Illusione Attica

It was a strange summer — cold and rainy one moment, breathless and sweaty the next. Girls stepped out in light summer dresses beneath a burning sun, only to flee later from the stinging rain and sudden, raging storms. The weather shifted without warning. Evenings brought skies straight from a Munch painting: dark, menacing grey torn open by feverish slashes of lava-red sunset. The air always carried the sharp, metallic scent of wet asphalt.

The bus slowed to a stop. A handful of passengers hurried off, heads down against the downpour. The driver waited as a group of cyclists claimed the road, forcing everyone else to yield. No one dared complain. National pride in the sport granted them an almost sacred status.

Elisabeth stared out of the window. Her gaze settled on a puddle directly beneath the bus, where raindrops created perfect concentric circles on the surface. They reminded her, oddly, of the Pacific Ocean. Just another day in this peculiar July, she thought — though slightly more charged than usual. And she resented that charge.

She couldn’t allow herself stress or the familiar tremor of anxiety. Not today. She could still change her mind. The next stop, a quick exit, and she could return to her quiet, law-abiding life. The thought was tempting, but she knew it was hollow. No one had forced her into this. No threats, no coercion. The decision was hers alone — coolly analysed, meticulously prepared. Backing out now wouldn’t be self-preservation; it would be cowardice. A betrayal of everything she had spent years building.

That loyalty to herself — that unflinching honesty — was as vital to her as oxygen. Every night, before sleep, she needed to meet her own eyes in the mirror and know she had remained true. Her actions had to align with her thoughts and words, without the slightest deviation.

Elisabeth was aware that her personal code of right and wrong rarely matched the world’s expectations. She no longer cared. Inner peace mattered more than external approval. Besides, she didn’t see herself as immoral or reckless. That was why she felt no guilt when she selected her first target.

She never called him a victim. To her, John was simply her friend.

Had investigators ever tried to profile her, they would have struggled with the contradictions. Elisabeth was intelligent, well-educated, and physically unassuming — slight, even frail, with health problems that made her seem harmless. Yet beneath that quiet exterior lived a low-key sociopath and stalker. Every person who interested her was logged in her private database: social media, public records, anything she could access. A name or workplace was usually enough. Within three hours, she could compile a comprehensive file.

Personal contact proved more difficult. Despite her sharp mind and striking looks, people rarely warmed to her. Something in her presence unsettled them — her menacing silences, her icy composure, the way she stared too deeply, too long, as though reading their souls through their eyes. That was how she truly spoke to people. She didn’t converse; she observed until she felt their core.

That was how Elisabeth caught John.

She had first noticed him on the terrace of a local pub. Sitting with her back to him, pretending to read, she had listened as he argued with a friend about art. John worked at a respected gallery specialising in antique and traditional pieces. His friend championed noisy contemporary performance art; John dismissed it as a scam. Elisabeth silently agreed.

That conversation planted the first seed of her plan — vague and undeveloped at the time, but potent. She nurtured it for five long years, letting it mature in the shadows of her mind.

After that, Elisabeth found him easily enough. Her visits to the gallery grew frequent. She attended every new exhibition where he might appear. She even enrolled in art studies. And then, one quiet afternoon, he finally spoke to her.

She had been standing before the sculpture of Morpheus, lost in the god’s closed eyelids, imagining the moment they opened and pulled her into his hypnotic gaze.

“Hey,” John said, his voice warm and easy. “I keep seeing you everywhere. It feels like I’ve known you for ages… but I still don’t know your name.”