“Emily… don’t go to work today. Please. Trust me.”

I blinked, confused. “Ethan, what are you talking about? Are you okay?”

He shook his head violently. His eyes were glassy, almost frightened. “Just—just stay inside today. Don’t step outside. If you do… it’s all going to end.”

That sentence gutted me. Ethan wasn’t the dramatic type. He wasn’t strange or paranoid. He was a quiet, courteous, slightly nerdy software engineer who watered his plants and fixed his motorcycle on the weekends. Seeing him like this—shaking, terrified—made my stomach twist.

“Ethan, tell me what’s wrong,” I pressed.

He looked over his shoulder down the hallway, then back at me. “I can’t. Not yet.” His voice cracked. “Just promise me you’ll stay home.”

Before I could say anything else, he hurried down the stairs and vanished.

I barely slept after that. I paced the living room for hours, replaying his expression, his tone, the way his hands trembled. Something terrible was happening—something he couldn’t tell me.

By 9 a.m., I tried calling him. No answer. I texted. Nothing. I even knocked on his door, but it was locked, silent.

My heart beat so loud I could feel it in my throat.

At 11:30 a.m., my phone rang. Unknown number.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Is this Emily Turner?” a man asked.

“Yes.”

“This is Officer Delgado with the Seattle Police Department.” He paused. “Ma’am… we need you to come down to the station regarding your neighbor, Ethan Cole.”

My entire body went cold.

“What happened?” I whispered.

There was another long pause. And then—

“Ma’am… Ethan is dead.”

The phone slipped from my hand.

I drove to the police station in a daze, gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles whitened. I kept seeing Ethan’s terrified face in my mind. How could he have died just hours after warning me not to leave my apartment?

When I arrived, Officer Delgado guided me into a quiet interview room. A female detective entered—Detective Marissa Grant, sharp-eyed, composed.

“Ms. Turner,” she began gently, “you were the last person Ethan spoke to.”

My throat tightened. “What happened to him?”

She folded her hands. “Ethan was found in the parking garage beneath your building around 10 a.m. It appears he… fell from the sixth floor.”

I felt the air leave my lungs. “He wouldn’t jump. Ethan wasn’t suicidal.”

“We aren’t ruling anything out,” she said carefully. “But based on security footage, we know he was running. He looked frightened.”

That made my blood run cold.

“Running from what?” I asked.

Detective Grant slid a small bag across the table. Inside was a folded piece of paper. “This was in his jacket.”

I hesitated, then opened it.

Emily don’t go to work. I’m so sorry. —E.

My heart cracked. The note wasn’t messy or panicked. It was intentional—like he’d written it before knocking on my door.

“Why would he write this?” I whispered.

Detective Grant leaned back. “That’s what we’re trying to understand. His phone was missing. His apartment was neat—no signs of a struggle. But his computer was wiped at 3 a.m.”

“Wiped?” I repeated.

“Completely erased. And the hard drive removed.”

I stared at her. “Are you saying someone did this to him?”

She exhaled slowly. “We’re considering the possibility that Ethan was involved in something… bigger. Maybe he discovered something at work. Maybe he was threatened. And maybe he was trying to protect you.”

My heart hammered. That last sentence didn’t feel hypothetical—it felt certain.

“Detective,” I said quietly, “hours before he died, Ethan told me if I stepped outside today… it would all end.”

Detective Grant’s eyes narrowed. “End? As in your life?”

I nodded.

“We need you to think carefully,” she said. “Did Ethan ever mention trouble at work? Anyone following him? Any sudden changes in behavior?”

I closed my eyes, and one memory flashed:

Last week, Ethan had asked if my building’s back entrance camera worked.

I’d laughed. “Why? Are you being chased?”

He didn’t laugh with me.

Detective Grant leaned forward. “Emily, anything you tell us could help us understand what Ethan was afraid of.”

I swallowed hard. “Last week he asked if the back entrance camera was still broken. He seemed… nervous. He said someone might’ve been outside the building recently, watching the garage.”

Her expression sharpened. “Did he say who?”

“No,” I murmured. “But he looked over his shoulder the same way he did this morning.”

The detective stood. “We need to pull every camera around your building. If Ethan believed someone was following him, they may have been there last night.”

My chest tightened. “Detective… am I in danger?”

She didn’t answer immediately. That silence alone terrified me.

“We’ll assign officers to keep an eye on your building,” she finally said. “Until we understand why Ethan warned you.”

While she stepped out to make calls, I sat alone, staring at the note in the evidence bag. Why me? Why had Ethan come to my door specifically? We weren’t close—just friendly neighbors who exchanged leftovers and occasionally complained about the laundry room.

But then I remembered something that made my stomach clench.

Last month, Ethan had knocked on my door late at night—around 11 p.m. He looked shaken then too. He’d said his front door had been tampered with. I offered to call the building manager, but he insisted it was fine.

What if it wasn’t fine?

What if that was when it all started?

Detective Grant returned. “Emily, we found something.”

I stood quickly. “What is it?”

“Footage from the south alley. Around 4:50 a.m., about ten minutes before Ethan knocked on your door, a black SUV parked behind your building. Two men got out. They went toward the rear entrance.”

A shiver ran down my spine. “Ethan saw them.”

“That’s our working theory.”

I covered my mouth. “Then he came to warn me.”

Grant nodded. “And whatever he tried to stop… might not be over yet.”

My knees nearly gave out. Ethan’s warning—“If you step outside today, it’s all going to end”—didn’t feel like paranoia anymore. It felt like a countdown he tried to break.

I exhaled shakily. “Detective… what do I do now?”

Grant handed me her card. “Stay alert. Don’t leave alone. And if you remember anything—no matter how small—you call me.”

As I left the station, I looked at Ethan’s building across from mine and whispered, “I won’t let what you did be for nothing.”

And honestly… if you were in my place, what would you do next?
Your thoughts might help me see a detail I’m missing.

PART 2

That night, I barely slept. Every sound outside my window made me jump. Even the hum of the elevator felt sinister. I kept replaying the moment Ethan stood on my doorstep, eyes wide, begging me not to go to work.

Around 2 a.m., my phone buzzed.

A text from an unknown number:

“YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN WITH HIM.”

My blood turned to ice.

I forwarded it immediately to Detective Grant and tried to call her, but it went to voicemail. I emailed her the screenshot too, hands shaking. I didn’t know whether to run, hide, or cry.

Twenty minutes later, someone knocked on my door.

Not a gentle knock. A hard, urgent one.

I froze. My apartment suddenly felt too small, too bright, too exposed.

“Emily Turner? It’s Officer Hale.”
A male voice. Calm, professional.

I opened the door just a crack. A uniformed officer stood there, badge visible.

“Detective Grant asked us to check on you. You reported a threat?”

I let him in and showed him the message. He whistled under his breath. “This isn’t a prank. This is targeted.”

I felt dizzy. “What do they want from me?”

He looked around my apartment, checking windows and the balcony. “Often, when someone is trying to scare a witness or silence someone… they escalate. You need to think: did Ethan ever mention anything specific? Any names? Any companies?”

I shook my head—but then paused.

Two weeks ago, Ethan had mentioned his tech company, Celeron Dynamics, was developing something “big.” He’d said it casually while we rode the elevator, joking about staying late at work. But now the memory felt heavier.

“Officer Hale,” I said quietly, “I think something happened at his job.”

He stopped pacing. “Why do you say that?”

“He said they were working on a data project that he didn’t trust. Something about ‘misuse.’ But he laughed it off.”

Hale nodded slowly. “I’ll pass that to the detectives.”

Before he left, he looked me straight in the eyes. “Emily, whatever Ethan knew… someone thinks you know it too.”

When the door closed behind him, I slid down to the floor, hugging my knees. My apartment felt like a trap. The shadows felt alive—even though I knew nothing supernatural was happening. It was all horrifyingly real.

And Ethan… he must have died trying to stop these people.

The question that gnawed at me was simple, brutal, and growing louder:

Why me? Why warn me?

By morning, Detective Grant called me in urgently. “Emily, we need to talk—in person. Now.”

At the station, she ushered me into her office, shutting the door behind us.

“We looked into Ethan’s company,” she said without sitting down. “Celeron Dynamics is under federal review. Unofficially. They’re suspected of selling personal data to private contractors off the record.”

“That sounds illegal,” I whispered.

“Oh, it is,” she replied. “And it gets worse. Someone attempted to breach a government server recently—same signature patterns as Celeron’s internal systems.”

My breath caught. “Are you saying Ethan was involved?”

“We don’t know yet. But we do know this: Ethan’s work computer wasn’t just wiped. It was wiped remotely from outside the country.”

The room tilted slightly.

Grant walked to her desk and picked up a folder. “We also recovered partial video footage. At 5:03 a.m. yesterday—right after Ethan left your apartment—two men were seen entering your building from the same SUV. They went up the stairwell toward your floor.”

My stomach lurched. “They were coming for me?”

“Or they were coming for Ethan, knowing he’d go to you.” She paused. “Emily… you may have been his safe point.”

The idea stunned me. “But why? We weren’t close.”

Grant opened the folder and slid a printed email across the table. “This was recovered from a backup system at Celeron. It was a draft—never sent. Ethan wrote it at 2:17 a.m. the night he died.”

I read it, hands trembling.

Emily—
If something happens to me, there’s a file with your name on it. I needed someone I trust. You don’t know what you’re walking into, but you’re safer than me. Please don’t go to work until I explain. I’m sorry.
—Ethan

My vision blurred. “A file…? With my name on it?”

Grant nodded. “We think Ethan moved sensitive information out of his work system—possibly evidence—and put it somewhere only you could access. That could be why someone wanted to stop you both.”

I felt sick. “So I’m a target because of something he tried to protect?”

“Exactly.”

Grant leaned toward me. “If this file is real, it could expose a huge crime. But until we find it… you are in danger.”

I exhaled shakily. “Where would he hide something like that?”

And then it hit me—so hard I gasped.

His motorcycle.

Ethan always said, “My bike is my brain. Everything important is with me.”

And right before he died… his motorcycle wasn’t in the garage.

Detective Grant drove with me to Ethan’s storage unit—the one he used whenever he worked on his motorcycle. The metal door rattled loudly as an officer rolled it up.

Inside, his bike sat in the center like a shrine. Tools hung on the wall. A jacket draped over a chair. Everything neat, intentional… very Ethan.

Grant gestured. “Search carefully. People hide flash drives in strange places.”

My heart hammered. I walked around the motorcycle slowly. The seat looked slightly lifted on one side. That wasn’t like him—Ethan was meticulous.

I pressed my fingers under the leather cushion and felt something taped there.

A small black USB drive.

My breath hitched. “Detective… I found it.”

Grant hurried over as I handed it to her. She held it like it was a piece of fragile bone.

“We’ll have our cyber team extract whatever’s on this,” she said. “Emily, this could be the key to everything.”

As officers finished securing the area, I wandered deeper into the storage unit. A cardboard box sat in the corner, labeled in Ethan’s precise handwriting:

“IF ANYTHING HAPPENS.”

My chest tightened. With Grant’s permission, I opened it.

Inside were:

• A printed stack of documents

• Screenshots of internal company emails

• Photos of what looked like encrypted code patterns

• And at the bottom… a letter addressed to me

Hands trembling, I unfolded it.

Emily,
If you’re reading this, then I couldn’t stop them. I didn’t know who else to trust. Everyone at work is compromised. I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see, and I knew they’d come for me next.
You were the only person who treated me like a human being. No expectations. No judgment.
I’m sorry I brought this to your doorstep, but you deserve to live. Please survive long enough to tell the truth.
— Ethan

Tears blurred the ink. I pressed the letter to my chest. “He didn’t deserve this,” I whispered.

Grant rested a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll take it from here. You’re under police protection now.”

As we left the storage unit, the weight on my chest grew heavier—but so did my resolve. Ethan trusted me with something enormous. Something dangerous. Something that cost him his life.

And now… I wasn’t just a random neighbor.

I was the last witness.

I was the last person he tried to save.

The case, the threat, the truth—none of it was over. But one thing was clear:

Ethan didn’t die running away. He died running toward me.

I exhaled into the cold air. “I’ll finish what you started.”

And if you were standing beside me right now—holding this letter, knowing everything I know—
would you keep going, or would you walk away?
I’m genuinely curious what you would do next.