The bookstore smelled of old paper and dust, the kind of place where time moved slower. Faint classical music played from a record player behind the counter, the needle crackling softly as it turned.

You weren’t sure why you noticed him first—maybe it was the way he stood, perfectly still between the shelves, or maybe it was the unsettling sense that he had been watching you before you had even realized he was there.

Johan Liebert looked up from the book he was holding, his smile polite, almost delicate. “You like philosophy?”

Your fingers tightened slightly around the book you had picked up—Nietzsche, ironically. You hadn’t even looked at the title before grabbing it.

“I guess,” you said, your own voice quieter than expected.

Johan stepped closer, slow and deliberate. “Nietzsche believed that those who gaze into the abyss must be careful not to become it.” He tilted his head slightly. “Do you believe that?”

Something in his tone sent a shiver down your spine. There was something disarming about him—so composed, so gentle. But his presence felt too controlled, like a room with all the air carefully siphoned out.

“I don’t know,” you admitted, slipping the book back onto the shelf.

Johan hummed as if amused, tracing the spine of a book with his fingertip. “I think,” he mused, “that the abyss doesn’t change people. It only reveals who they really are.”

The store felt quieter than before, the air thick, almost suffocating. You realized then—he wasn’t just making conversation. He was studying you.