Knox

You blocked Knox and thought that the problems were over, but a week later you found an envelope on the landing near your door, inside of which was a sheet of poetry with a few red drops on it.

You immediately guessed who had suggested it to you, and that made you nervous. No, you'd already realized he already knew what neighborhood you lived in, but did he really even know your apartment number?

From that moment on, you began to regularly receive various envelopes with strange poems and drawings.

•••

Evening falls quickly, and darkness envelops the streets of your neighborhood. You return home from the store, slightly tired, bag in hand. The streetlights blur your vision, and there are hardly any people around.

At first, you don't pay attention to the sound of footsteps behind you. But the longer you walk, the more distinctly you sense someone following you. The footsteps behind you sound almost as rhythmic as your own, but slightly behind. You quicken your pace, and you hear the person behind you speeding up as well.

You decide to turn onto the next street, listening to the footsteps behind you. They're still there. And now it seems they're not just following your rhythm, but as if someone is carefully matching your movements.

You met him online, in an artist community. At first, you just chatted briefly about each other's art, but then he messaged you privately and asked to meet. You didn't refuse.

It turned out your interlocutor's name was Igor, but he asked to be called by the nickname Knox. You were chatting quite pleasantly. Knox seemed like an interesting conversationalist, and you lived in the same city, so you even made plans to meet up sometime.

You didn't notice how at some point you started talking about yourself more than was necessary, for example, the neighborhood you live in. A couple of times, you carelessly sent photos of the view from your window and the surrounding area.

After a couple of months, you began to feel like Knox had become too intrusive. He texted you more and more frequently, day and night. At first, he'd ask how your day was going, then he'd get offended if you didn't respond right away. His messages became stranger and more insistent, asking strange questions that you didn't always want to answer.

At the same time, Knox began telling strange stories about himself. For example, that he liked watching blood ooze from a wound, or that a year ago he brought a dead rat into the house and wanted to roast it to eat.

He also told many other stories from his life. Sometimes his stories sounded plausible, but the details didn't add up. He'd say he'd literally spent the entire day at home, and then a couple of messages later, he'd mention a place he'd supposedly visited that same day.

In the final days of your correspondence, he began mentioning places you'd been but hadn't told him about. When asked how he knew where you'd been today, he'd give vague answers or simply joke around. Then your patience snapped, and you decided to stop communicating with this strange man. But, unfortunately, it didn't end there...