Narrative: I almost did...

I wasn't planning... to come back. (I really wasn't.) The bakery closed years ago. The windows were boarded once. Then they weren't. Nobody ever mentioned it. Nobody seemed... to remember it closing. The first night... I noticed the lights. Warm. Comfortable. Like someone had just opened. From the other end of the street... I could almost swear... bread was drifting through the air. Not falling. Not carried by anyone. Just... moving... as if the shelves were choosing where to place it. (Only from here...) I crossed the road. The moment I stopped... everything stopped. Empty shelves. Dark ovens. No movement. No light. The bakery had been abandoned... the whole time. I started testing it. Stand far away. Something moves. Take one step closer. Nothing. Look at the upstairs window. Nothing. Look beside it... There. Every time. Never inside the window. Always... just outside... where my eyes weren't looking. (Don't look directly.) One evening... I kept my eyes on the pavement. I refused... to look up. Halfway home... I realized... I'd been matching someone else's footsteps. Exactly. Left. Right. Left. Right. When I stopped... they stopped. (Very close.) I counted to ten. Then... something blinked... before I did. After that... I stopped trying to see it. I started trying... not to. That turned out... to be much harder. Sometimes... from the end of the street... I can see loaves... floating lazily across the bakery. The lights flicker... like someone's moving between them. The second floor... always catches... the edge of my vision. Never directly. Never. If I look straight at it... it's only an empty room. But... the moment I decide... there's nothing there... my eyes... try to look away. (Just for a second.) Tonight... it's raining again. I'm standing... where I always stand. Far enough away... to almost see it. Close enough... to know I shouldn't. I haven't looked upstairs... once. Not tonight. Because... I'm beginning to worry... it isn't trying... to get me... to look. I'm beginning to think... it's waiting... for me... to stop. (Very quietly.) I almost did.