Office Silence: Chapter 1 — The First Crack | VIXEN Books

CHAPTER 1. THE FIRST CRACK

I already knew who he was before I ever saw his face. He started working a month before me. Rumors were crawling. Nothing specific. Just a sense that something was off. But rumors are background noise. A threat walks in quietly. Without warning. That day, I was walking through the warehouse. Noise. Metal clanking. Workers. Steel. Everything as usual. And then — silence. Not outside, but inside. Like someone hit pause. Like my skin heard something before my ears did. Our eyes met. He wasn’t closer than the others. Not louder. Not visibly dangerous. But the world collapsed into one point. Him. I don’t know what he felt. And I don’t care. Because I felt it — hatred. Raw. Wordless. Animal. A hatred that hit like a shot. Like a hiss under the skin. I had never felt anything like it. I didn’t understand why. But it happened. And later I realized — this wasn’t meeting a person. This was colliding with a threat. My body reacted before logic. Before memory. Before reason. I wasn’t afraid. I just knew — he wanted to silence me. Break me. Get inside. It wasn’t chemistry. It was poison. Not in the air — in his gaze. In the space around him. He said nothing. But I already knew — this man didn’t belong. Not a guest. Not a colleague. Not just unpleasant. He was an intrusion. It wasn’t paranoia. It was instinct. A scanner inside me that roared first. The hatred wasn’t random. It was recognition. I had seen this before. In another face. Another time. Another mask. He was a trigger. The name didn’t matter. The danger was obvious. He would destroy. Not fast. Not openly. He would drip. Press. Enter without permission. And in that corridor, where the clang of metal suddenly felt quieter than his silence, I stood up. For the first time. No words. No panic. No complaint. Just the feeling: predator. And I didn’t look away.

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