Chapter 1

I’ve been coming across him regularly since last week.

In the hospital, at the markets, on campus and even in the streets around my tiny house. Everywhere I see him, he is in different weird positions.

I saw him in the hospital waiting for his appointment. He was sitting on a typical chair which was right next to a doctor’s office. Of course, those were regular human behaviors. But he was displaying other strange behaviours too. And they attracted my attention even back then.

His dark pupils were drifting in different directions in regular periods. In addition, his left arm was hanging down under the chair. His shapeless left fingers were shaking out of control.

This was my first encounter with him. I took his actions as normal back then. Because he came there to cure his illness probably.

Before continuing to write more about those events I would like to inform you a little about his look.

He has an uncommon, almost oval face shape. His eyes are black but much like a vast blackness as the tone of space. He has clearly a very prominent nose. And this is in my opinion the creepiest feature of his face. His left arm is always hanging down and his left fingers are awkward and shaking. The other parts of his body are usual.

Then I saw him in a market which is right next to my college. During my time in the checkout line, I was able to see him very clearly. He was paying for a few extra-large packets of black coffee. I didn’t see anyone who paid for that much coffee at one time before.

The checker girl had scanned his purchased coffees and told the total amount. He was staying in front of the checkout in the meanwhile without turning a hair except his fingers. They were still shaking. After each second after her question, they were shaking faster. Checker told the total amount louder again. He nodded his oval head slowly and tapped his card in same speed. Others were shouting him that he supposed to be hurry up.

When he headed for the exit with the plastic bag I was able to see his entire face. I couldn’t see it before. Because his head was turned to the checkout. His face was faded and expressionless. I noticed he had the same look in his face back at the hospital.

When he was just about to exit he turned his head to me. He started to eye me from head to foot. His head was facing downwards at that moment. So I couldn’t see his face. When he finished that I realized something weird: He was staring at me with a huge smile on his face.

But why his expression changed all of a sudden? Was it because of our encounter in the hospital? I was just about to ask that but he had turned around and went outside. I didn’t want to bother him afterwards. But to be honest, I was a bit scared. Because it felt like I was out of touch with reality for an instant when he smiled at me like that.

It wasn’t the last time I saw him for sure. I came across him a day after on my campus. The calculus lesson was just finished. I went out with my girlfriend. When we were walking on the campus road I saw him: He was sitting on an old bench of our faculty’s garden with a straight posture. He was staring at me again with that goddamn smile!

I understood something was going wrong about this man at that moment. He couldn’t be studying on campus because he was like his 40s. I told my girlfriend to stay there and approached that psychopath. When I was getting closer to him, his pupils were drifting upwards. It was like he was programmed to look directly to my eyes.

I asked his identity with an annoyed voice. There was a pure silence for a moment. He was still staring at me in the same position. I became even angrier and shouted to him: Is this a goddamn prank from Kevin? He moved his mouth to speak but his expression didn’t change a bit: You know me.

My anger level reached its top after that stupid sentence: You are fucking following me. I’m calling the police. His expression changed all of a sudden. His eyes were wide open and his mouth expression was entirely empty. His nose seemed more twisted outwards from before. He reached out to me with his left arm. I could feel his trembling fingers on my skin. They were shaking insanely: I will leave you. Don’t call them.

I reached out toward his right hand. I was trying to make a deal with him. I don’t know why. But I think I felt sorry for him. He had pulled his left arm from my skin slowly and shook hands with me. I got away from there directly with my girlfriend after that. I didn’t want to see his face again naturally. He was still watching me. But I didn’t want to bother him again. Because I thought we had made a deal…

Although I was coming across him in markets rarely. But he wasn’t interested with me anymore. He was just buying huge amounts of coffee again and again. Though I couldn’t understand completely why he was doing this, I thought maybe he was a coffee addict or something. Everything was fine if he wasn’t into me. So I didn’t bother him.

A night before our last encounter, I saw a nightmare. I was in a mid-sized basement. It was pitch-dark there. I couldn’t see anything. When I was looking around pointlessly, I saw a beam of light. I began to walk to it but it wasn’t budging an inch. I went ahead for a pretty long time. It seemed like the basement was much larger than I thought. Then a moment later, the light disappeared in an instant. I started to hear deep but quiet grunting sounds from the floor. I decided to check it. When I bent down to the floor somebody touched me from my leaned back. I stood up with a single fast move. I couldn’t see his face because of darkness. He had clasped my shoulders in the twinkling of an eye and started to shake my shoulders. One of his hands was uncontrollably shaking. It was him. I could tell his mouth was opened because of the air coming from there: Tomorrow is the day.

I wasn’t taking this nightmare seriously, of course. It was for me an illusion of my unconscious. But when the night fell in the very next day, I saw him from my window. He was walking to my door! I opened the window with a wrath in my face: Get away from my house! He didn’t seem like he took my warning seriously. Because he didn’t even look to me. He was getting closer to my door without a single hesitation. I shouted with the loudest voice I could: I’m calling the police!

He started to get very angry. I’ve never seen an expression like that on his face before. His eyes were expanding vertically. His pupils’ blackness were giving their places to a pure whiteness. His nose was twisting forward and lifting upwards. His mouth was opening insanely and his formless, sharp teeth were becoming visible. His left arm was hanging downwards as always. But his left fingers weren’t shaking anymore. His skin was becoming even more pale.

When I had seen this, I understood this was not just a usual following case. It was a supernatural event going on. I started to sweat madly. I was supposed to exit from my house from the other door. I closed the curtains to block his sight. Then I started to run directly to the back door. My sweats were dropping to the floor and my heart was beating insanely. But finally I made it. I started to run to my mother’s place without looking back. I was willing to spend the night there. Her house was pretty far away from mine but I didn’t want to see that fucking creature again. And besides it was an advantage for me. Because it couldn’t know anything about my mother, right?

I had reached there and knocked the door. She didn’t open it at first. But when I continued to knock the door with a loud knock she appeared on the doorstep. She asked what I was doing there in the middle of the night. I had made up a lie. I told her I had broken up with my girlfriend.

We stepped in. When we were walking into the living room, she had already begun to calm me down. We sat down on the sofas of the living room. Our conversation was improving very well. But it seemed to me she understood my lie. Because I was checking my heartbeat and erasing the remaining sweats from my head secretly. Then I saw that photo on the shelf… It was from an organization or something. There were dozens of people in that photo. Their eyes were wide and their left hands were hanging downwards. When I was investigating that photo, my mother was looking to my eyes with a frightened face. Then I noticed him there. Not so far from my parents. He was standing there and posing by wearing his typical smile…