease.

Six months later, things came back to a somewhat normal state. Emma learned things quickly, and seemed to become more efficient at doing everything than before. That also came with a shift in personality, however. Her bubbly and kind demeanor changed to a more serious and uncaring attitude. It was as if she had become a completely different person, as if my Emma wasn’t there anymore.

At first, she wouldn’t even hug me, and I didn’t want to try any kind of intimacy knowing she didn’t remember her feelings for me. We didn’t even sleep together, I just let her sleep in my bed while I slept on the couch. As she began getting better and questioned what our relationship was, I told her that she could decide that once she processed her feelings for me. As much as it hurt, I didn’t want her to feel forced to be with me if she didn’t feel love anymore. Soon after, she started demonstrating affection in weird ways. She would bite me, over time with greater intensity, and lick my arms or neck. All the while, still unwilling to hug me often, or even kiss.

After that, I would wake up in the middle of the night and find her standing next to me, staring. Often, I’d shriek in horror at the sudden sight of a dark figure in front of me, but as it became a common occurrence, I got used to it. Every time I asked her what she was doing, she told me she couldn’t sleep that night, and that watching me sleep helped her sleep as well. I began growing increasingly worried, but as she never once hurt me while I slept, I tried to bear with it as best as I could.

To make things simple, I had her use one of my emails so she could learn how to use my computer at the start, since her laptop got destroyed in the attack. After she had readjusted, it became a habit for her to keep using that email while using my PC, even though her phone had her normal email in it. She didn’t seem to find any reason to switch emails or even manage multiple accounts anymore, she was comfortable simply using what was on each device by default.

A few months ago, while using my computer alone, I decided to check my browser history to look for a website I was visiting the day prior and had forgotten the name of. Naturally, the searches there were a mix of mine and hers, so I didn’t bat an eye when I saw random video searches I didn’t look for, or the odd site here and there. That was until a specific search caught my eye, “Jobs that work with fresh corpses.”

This was quite off-putting, but I tried to rationalize that maybe she was writing again and needed some inspiration. After all, her memory loss also came with changes to her interests, and while she no longer was into writing, she developed a taste for horror that could be leading into, perhaps, writing stories of a different genre.

The odd search got me curious, and I began to look further down the search history. I could find a lot of true crime, urban legends and close encounters with monsters. I also noticed that, every few weeks, she would look for reports on the incident that took her parent’s life, often looking at the original publications and the few updates made throughout the initial months. Although she didn’t seem to remember it, she appeared to have gained some sort of morbid curiosity for the subject.

As I scrolled back closer to Christmas, closer to the time I began teaching her how to use my computer, I found more crude search results, such as “Human rituals”, “How to show emotions”, “How to live with others”, “Common roadkill sites” (looked for specifically with the name of our town in the search) and “Is it socially acceptable to eat another human”.

I had a deeply unsettling feeling, but I couldn’t come to any conclusion yet. From then on, I began observing Emma more closely, and at the same time, she began getting more involved in doing housework. While she would refuse to cook, she’d always watch me prepare meals for the both of us. On one occasion, I cut my finger while chopping some vegetables, and before I could react, Emma had it in her mouth sucking the blood out. She said she just wanted to help, but I decided to be more careful after that odd display. When she looked at me, I noticed how her calm demeanor hid something behind it. Something I couldn’t understand at that point yet still made me feel uncomfortable.

I decided to set up a hidden camera with night vision in my living room, pointed at the couch where I slept. I checked the footage recorded at night on a phone app that came with the camera, and noticed her nightly visits continued, now—if not from the start—they were happening every single night.

Over time, I installed more hidden cameras around the house over time, making sure they weren’t many to reduce the chance of her finding them. After watching the footage, I noticed that she had a habit of always standing in front of the window, peeking through the blinds and looking at me as I drove off. Then, she’d walk to my computer or sit down and simply look at videos or read things all day long, that blank, unchanging expression she used to have coming back and only leaving once I was back or when she had to leave the house.

Originally, she didn’t leave the house much. But as she became more comfortable being alone, she gradually made a habit of getting groceries on her own while I was at work, messaging me to ask if I wanted anything. Knowing what I knew, this started to look suspicious as well, so one day, I decided to follow her to clear my doubts.

That day, I took the day off and lied to her, telling her I was heading to work. The day before, I placed a tracker in her car I bought a few days earlier, and that morning I sneaked out a change of clothes and a pair of binoculars in my suitcase, then drove my own car to a parking lot near a car rental place to rent one for the day.

After that, I switched clothes, checked the tracker on the app, and began following her around. I felt guilty about returning to my old ways and disappointing Ms. Price, but I told myself this time wasn’t out of jealousy or insecurity, rather it was due to fear for my safety.

She did what any normal person would do: Visit the mall and a few smaller stores. The thing that scared me the most was what I found she did after.

I followed Emma back home, making sure to keep my distance, and parked the car a few streets away, far enough to be unnoticed and close enough to use my binoculars. After she parked and carried the groceries inside, I looked at my phone and accessed the camera’s app to look at her in real time. She took everything out of the bags and put everything in its respective place, but left a block of raw meat, I think it was beef, out on the counter. Next, she got a mop and a bucket, took off all her clothes, threw them on a nearby couch, grabbed a chunk of meat and began eating it.

My jaw hit the bottom of the car as I looked at my now ex girlfriend eating raw meat with nothing on, the fresh blood dripping down her mouth and into her chest and abdomen in a way that reminded me of some sort of satanic ritual or the like.  I felt sick to my stomach, unsure if this was some sort of mental illness or something else, and the somewhat low quality of the chewing noises and her grunts simply added to the bizarre experience.

Then, as I recovered from the shock and tried to make sense of what I was seeing and hearing, I recalled her search history and her strange fascination with the attack that killed her parents. I believe in the paranormal, but had never experienced anything myself, and I was wondering if what attacked Emma and her parents that day wasn’t a bear, but something else. If maybe—just maybe—my beloved girlfriend had fallen victim to the monster as well, and it had come back pretending to be her.

Looking back at the video feed, she kept eating the entire chunk of meat, probably about four pounds (though I couldn’t really tell from the video alone), until it was completely gone. It was an insane amount of meat that no human should eat in a single day, let alone in a single meal. After that, she mopped down the floor, cleaned herself with a few napkins, brought them to the bathroom and flushed them down the toilet. Lastly, she went to take a shower.

All the evidence of her feast: gone, were it not for me having a recording of it. As far as I could tell, this was the first time she did something like that on the house. No other recordings showed her doing anything like that in the past.

That night, I came back home still pretending to have worked. Fortunately, she didn’t ask about it, and we spent the night peacefully. Just in case, I put the phone on my pajama pants, grabbed a kitchen knife, and slid it under my pillow before going to bed. I was twisting and turning, unable to sleep in the slightest. Suddenly, I heard the door of my room open, and I pretended to be asleep as Emma walked towards me and stood right in front of the couch. I half-opened my eyes and saw the woman I used to love, her face perfectly illuminated by moonlight, mine obscured by penumbra.

From that experience, I was able to understand the look in her eyes. That look that had sent shivers down my spine multiple times even though I didn’t know why.

It was hunger; a ravenous, primal hunger.

I was her prey.

I couldn’t move, my breathing started to get heavy and I had to do my best to keep it under control. I pretended to be asleep while that thing kept looking at me. It felt like I was stuck in that uncomfortable space for hours, but whatever the actual time was, she left after a while. When I felt the danger had passed, I was finally able to fall asleep, and did so almost immediately.

I woke up again with a sudden jolt of pain, and found Emma, or the thing masquerading as her, kneeling down and biting down on my left arm. I tried pulling away, and she bit down a chunk of skin off without mercy.

“What is wrong with you?!” I asked, the adrenaline quickly rushing through my body as I went on high alert and pushed her away, grabbing the knife with my right hand and pointing it at her while trying to step back.

Her words came out so desperate, her voice almost guttural and uncanny.

“I’m sorry, it’s just—just… your fear, it makes me even hungrier…”

I leaped back onto the couch and put my free hand in the back seat to try and flip around, but the weight I put all of a sudden made the couch fall backwards, and I stumbled sideways onto the floor behind, falling on my left side while the knife flew off my hand and landed nearby, in between me and the front door.

I looked back and “Emma” leaping at me like an animal, landing next to my left leg and biting into the calf. Even through the thick fabric of the pants I was wearing, I felt her teeth sinking into my skin like sharp needles, and while trying to kick at her with my other leg in an awkward way, I used my healthy hand to try and reach the knife.

Her mouth wouldn’t leave my calf, and it wasn’t until she managed to rip yet another chunk of my flesh, that she finally let me go. A hole in my pants with blood soaking into the fabric was the only indication that it was my only chance to leave, as it was clear I couldn’t fight this thing. I crawled pathetically towards the knife and picked it up, then leaned against the wall next to the front door to unlock it while the creature, now almost completely feral, struggled trying to spit out the cloth stuck in its teeth.

The next part was a blur. I recall opening the door and crawling out before closing it behind me. I think the adrenaline coursing through my veins was working overtime, because next thing I knew, I was running out the street in the middle of the night while the thing chased behind me. I don’t know how long that went for, but I’m sure that, had I not closed the door while it was distracted, it would’ve caught up to me before I was saved.

I didn’t know how this happened, as I lost consciousness when help arrived. I woke up a few days later, finding myself with bandages not only on my calf and wrist, but also on my stomach. I was told by one of the doctors that the damage I had incurred required surgery, and that there were two officers waiting for me to wake up to take my statement.

I told them what had happened, and fortunately, my phone survived the ordeal with just a few cracks on the screen. I showed them some of what I had gathered, leaving out any of my paranormal theories, and told them she began acting crazier and crazier since the accident with her parents.

After explaining everything, I found out what happened after I fell unconscious: A truck with some college guys coming back from a party stumbled across “Emma” in the middle of the road, digging her teeth into the side of my gut while I was unconscious. They said that the car’s headlights startled her, and at that moment they noticed what she was doing. They figured she was some sort of junkie and tried to scare her away. Fortunately, they had weapons on them, so after a few warning shots, the thing scurried away into the nearby woods. The guys called the police and an ambulance for me, and that’s how I ended up in the hospital.

That was two months ago. Since then, government officials came to my home and confiscated my cameras and electronics. I didn’t fight them on it, though I was upset I wouldn’t be allowed to have any video evidence of what happened. I was told there should be no further issues, but that I should change the locks and get a weapon, just in case.

The story that was given to the press was that Emma had suffered a mental breakdown and attacked me, but ran off before police could get to where the guys found me, and hadn’t been found since.

Nine people have gone missing in that time span. The first five were homeless, and sadly, that meant the police didn’t put too much effort in the investigation. Two weeks ago, a cargo worker, a nurse and a teacher went missing as well. This caused a larger stir in the public, and I hoped it was just a coincidence, but something told me that “it” might be involved.

Yesterday, I found that there was a new victim in the news. It was Ms. Price, whom I returned to for therapy after I recovered enough from surgery.

Now I find myself alone again, scared of something that might come and try to finish the job. I wonder if this is a punishment for all the wrongs I did in the past, if I got a taste of a perfect life just to be taken away by a force of nature, or perhaps something more malevolent.

If someone you love gets in a terrible accident where they’re the only survivors, and they seem to become a different person after that, be careful.

They might not be your loved one anymore.