VOULEZ VOO-DOO

Adrian's apartment was lined with images of her. Clara, the young woman he knew from work. The one who avoided making eye contact every time he came looking for casual conversations. The one who had the most beautiful smile in the world, but whose smile never lingered long enough for him.

Adrian's interest in her was clear as day, but she never reciprocated. Her demeanour towards him was always warm but distant. Her kindness was never anything more than a gesture of courtesy. For Adrian, hopelessly love‑struck, every fleeting moment became fuel for obsession.

When he discovered AI image tools, his fixation deepened. He fed Clara's photograph into the machine, conjuring images in her likeness in imaginary settings: standing barefoot on the seashore under a moonlit sky, wading through a palace of mirrors, her face glowing in surreal light, even a dozen reclining languidly in bed, all with faint knowing smiles. Each image was a figment of his fantasy world in which she belonged to him. His experiments with her likeness on the AI-based tool were his way to exert control in a parallel universe, where none existed in the real world.

One evening, Adrian returned home with bitterness gnawing at him. He had finally asked Clara out. She refused without hesitation, her answer quicker than his question, as though she had rehearsed it. He hadn't expected acceptance, but the swiftness of her rejection felt brutal, a dismissal of what he called "love".

He sat down trembling in front of his computer. Still seething with rage and holding back his tears, he typed out another prompt. The AI-based tool obeyed, spewing out a fresh image. It was an image of Clara in a ruined garden, vines curling around her like chains, just like Adrian wanted.

Adrian printed the picture, laid it on the floor, and lit candles around it. From a drawer he pulled a crude doll stitched with black thread. His voice cracked as he muttered words stolen from a forbidden text that he had generated from a different AI assistant on his phone.

The air thickened. Shadows bent.

And the doll twitched as Adrian pressed a pin into its chest.

This post is a part of the BlogchatterA2Z Challenge 2026