My heart began to race. I opened the picture again, hands trembling slightly, and zoomed in on the rear window of the truck, my eyes darting over every detail. The sky was clear, the sun casting long golden streaks across the field behind me. For a moment, I convinced myself that maybe he was wrong—that what he saw was just a glare, maybe the angle of the light playing tricks. Or perhaps it was a tree in the distance, distorted by the curve of the glass. That seemed logical. Rational.
But then I looked again. This time, really looked.
That’s when my stomach dropped.
There was something there. Faint, almost easy to miss, but once you saw it, you couldn’t unsee it. A figure. The outline of a person, standing just a few feet behind me. Blurred by the reflection, yes, but distinct enough to make my pulse spike. Shoulders, arms, a posture that suggested stillness. Watching.
It was the hat that did it.
My breath hitched in my throat as my eyes landed on the silhouette’s head—wide-brimmed, tilted slightly forward, casting a shadow where a face should have been. And not just any hat. It looked exactly like the old, beaten-up baseball cap my ex used to wear. The navy one with the frayed edges and the faded logo on the front. The one he insisted was lucky. The one I’d thrown in the donation pile months ago, just to stop seeing it lying around.
But there it was, or something hauntingly similar, perched on the head of the figure in the window.
I sat back in my chair, the phone resting in my lap now, my mind racing through a flood of explanations—some reasonable, some not. Was it possible he had followed me? That he’d come all the way out to the field without making a sound, just to stand behind me? But why? And how had I not noticed anyone? I would’ve heard footsteps in the tall grass, felt someone approach. I was sure of it.
I remembered the day I’d taken the photo. I was out by the old truck, the one my uncle had left to rust at the edge of his property. I loved that spot—quiet, open, with nothing but the soft rustle of wind and the occasional bird overhead. I’d leaned against the truck door, holding up my phone to snap a picture of the scenery behind me, catching a bit of the window in the corner of the frame. It was peaceful. At least, it had felt that way at the time.
I told myself to stay calm. There had to be a logical explanation. Maybe someone had wandered through without me noticing. A hiker? A neighbor? But no. The land was private, and I would’ve seen or heard something. My gut told me this wasn’t just a coincidence.
Still, I couldn’t let myself spiral.
I picked up my phone and typed out a quick message to my friend, the one who had pointed it out in the first place. He had sent me the text just minutes earlier—“Hey, who’s that behind you?”—and now I was replying, trying hard to sound casual. “I’m sure it’s just a trick of the light, maybe a tree or something. I was alone.”
I stared at the message before hitting send, feeling the weight of it. Even as I typed the words, I knew they weren’t true. I had no real explanation, only a knot in my stomach and the growing unease that someone had been there. Watching me. Close enough to be caught in a photo I hadn’t even meant to take of them.
I closed the image but couldn’t stop thinking about it. The shape. The hat. The way the figure just stood there, motionless and silent, like a shadow that didn’t belong.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. But deep down, I knew this wasn’t over. Something wasn’t right, and the worst part was—I didn’t know if I wanted to find out the truth.
