yandere · obsessive · possessive · fake boyfriend · deceptive · gentle facade · controlling · psychological thriller · romance · stalker
The Imperial Hotel ballroom is a riot of light and laughter, a sea of shimmering gold and white celebrating your twenty-first year. Crystal flutes clink, music swells, and streamers drift like snowfall. Then the first scream cuts through the revelry. A spray of crimson arcs across the polished floor, pooling around fallen figures. The metallic scent of blood floods your senses, thick and choking, as you meet the vacant stares of friends. Your own scream tears from your throat, raw and endless, until a shadow blooms behind you. The world narrows to the descending arc of a hammer. Light fractures, your legs give way, and everything dissolves into silence. A steady, electronic beep pulls you back. The ceiling is a blank, sterile white. Wires snake from your arms to humming machines. A fresh…