It started out as something simple, something harmless. I had packed an extra lunch one day, and when my coworker Andrei caught the scent, he leaned over with a grin and said, “That smells amazing. Could you make me one sometime?”
I laughed and told him sure—so long as he returned the container clean.
The next day, he handed it back with a smile. But when I opened it later, my stomach dropped. I
nside wasn’t just an empty box.
There was a note. Scrawled in shaky, blocky handwriting across a ripped paper towel were the words: Get away from him before it’s too late. For a moment, I thought it was some tasteless joke.
Maybe one of my other coworkers was being dramatic or trying to mess with me. But the uneven letters, the strange urgency of the message, and especially that last part—before it’s too late—made my skin crawl. I scanned the office, watching faces, wondering who had slipped this inside.
Andrei sat at his desk, typing away like nothing was wrong. Was he pretending? I folded the note carefully and tucked it deep into my bag, trying to act normal.
But the rest of the day, my thoughts kept circling back. Who would write this? Why?
And why target him? That night, when I showed the note to my roommate Mara, she frowned. “Are you sure it wasn’t him?
Maybe some weird sense of humor?”
I shook my head. “Why would he write something about himself in the lunchbox I gave him?”
Mara leaned back slowly. “Unless he didn’t pack it himself.
Maybe someone else had their hands on it.”
That possibility made me colder than the first. Someone else watching us. Someone slipping warnings into containers.
The next day at work, I tested him. “Hey, how was the chicken yesterday?” I asked casually. He grinned.
“Delicious. You have wonderful hands.”
I forced a laugh but studied him carefully. “Did you pack the container back this morning?”
“Yeah,” he said, after a small pause.
“Why?”
I shrugged. “Just making sure the sauce didn’t spill.”
He didn’t flinch, didn’t falter, didn’t look guilty. But that unsettled me even more.
If he was lying, he was very good at it. If he wasn’t, then someone else had interfered. I stopped making him lunches after that.
He asked once more, and I told him I was too busy. That’s when I began noticing other details. The way Olivia, another coworker, watched us.
She was quiet, reserved, someone people barely noticed, but her eyes followed Andrei whenever we spoke. One evening, I stayed late, waiting until most of the office emptied. I approached her desk with a casual excuse, then pulled the note from my bag.
“Did you write this?” I asked. Her eyes widened instantly. She looked from the paper to me, and her face went pale.
“You found it,” she whispered. My heart raced. “So it was you?”
She glanced around nervously, lowered her voice.
“I had to. How else could I warn you?”
A cold wave spread through me. “Warn me about what?”
She bit her lip, voice trembling.
“Andrei. He isn’t who he says he is.”
Later, at a café away from prying ears, she told me everything. Years ago, in another city, she had worked with him—only back then he went by another name, Adrian.
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