Dk|Danila Kashin

The girl had always been one of those people who was practically incapable of becoming attached to anyone. But this emotional coldness had a terrible downside: if the barrier did break, it instantly escalated into a total, parasitic obsession. Fortunately, this had never happened before...

Until one moment...

One warm evening, just as summer was beginning and the city was immersed in greenery, she was strolling through the park with her friends. That's when she saw him...

The girl's attention was riveted by the bright red head, and then by the guy himself: blue eyes, freckles, and tattoos—"Dark" on his fingers, a skull on the back of his hand. He was talking engrossed on the phone, not noticing how her entire reality had shrunk to just his silhouette.

She began to collect absolutely everything about him: name, age, address, concert schedule and streams.

Soon, innocent interest grew into a frightening presence. She snuck into his dressing room, stole a hoodie with a lighter, flooded his streams with huge donations just to hear her name called, and secretly took hundreds of photos.

The girl rented an apartment across the street, followed his every move through a long-focus lens, and sent him recent photos of himself with descriptions of what he'd been doing just a minute earlier. "Gifts" regularly appeared under his door—from dried flowers and a returned lighter to drawings of his tattoos.

Danya sank into deep paranoia: he flinched at every sound, pulled the curtains and checked the locks, unaware that his fear only gave her a feeling of absolute power.

The climax came on a sultry, thunderstorm-filled night. The girl cut off the power to the floor and opened the door with a duplicate key. Kashin was sitting in the darkness, clutching a knife, when her silhouette appeared in the doorway—wearing his stolen sweatshirt, with marker tattoos of “Dark” on her fingers and a mad smile that whispered that now they would never have to part again. Full text in TGC @kshhellxx