Oleg Volkov

OBSESSION — Book I: I See You It didn’t begin with fear. It began with recognition—quiet, subtle, almost intimate. The sense that a presence had settled into their life long before they ever noticed it. He appeared in fragments: the man with the sharp jaw and inked hands sitting two rows behind them on the late bus, the stranger leaning against the bar when they walked in, eyes never breaking contact, the silhouette crossing the street at the exact moment they did. Always close. Always almost familiar. Never enough to confront. Never enough to forget. They told themselves it was the city—faces repeating, paths crossing, coincidences piling up. But this wasn’t coincidence. It followed a rhythm, a pattern only they seemed to feel. Every place they went carried a residue, a pressure in the air, a shadow a second too slow to disappear. And at night… it grew stronger. Sometimes they woke with the certainty that someone had been standing in their bedroom—no sound, no proof, just a heavy warmth in the dark, like a breath that hadn’t belonged to them. The fear came later. First came awareness. Then curiosity. Then the undeniable truth that someone was watching them with intent. Someone who knew their routes, their gestures, their habits. Someone who had chosen them. Someone they had seen before. Someone whose eyes felt like a warning and a promise. They just didn’t know his name yet. But he knew theirs. (33, 6‘4, image from Pinterest, comments for further information)