THE DARK SPIRITS OF AFFECTION

People talk about love like it’s some clean, holy thing. Like it shines. Like it heals wounds and makes the world softer. That’s the lie. If they could see what hangs behind them when they whisper “I love you,” they’d choke on the words before they ever let them leave their mouths. She learned that early. Too early. She was nine the first time the world split open in front of her eyes. The kitchen smelled like fried onions and hot oil that night. Her mother was laughing at something her father said, leaning against the counter with that loose smile people wear when they feel safe around someone. Normal moment. Warm moment. Except there was something standing behind them. It wasn’t tall. Not exactly. But it felt big. Wrong big. Like a shadow that had grown bones and teeth when nobody was watching. Its fingers were sunk into her father’s shoulders. Long, thin things. Bent the wrong way. And its mouth… God. Its mouth stretched so wide it looked like it might tear its own face apart. It wasn’t speaking. It wasn’t breathing. It was feeding. Drinking in every laugh, every touch, every small spark of affection floating between her parents like smoke. She screamed. The chair behind her scraped hard across the floor when she jumped back. Her mother spun around, eyes wide. Her father dropped the plate he was holding. It shattered against the tile. But the thing behind them didn’t move. It just looked at her. Those hollow eyes locked onto her like it finally noticed someone in the room who could actually see it. Her father grabbed her shoulders. “What’s wrong with you?” She pointed. Hands shaking. “It’s right there.” They turned. There was nothing. No twisted creature. No shadow with teeth. Just the kitchen wall. That was the night everyone decided she had a wild imagination. But imagination doesn’t follow you through the years like a bad smell you can’t wash off. The things kept showing up. On buses. In parks. In restaurants where couples leaned close across tables like the rest of the world had gone quiet for them. The spirits were always there. Sometimes small ones, hunched and starving, clinging to people like parasites waiting for scraps of emotion. Other times the big ones showed up. Those were the worst. Thick bodies made from jealousy and obsession. Faces that looked almost human until you noticed the mouths were too wide and the eyes were empty pits. The darker the love, the uglier the spirit. That’s the rule she figured out over time. No one else noticed them. Not the couples. Not the crowds walking past. Not even the ones who claimed to believe in ghosts and magic. To everyone else the world looked clean. To her it looked infected. So she stopped talking about it. Kept her mouth shut. Learned to move through the city like someone who had accepted that the world carried a sickness no one wanted to admit existed. Most days she managed to ignore it. Most days. Then that night happened. Rain had just stopped falling. The street smelled like wet concrete and car exhaust. Puddles caught the light from the broken streetlamps, making the ground look like shattered glass. Couples passed by her like always. And the spirits followed them like starving dogs. One clung to a young man’s back, its fingers buried deep in his spine. Another slithered behind two girls holding hands, licking the air between them like it could taste their affection. Same ugly pattern she had seen her whole life. Then she saw him. He stood across the street under a flickering lamp. Tall. Still. Watching the world like he wasn’t part of it. At first nothing seemed strange. Just another man standing alone in the rain-soaked night. Then her eyes moved behind him. And everything in her chest locked tight. There was nothing there. No spirit crouched in his shadow. No whispering thing circling him. No hunger in the dark. The space around him was completely empty. For the first time in her life, she was looking at someone untouched by them. And that should have been impossible. Because the spirits were everywhere. They fed on affection the way fire feeds on air. Nobody escaped them. Nobody. Yet somehow… he had. He lifted his head slowly. Like he could feel her staring. Their eyes met across the street. For one quiet second the entire world felt like it had stopped breathing. Then something moved above them. High in the dark where the streetlights couldn’t reach. A long shape sliding across the rooftops. Watching. Waiting. And for the first time since she was nine years old… The spirits looked afraid.