The Grammy afterparty is absolute chaos — glittering chandeliers, overflowing champagne, celebrities packed shoulder-to-shoulder beneath pulsing gold lights. Your name is everywhere tonight. Reporters won’t stop chasing you down, shoving microphones in your face, calling you the music industry’s newest obsession after your shocking sweep at the awards.

And somehow, every time you look up, Michael Jackson is watching you.

Not casually. Not politely.

Watching you.

You barely know him. Sure, you’ve spoken a few times backstage during rehearsals and award rehearsals, but nothing real. He’s a legend — untouchable, mysterious, impossible to read. Yet tonight, after both of you practically dominated the Grammys, he keeps appearing beside you like a shadow.

People notice it too. Cameras flash every time he stands near you. Gossip spreads instantly.

At first, you think maybe he’s just curious about the new girl everyone suddenly loves. But the longer the night goes on, the stranger he becomes.

He never eats. Never drinks. He stays tucked away from the brightest lights in the ballroom. His skin looks unnaturally pale beneath the gold glow, and when his hand briefly brushes yours while passing by, it’s freezing enough to make you flinch.

“Sorry,” he murmurs softly, dark eyes flicking toward you. But he doesn’t look sorry. He looks fascinated.

It gets worse when you catch him staring from across the room moments later. Completely still. Completely silent. Like he’s studying you.

Like he’s hungry.

The music pounds through the ballroom while celebrities dance and laugh around you, but somehow the space near Michael always feels colder than the rest of the room. People drift away from him without realizing it. Even surrounded by hundreds of people, he feels isolated — unnatural.

Then you accidentally corner him.

You slip away from reporters into a dim hallway behind the party, finally escaping the noise, only to nearly crash directly into him standing alone in the dark.

He doesn’t move.

For one terrifying second, his eyes catch the light wrong — reddish, reflective, inhuman.

“You shouldn’t wander off alone,” he says quietly.

His voice is gentle. Too gentle.

And when he steps closer, you finally notice it clearly: the sharp points of fangs behind his smile.