I first noticed something wrong when I came home and my living room smelled like someone else’s breath.
I told myself it was nothing. I had just finished another night shift at the small supermarket outside town, and my head felt foggy. Still, the smell stayed with me. It wasn’t mine, and it wasn’t the flat’s usual mix of old carpet and cold air.
For most of 2018, I lived in a tiny place above a bakery in Kent. The flat shook every morning when the ovens fired up, but it was cheap and close to work. My parents lived an hour away, so the place felt like my first real step into adult life. I worked nights to save money, walked home before sunrise, and slept until late afternoon. It was quiet. Predictable.
Then little things started to shift.
At first it was my throw blanket. I always folded it neatly on the arm of the couch. One morning, it was crumpled in the middle of the cushions, like someone had curled up in it. I blamed myself. Maybe I tossed it aside before work and forgot.
The next day, the remote was under the couch. I laughed it off, even though I could picture clearly where I’d left it. I was tired. Night shifts do that.
But on the third morning, the lamp on my side table was turned toward the wall. I froze. That was new. The plug felt warm under my fingers. Warm meant it had been on. I knew I hadn’t touched it.
A small voice in my head whispered that someone had been in my flat, but the door was always locked. I kept the only key on a chain inside my pocket. I tried to shrug it all away. I didn’t want to seem paranoid.
That week, I worked six nights in a row. On Friday morning, I walked in and dropped my bag by the door. The living room light was on. Not the small lamp. The overhead light.
I reached for the switch to turn it off, but my hand shook. There was a faint trace of warmth in the room, like someone had been sitting there minutes before. My couch cushion had a dent I didn’t recognise. I touched it gently. Still warm.
I backed away. My breath grew thin, but I forced myself to check the windows. All closed. All locked.
I should have called someone then, but I didn’t. I kept telling myself there had to be a normal explanation. Maybe the building’s wiring had issues. Maybe the light had been on when I left for work and I didn’t remember.
I tried to sleep, but every creak made me flinch. When I finally drifted off, it was after sunrise.
The next night at work, I couldn’t concentrate. Customers talked to me and I nodded without hearing them. Every quiet moment made me picture my couch and the shape pressed into it.
Around three in the morning, my manager found me in the storeroom staring at a crate of canned soup. She asked if I was alright. I lied and said I was fine.
At the end of the shift, I walked home slower than usual. The sky was a dark blue. The bakery downstairs hadn’t opened yet. I stood outside my building for a moment and stared up at the window of my living room.
The curtains were drawn. They hadn’t been that way when I left.
I climbed the stairs with my keys clutched in my fist. The hallway smelled like damp plaster and something else. A faint sour smell. Like sweat.
My door was still locked. That gave me a bit of relief. I pushed it open and stepped inside.
The flat was silent. I reached for the light switch, but before I touched it, I saw something on the floor by the couch. A small, dark shape. I walked closer.
It was a sock. Not mine. Too big and the wrong colour. Grey with a hole near the toe.
My skin prickled. I backed away slowly and reached for my phone. Before I could dial, something creaked in the kitchen.
Not a loud sound. Soft. Careful.
I stared at the kitchen doorway. The light in there was off, but a faint outline moved behind the doorframe. Someone was in my flat. Someone had been living in it while I worked.
My hands shook so hard the phone nearly slipped from my fingers. I managed to call the police. I whispered that someone was inside with me. The operator told me to stay calm and step outside if I could.
I didn’t look back at the kitchen. I just ran for the hallway and slammed the door behind me. I stood near the stairs and waited, listening for any movement inside, but the flat stayed quiet.
Two officers arrived within minutes. They went in with flashlights drawn. I kept my eyes on the doorway. One of them called out. No answer.
Then I heard footsteps. Heavy. Quick. A shout. A scuffle. Something crashed.
The officers dragged a man out of my flat. He looked about thirty, with tangled hair and hollow eyes. His clothes hung off him like he hadn’t changed in weeks. He didn’t look at me. He just stared at the floor.
They said he had slipped in through the bakery’s side entrance weeks ago. Apparently he found a broken storage hatch behind the ovens that led into the wall space. From there, he could crawl into the area above the bakery and get into my flat through an old maintenance panel behind my couch.
The panel was so well hidden I had never noticed it.
He had been watching my routine. Waiting for me to leave every night. Sleeping on my couch. Eating things from my kitchen. Moving bits of my stuff. Sometimes turning on the lamp and reading. He had even taken showers when he knew I’d be gone for hours.
The officers said he didn’t seem violent. Just desperate. Lost.
But when I remembered the warm cushion, the dent where someone’s head had been, and the sock he had left on my floor, I couldn’t breathe right.
I moved out that weekend.
Sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I swear I hear the faint shift of someone settling into a couch. I sit up, heart pounding, and remind myself I’m in a different place now.
But every now and then, I find my blanket folded the wrong way. And for a few quiet seconds, I wonder if he ever really left.
