I start with the environment.
Windows. Reflections. Sound.
I map the apartment the way I map data—inputs, outputs, blind spots. The refrigerator hum. The distant echo of traffic. The elevator’s soft mechanical sigh two units over.
Normal.
Almost too normal.
I move to the window and don’t look out.
I look at what looks in.
Glass is a liar. It shows you what it wants to show you.
The street below is busier now. A delivery truck. A man walking a dog. A woman with a stroller and a phone pressed to her ear.
Three people pass the building entrance.
Four.
Five.
My eyes snag on the sixth.
He doesn’t look up.
That’s why I notice him.
Everyone else does—glances, curiosity, reflex.
He doesn’t.
He walks past like he already knows what he’d see.
My pulse ticks up.
I don’t jump to conclusions. That’s how you die.
Instead, I count.
Minutes.
Patterns.
I move to the small dining table and sit with my back to the window, using the reflection in the dark TV screen.
Two more pass by.
Then him again.
Different jacket.
Same gait.
Same refusal to look.
My fingers curl slowly against my palm.
