All Chapters of Hidden Obsession : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Adrian didn’t sleep that night.Not really.He lay in bed with his eyes open, fixed on the ceiling, watching the shadows move like smoke across the plaster. His mind kept circling the same questions. Who sent the box? How did they know what he was doing? And worse—how long had they been watching?Every creak of the pipes made him flinch. Every flicker of light through the curtains made his heart stutter. He knew this kind of fear—it was like an echo of childhood nights spent hiding in his closet while his father’s voice thundered from room to room.But this fear was different. Sharper. Personal.It wasn’t rage that waited outside his door now.It was something quieter. Calculated. Patient.By 5:47 a.m., he gave up on sleep entirely. The sky outside was still dark, smeared with indigo and pale silver. He made tea with hands that trembled just enough to spill a few drops on the counter. The quiet of the kitchen mocked him.He glanced at the drawer.The note was still there.He should bu

The air in Adrian’s apartment felt wrong.Too still. Too quiet.Like someone had pressed pause on the entire building while he wasn't looking.It was mid-morning, but the light that filtered through his curtains was gray and cold, barely cutting through the fog pressing against his windows. He hadn’t slept after hearing those footsteps. He hadn’t even moved, not really.Just lay there, frozen, knife gripped in one clammy hand, eyes fixed on the door.No one had come in. The chair he'd wedged under the knob was untouched. But something in him knew, without evidence, that whoever was doing this had been close.Too close.By the time the sun began to rise, his chest felt like it was wrapped in steel wire.He couldn’t get warm. His hands shook when he poured water into the kettle. He burned his tongue on the first sip of tea but barely noticed.Adrian had always lived with a low hum of anxiety, but this was different. This wasn’t the usual background static. This was a scream behind a loc

Adrian didn’t remember walking home.One moment he was standing outside the café, the lighter still trembling in his hand, the cold air slicing through his sweater. The next, he was inside his apartment, door locked, the lights on in every room.He hadn’t used the lighter, but he hadn’t thrown it away either.It now sat on the kitchen counter like a silver threat.He stared at it for a long time, waiting for it to explain itself.How had he gotten it? How had Evan known to give it to him? More importantly—what did it mean that Evan knew his name and face?And why didn’t he feel more anger?He should be furious. Scared out of his mind. But beneath the fear, there was a subtle, uncomfortable warmth.Someone saw him.Not just in passing—not a glance or a gaze—but really saw him. Noticed details. Remembered things. Cared enough to follow him, to learn him. That fact sat in his chest like a thorn: dangerous, but undeniably real.He didn’t sleep.Again.He paced the apartment, checked the l

Adrian had never realized how lonely silence could be until it became all he heard in his apartment. The hum of the fridge, the occasional car horn from the street below—these were supposed to be comforting signs of normalcy. But now, they sounded like background noise in a horror film, the quiet before something awful happened. He sat on the edge of his couch, his phone in hand, scrolling aimlessly through contacts. He could call Riley—except she’d been unreachable for days. He could call the police—except what would he tell them? “A man I barely know keeps showing up in my life, giving me things, and I think he’s in my apartment sometimes.” They’d file it under romantic misunderstandings or overactive imagination. The truth was… no one had believed him so far. The night before, Adrian had shown the doorman the strange flowers that kept appearing on his doorstep—white roses, their stems cut at the exact same angle, the same number every time. The man had shrugged and said, “Maybe

Adrian didn’t sleep that night. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, the faint streetlight glow cutting pale shapes across his room. Every time he closed his eyes, Evan’s voice whispered in the darkness: You’ve been waiting for this. By morning, exhaustion had settled into his bones like lead, but there was no relief. His apartment felt different now. Not unsafe, exactly—just… permeable. Like the walls and locks didn’t mean much anymore. He made coffee and sat by the kitchen window, staring down at the street. Rain had given way to an overcast stillness, the kind that made the air heavy. He told himself he would forget it. That Evan was just a strange encounter, someone who got too close. People like that moved on quickly. He just had to wait him out. But waiting did nothing. By late afternoon, the air inside felt stifling. Adrian left his apartment for a walk, anything to keep from imagining footsteps outside his door. He took side streets and cut through the park, his hood up