- Two weeks earlier-

Kimberly Shaw woke up, just like any day, as the sun began to shine. She was a small little woman, at the age of 20. Her Fox colored hair flow around her neck, shimmering, as if fire was woven into it. If one would have asked her, she would have described herself as average. She didn’t like being in the center of attention, yet her appearance often made her. Red hair was something rather unusual in her town, so the people did notice her whenever she was outside. Besides, if someone were to ask the townsfolk, they would have certainly said something very different from average. Her skin was pale, and she was pretty average in height. Her room was a typical room of a young woman, yet one couldn’t help, but notice, that there was not much decoration in it. She didn’t like that sort of thing. A normal sized bed for one person. A mirror on the wall and an old fashioned brown drawer below it. After Kimberly got up, she proceeded to go into the kitchen to make herself a morning coffee, as was her usual routine. Still half asleep, she started making herself breakfast. No one else lived in this house. She was alone by herself and she liked it that way. Has she been all alone for her whole life. She didn’t know who her parents were. At the age of two, she was found at the steps of the local orphanage in York. No papers. Nothing. Not even camera pictures of the day, she was left there. But she learned to live with the fact that she was not wanted. Who ever her parent had been, she did not want to know them, after she had been left alone. Her whole personality revolved around that simple yet tragic fact.

“Leave people alone and they will leave you alone.”

She tried never to bother anyone, as confrontation just lead to stress and arguing. And she hated that more than anything in the world. She enjoyed the quietness of her home. The silence. The slight feeling of loneliness. After she finished her breakfast, Kimberly got up and washed the dishes she had used. Then her steps moved towards a small room on the other side of her little house. This room was all her happiness. Two big Computer screens stood on the big working desk, framed by two gigantic speakers. Below the screens, a keyboard was faintly glowing in a mellow red color. In front of the desk, was a very comfortable looking couch. A microphone was attacked to the desk in a way that it was easily reachable from the couch. And in the middle of all this a piece of electronic was visible. It was Kimberly’s most valued belonging and it was probably also her most expensive one. A big mixing console, to manage and record music. It was her job, and her passion to record herself, singing songs people wanted to hear. She first started to just upload covers of songs that she liked to youtube. After some time, more and more people came to listen to her music. After two years she was finally able to make a decent amount of money with it. So it made her proud, seeing that she managed to accomplish something in her life. Kimberly sat down, and started to read all the comments, suggestions et cetera, that people had left her at her last song, as she did every working day. One had to interact with people to keep them interested, as bothersome as that was. Then again not having to talk to them personally, made things a lot easier for her.

“Such nice messages again,”

she thought by herself, while scrolling through the latest comments.

“Doesn’t happen every day, but oh well it’s the internet.”

As she proceeded to scroll down, a message caught her eye. A chill running down her spine.

“It is this message again…  I wonder what the deal is with that person.”

The message, written in Caps Lock and could have very well be sent to any person. But for some reason it made her uneasy. The big letters said:

“YOU WILL BE MINE.”

That was it. nothing else. The thing that bothered Kimberly about it, wasn’t the message itself. It was the fact that this message kept continuing on every single of her videos. Like a red thread, unbreakable, through all of her work. She kept banning every single account, that posted this message, but whoever was doing this, obviously had to much free time. New accounts continued to post the message under every single video. This alone, would have not bothered her as much, as some people do have weird hobbies.

“Some people don’t know when a prank goes too far,” she thought. 

The real problem was, that these messages also appeared on all her social media accounts. Every day. The same time. It was as if someone had programmed a bot to do this. And if someone put in so much effort in something like this, it starts to become weird.

“But well, i cannot hang up on something like this now. Let’s proceed to record the new song.”

Twelve hours later, she was finally finished recording her newest song. It was already getting dark outside, as it was pretty late autumn already. Kimberly took her headphones of and started stretching her arms and legs. Working on a desk all day sure was a tiresome experience, but she couldn’t complain. Other people had so much harder jobs than her. She was very grateful for being able to work from home. While those thoughts went through her head, suddenly a loud noise came from the corridor. She jumped up.

“What was that?” she nearly shouted. 

She walked to the door and opened it to see the cause of it. In the corridor before the front door was a sheet of paper. Red Letters were visible on it. And what they said, let all blood in Kimberly’s body freeze. Grafted on the paper, were in bloody red letter the same four words that had her made uneasy for the whole last 2 months.

“YOU WILL BE MINE!”

Thoughts rushed through her head. Whoever did this, knew where she lives. Suddenly the rather far away “Prank” became a real threat in her life.

“What to do?”

Police, was the only word her mind could bring together. She took up the phone and started dialing 911. Fifteen minutes later, a police car was in front of her house and a young officer was questioning her about her problem.

“Do you have any clue, as to who did this?” the officer asked kindly.

“No i have no idea who would do this and why.”

Kimberly answered confused.The situation was to much for her to handle.

“Well,” the officer continued,

“we can only assume that the writer is some kind of stalker. A sick person who thinks, that you are his belonging,” the officer cleared his throat.

“In you kind of job, this is sadly not unusual. Seeing the person every in videos every day, can make you think, that you know a person in and out. Some people cannot handle this kind of thing and think they have a relationship with their person of interest.”

“Also,” the officer frowned,

“normally they do not know, where that person lives, so they cannot do anything with their wicked feelings. This can be really dangerous, depending what kind of person that stalker is. We will keep a police car in front of your house for the next week, day and night, and will also keep an eye around anyone suspicious. A person as twisted as that, will most probably not have the nerf to keep his feet still after already approaching his target.”

As the officer saw Kimberly’s face changing into fear, he quickly added:

“His person of interest i mean. I don’t think he would physically harm you, as long as you haven’t directly turned his approaches down. After you do that thought, you have to be very careful, stalkers can be really cuckoo. But as long as we are here, he will not get near you. So you can sleep well. It is safe here right now. But keep your windows and the door shut. If you need us, we will be outside in the car.”

Finishing his sentence, the officer walked outside, waving before leaving and entering the car, where another colleague of his already waited for his report. Despite all the anguish and terror, that Kimberly felt, she still went to her bed. Thinking she would be unable to sleep at all, she started reading a book that she really liked. It was a story about a fantasy world. All kind of magic was there, and their life seemed so much easier than hers.

“Life is probably so much easier if you are powerful,” she thought,

“No one wants to offend you, people that you help think you are their hero. The protagonists life seems to get so much easier after he acquires the means to accomplish his dreams…”

Deep in that thought, she started thinking, how life would be, if someone could just magically, put their worries away. A lot less stressful. And a lot more fun. Beating the bad guys, helping those in need, those idealistic goals seemed to good to be true, but then again, magic was not real, so who knows how it would really be like if people could really use magic in their life. While still thinking about that she fell into a deep sleep. She started dreaming. She was an all powerful mage, able to fend of any threat. Flying around, making lightning come down upon her foes. Then suddenly one of them started getting up again. His face grinning. An evil grin. Almost diabolical. Then he started shouting:

“YOU ARE MINE! YOU ARE MINE! YOU ARE MINE! YOU ARE MINE!”

The words repeating over and over and over again. Turning into a fearsome hymn of evil Threat. It became more piercing and the tone got higher, until it was only a ringing. Then she woke up. Shaken by her dream, not sure what was reality yet. Then Kimberly began to realize, that it was all a dream. The ringing was not part of the dream. Her doorbell was ringing. Hastily Kimberly put some clothes on and walked to the door, where the officer was waiting for her.

“Hello, i got news for you. Can i come in?”

He grinned as he looked on her face, which had all signs of still not being fully awake.

“Of course. Come in, i will make some coffee.”

Kimberly made her way into the kitchen, put the coffee pot on the stove and began preparing it. After she was done she set a cup in front of the officer and herself.

“Ok what did you want to talk about?” she asked, still not sure what kind of news were awaiting her.

“Well we caught a suspicious person, sneaking around your house. He refused to answer any question, but he had another paper with him, like the one you gave us. So it is safe to assume that he is the stalker that was lurking around.”

“What are you going to do with him?”

Kimberly asked, happy that her life would continue in a normal pace again, but also terrified of the stalker getting close to her again.

“That is a hard question. The problem is, with our current law. We cannot punish him until he actually tried to do something to you. Of course there is some punishment awaiting him for harassing you, but that will be rather a mild one. Probably some detention at our police center for a day or two. But that is it for now. however, he will get a special warning. Should be proceed to get to your house once more, or even into your house, then a harsh punishment will await him. We can just hope that is enough to keep him away from you. Normally it is. But as i said yesterday, there is no normal with people like this, some are completely cuckoo. At least for now you should be completely save from him. We will call you if we get something out of him and the questioning in the office. But now i have to go. Thank you for the coffee and watch yourself. Goodbye.”

The officer got up and went to toward the door.

“Goodbye officer and thank you”.

Kimberly didn’t know what she should do now. She did not feel like working today. All the excitement of the last day started to take a toll on her. She would just take a sick day today and keep in bed. That would probably help. So she went back to her bed and continued the book she read yesterday. While she opened the book, her gaze fell upon the calendar on the wall. Marked in a big red circle. The twenty fifth of September. Four days from now. In the circle, were the letters written:

Concert

“Oh right i nearly forgot in all the trouble. In four days i finally get to live perform for the first time.”

Kimberly started to get excited. All the people that wanted to hear her sing. Being in the center of attention was not something she wanted, but while singing on the stage, she could just sing. No one near her. Closing her eyes and be one with the song. For her it was also a very lucrative business. Doing just this first concert, would get her enough money to pay her living expenses, for the next few months. Not doing it just because she didn’t like being around people would be very stupid. The gains outweigh all other things by a far margin. And even though she would never admit it, she really wanted to sing in a big hall. in front of a crowd. To perform. As long as no one bothered her while doing it. After thinking about that, she started to read her book. Still thinking about how her life would be, if she was just a different person.