The Lunchbox Warning!

It started out as something simple, something harmless. I had packed an extra lunch one day, and when my coworker Andrei caught the scent, he leaned over with a grin and said, “That smells amazing. Could you make me one sometime?” I laughed and told him sure—so long as he returned the container clean. The next day, he handed it back with a smile. But when I opened it later, my stomach dropped. Inside wasn’t just an empty box. There was a note.

Scrawled in shaky, blocky handwriting across a ripped paper towel were the words: Get away from him before it’s too late.

For a moment, I thought it was some tasteless joke. Maybe one of my other coworkers was being dramatic or trying to mess with me. But the uneven letters, the strange urgency of the message, and especially that last part—before it’s too late—made my skin crawl. I scanned the office, watching faces, wondering who had slipped this inside. Andrei sat at his desk, typing away like nothing was wrong. Was he pretending?

I folded the note carefully and tucked it deep into my bag, trying to act normal. But the rest of the day, my thoughts kept circling back. Who would write this? Why? And why target him?

That night, when I showed the note to my roommate Mara, she frowned. “Are you sure it wasn’t him? Maybe some weird sense of humor?”

I shook my head. “Why would he write something about himself in the lunchbox I gave him?”

Mara leaned back slowly. “Unless he didn’t pack it himself. Maybe someone else had their hands on it.”

That possibility made me colder than the first. Someone else watching us. Someone slipping warnings into containers.

The next day at work, I tested him. “Hey, how was the chicken yesterday?” I asked casually.

He grinned. “Delicious. You have wonderful hands.”

I forced a laugh but studied him carefully. “Did you pack the container back this morning?”

“Yeah,” he said, after a small pause. “Why?”

I shrugged. “Just making sure the sauce didn’t spill.”

He didn’t flinch, didn’t falter, didn’t look guilty. But that unsettled me even more. If he was lying, he was very good at it. If he wasn’t, then someone else had interfered.

I stopped making him lunches after that. He asked once more, and I told him I was too busy. That’s when I began noticing other details. The way Olivia, another coworker, watched us. She was quiet, reserved, someone people barely noticed, but her eyes followed Andrei whenever we spoke.

One evening, I stayed late, waiting until most of the office emptied. I approached her desk with a casual excuse, then pulled the note from my bag. “Did you write this?” I asked.

Her eyes widened instantly. She looked from the paper to me, and her face went pale. “You found it,” she whispered.

My heart raced. “So it was you?”

She glanced around nervously, lowered her voice. “I had to. How else could I warn you?”

A cold wave spread through me. “Warn me about what?”

She bit her lip, voice trembling. “Andrei. He isn’t who he says he is.”

Later, at a café away from prying ears, she told me everything. Years ago, in another city, she had worked with him—only back then he went by another name, Adrian. At first, he was friendly, charming, just like now. But then strange things happened. A coworker of hers who had grown close to him received anonymous notes. Items in her apartment moved. She thought she was losing her mind. Eventually, she quit and went to the police, but there was no evidence. He disappeared before anything could stick.

Olivia’s hands trembled as she clutched her coffee cup. “When I saw him here, I almost didn’t believe it was him. But it is. I wanted to go to HR, but I had nothing concrete. So I warned you.”

I walked home in a daze that night, torn between disbelief and dread. But as I replayed every interaction, things began to make sense. The way he casually asked about my neighborhood, about where I lived. The offhand comment about spotting me at the gym, even though I hadn’t told anyone I went there. At the time, it felt like small talk. Now, it felt deliberate.

The next morning, I went straight to HR. I didn’t accuse him directly. I just told them I had heard troubling things, that I was uncomfortable, and I wanted them to check his background. They promised to handle it discreetly.

Days passed. A week. Andrei stopped coming to work. Then HR called me into a private meeting. The manager’s face was grave. “We want to thank you,” she said. “After your concern, we ran a background check. The man you know as Andrei applied under a false identity. In fact, he has used multiple names over the past five years. There have been harassment claims in other places. No charges, but enough to alarm us. We’ve reported him to the authorities. He won’t be returning.”

I walked out of that office feeling both shaken and strangely relieved, like I had narrowly escaped something dark.

That night, I messaged Olivia. She cried when I told her. “It’s like I can finally breathe,” she said.

But the story wasn’t over.

Two weeks later, an email arrived in my inbox. No sender name, just two words: Thank you. My blood ran cold. I blocked the address immediately. When I spoke to Olivia later, she admitted she had received the same.

Life slowly returned to normal, but I wasn’t the same. I became more cautious, more aware. I worked with HR to push for stricter vetting processes. I made a point to look out for other women in the office. And Olivia and I grew closer, bonded not only by fear but by resilience. We started swapping lunches once a week, replacing fear with trust, replacing silence with friendship.

Months later, the story reached its final twist. Mara called me into the living room one morning, her face pale. “You need to see this,” she said, pointing at the TV.

The news showed a mugshot. A man arrested in another state for stalking and impersonation. My stomach dropped—it was him. Only his name wasn’t Andrei. And it wasn’t Adrian either. He had at least four different aliases over the years, weaving his way through companies, charming his coworkers, sowing fear, and vanishing before the truth caught up. This time, though, he hadn’t gotten away.

An anonymous tip had led to his capture. I had a feeling Olivia and I played a part in that, whether directly or not.

The note in the lunchbox had saved me. Saved both of us. A simple scrap of paper that forced me to listen to my instincts and act.

And if there’s one thing I learned, it’s this: never ignore the small signs. Sometimes the smallest warning—a note, a whisper, a gut feeling—can be the difference between safety and disaster.