It started with a single package. A gift from no one, from anonymous. The sentiment was evident. The obsession just on the threshold of observation. Glittering diamonds in an exquisite gold band. She’d stared in the shop window at it in wonder, but she hadn’t told a soul. Who then? She looks around her yard, as though the stranger might reveal themselves right then and there. Not today.

More packages. Once a week. Bouquets of white roses. Her favorite. Fine China plates she’d been searching online. Coworkers suspect a secret lover. She can’t bring herself to tell them the truth, to put words to the unease she feels. She hides the packages away in her basement. Out of sight, out of mind.

Once a day now. A new computer. She searches its empty files fruitlessly for clues. The latest tech. Not a hint of the gifter. She calls the cops. No name, nothing to go off of, have to wait until we know something is wrong, etc etc.

She sits in her house now. Too anxious to go to work. Wondering who? Who would do this? Why? If they would just reveal themselves, she could find some relief; understand what she was working with. Psycho, or friend?

A knock at the door.

Another package.

She closes the door, walks over to the counter, and cuts the package open with scissors. Inside, a glass ball with a hinge, and something inside. She opens the ball to find a piece of paper with words.

My final gift-

She lifts the paper up, and suddenly cries out at the sharp sting in her hand as needles shoot out of the ball, piercing her skin.

The effects are immediate. The world starts to sway. Her lungs feel heavy. She must reach the phone, but the task is too difficult.

There are footsteps coming up from the basement.

“Oh good, it arrived. Finally.”

She can’t move. Can barely breathe. Wants to scream, to run away. The stranger leans down and gingerly picks her up, carrying her down into the basement.

He’s built a shrine for her. Each gift placed around a sheet of plastic, upon which he lays her.

“I’m hurt you didn’t like my gifts,” he says, tsking.

Tears run from her eyes, her body completely paralyzed.

“I forgive you,” he says.

She realizes that he is covering her with the sheet of plastic now, wrapping it tight around her body. Slowly working his way up from her feet, to her thighs, her torso…

At her neck, he pauses. She can only stare straight ahead, her mind screaming for release, for help.

“Thank you for giving me such a wonderful gift in exchange,” he says, smiling as he leans down and kisses her on the forehead. “You’re my perfect package.”

Please no!

NO!

He cannot hear her pleas as he wraps the plastic over her head, suffocating the life from her.

“My perfect perfect gift.”