#Chapter 29: A Man in the Woods

I must have stared at the note for twenty minutes. Reading it over and over, scrutinizing the way each letter curved and perfectly arched, the smooth black ink’s trail in the ivory, the capital S positioned like an elegant snake. I was holding my recent paranoia and insanity in my very hands; the threats I had been trying to predict, the thoughts slowly infecting my mind, now placed right on my nightstand. My worries materialized into a real threat.

The note in the garden was more of a warning–not a threat. Now, the threat was written bluntly, as if it was a cold slap to the face.

I watched the night submit to the dawn, still gripping the note between my fingers, a cool sweat coating my spine.

If someone I love was being threatened, I had to do something about it. It was still dark enough to be concealed; the sun had not yet peeked over the horizon. It must have been around 4 a.m. Between night and day, between the unconscious and the conscious.

A perfe