I have lived in Apartment 4C for twelve years. In New York, that makes me a permanent fixture, a piece of the furniture. I don't talk to my neighbors; I observe them. It is a quiet, sterile hobby, like collecting pressed flowers. I know when Mrs. Gable's son visits, I know when the super is stealing electricity, and for three years, I knew Julian.

Julian lived in 4D. He was a man of sharp suits and sharper smiles, a high-flyer in the world of venture capital. He was the kind of man who entered a room and immediately owned the air within it. He was also a man of sudden, violent changes in mood.

Then came Sam.

Sam was a technician, a man of soft edges and stuttered sentences. He was everything Julian was not. I watched them through the gap in my curtains—the way Julian would drape an arm around Sam's shoulder, a gesture that looked like friendship but felt like a leash. I saw the way Sam looked at Julian—with a devotion that was almost religious, a desperate need to be seen by someone so powerful.

One Tuesday in November, the air was cold and smelled of wet asphalt. I saw Julian and Sam leave together. They didn't speak. Julian's grip on Sam's arm was tight, his knuckles white. They disappeared into the elevator, and Sam did not return.

For the next few weeks, I watched Julian. He didn't seem bereaved; he seemed liberated. He began to spend more money than usual. He bought a new car, a sleek black thing that looked like a coffin on wheels. He started hosting parties—loud, frantic affairs where the laughter sounded like breaking glass.

But there was a glitch in his performance.

Julian began to avoid the hallway. He would wait until the building was silent before leaving his apartment. He started checking the locks on his door four, five, six times a night. I could hear him through the walls—the pacing, the sudden bursts of shouting, the long periods of absolute, suffocating silence.

I didn't call the police. I didn't know where the body was, and I didn't particularly care about Sam. I was interested in the transformation. I was watching a man be eaten alive by his own secret.

I saw him in the lobby one morning. He looked ten years older. His suit was wrinkled, his eyes bloodshot. He stopped in front of the mirror and stared at himself for a long time. Then, he reached up and touched his throat, his fingers trembling. He looked around the lobby, his eyes wide with a sudden, irrational panic, as if he expected the walls to start speaking.

He looked at me. For a second, our eyes met. He didn't see a neighbor; he saw a witness. He saw the only person in the city who had seen the transition from the predator to the prey.

He didn't say a word, but he turned and fled back to his apartment. I closed my curtains and went back to my tea. In New York, we don't solve crimes; we just watch them happen, one floor at a time.

*** OTMES_v2_Code: [M1:6.0, M3:8.0, N2:0.7, K1:0.8, theta:155.0, TI:55.3]