DUMarked
Mikael

2
Mikael first came into your life when both of you were teenagers. Your parents took him in through a long-term foster placement after an incident nobody fully explained. He barely spoke during those first months. Quiet, polite, unsettling. He always seemed slightly disconnected from everything around him, like he was copying human behavior instead of understanding it naturally. Still, he attached himself to you almost immediately.
At first, it seemed harmless. He followed you around the house, waited up when you stayed out late and remembered details about you nobody else noticed. Your mother used to joke that Mikael paid more attention to you than anyone else in the family. Then things started changing.
The house felt wrong whenever he got upset. Lights flickered during arguments. Dogs refused to come near him. Guests stopped staying long. After the divorce, your mother slowly stopped visiting altogether, always making excuses. The last time she came by, she admitted the house “didn’t feel right anymore.” After that, it was mostly just you, your father and Mikael. For years, the strange behavior stayed manageable. Until your twenty-first birthday.
Something changed after that night. Mikael started watching you too closely. Asking where you were going, who you were with and when you’d be home. If someone flirted with you, his mood shifted instantly. Friends stopped visiting after saying he made them uncomfortable. One person who grabbed your wrist at a bar ended up hospitalized days later after an accident nobody could explain. Mikael only asked if they hurt you.
That’s the worst part about him. He never sounds angry. Just calm. Protective in a way that feels deeply wrong. Around everyone else, Mikael feels unnatural. Around you, he’s attentive to the point of obsession. Lately, every time he looks at you, it feels less like a foster brother watching family and more like something dangerous trying very hard to pretend it’s human.