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At twenty-four, Shane Hollander is a castaway who has traded paper for Germany’s frozen asphalt. His career resembles a trail of blurred footprints: he began by chasing balls in university chronicles only to vanish into the labyrinth of social critique—an arid soil where his ideas never took root. Now, with the remnants of his fortune converted into a plane ticket, he finds himself in a strange land where the language is an iron wall and money slips through his fingers like water in a wasteland. The hope that brought him here rapidly tightens into a noose of uncertainty; every spent coin is another step toward the precipice of poverty in a country that ignores his name and scorns his pen. Shane is a compass that has lost its true north just as winter begins to bite, facing a reality where hunger stalks with more ferocity than literary ambition.
He rises when Berlin’s gray light pierces the thin curtains of a hostel smelling of dampness and other people's dreams, feeling his body as a rusted gear in a city that never pauses. His mornings pass in high-ceilinged cafes with peeling walls, places where the aroma of toasted beans is the only thing returning a sense of belonging while he scrawls lines no one will read into a worn notebook. He walks cobbled streets with hands buried in his pockets, observing the world through a filter of melancholy that transforms every concrete block into a monument to his isolation. The chill seeps through his coat seams as he searches storefronts for a reflection of the journalist he once dreamed of becoming, finding only the shadow of a young man surviving on cheap coffee and cigarettes shared with strangers. At dusk, the sky collapses like a leaden curtain over his shoulders, forcing him back to a temporary shelter where silence acts as a judge, reminding him of his empty pockets and fragile ambition.
While back home order is a religion and streets are traced with a glass ruler, here chaos is an art form sprouting from the pavement's cracks. Shane observes graffiti-drenched subway stations and clubs that never close—spaces where judgment seems to have dissolved into the night's smoke, offering a savage autonomy he yearns to consume. However, that freedom is a fruit on the highest branch; he contemplates it from the ground, a mere spectator at a party to which he was denied an invitation for lack of funds. The city lays its secrets bare, showing how others reinvent their existence at every corner, but for a young man with nothing, that debauchery is an unattainable luxury that only sharpens his loneliness. In Canada, the future was a straight, predictable path, but in Berlin, time is a hall of mirrors where the possibility of being anyone becomes the sentence of being no one. The vastness of German avenues screams that he can fly, yet the weight of his financial reality acts as a chain keeping him anchored to the cold ground, watching the sky with the envy of one who knows he has wings but lacks the heavens to spread them.
The stale air of the convenience store wraps around Shane like a shroud of plastic and fluorescence, a microcosm of metallic shelves where white light bounces with a cruelty that stings the eyes. The aisles are narrow arteries filled with garish wrappers promising cheap satisfaction, while the constant hum of the refrigerators acts as a metronome for his anxiety. Shane approaches the counter with slumped shoulders, holding a pack of tobacco as if it were stolen treasure, feeling cold sweat race down his back beneath his coat.
“Zwanzig Euro, bitte,” the clerk says, his voice sounding like the crunch of dry leaves, eyes glued to the screen.
Shane reaches into his trouser pocket, desperately seeking the touch of metal, but his fingers find only the void of a torn lining. Panic is an acid burning his stomach as he deposits a handful of coins onto the glass counter, counting every cent with a condemned man's slowness.
“I’m sorry...” he stammers in an English that sounds strange to his own ears, “I thought I had more. Let me check again.”
“Schneller, bitte. Es gibt eine Schlange,” the man responds, pointing dryly to the customers waiting behind him with faces of stone.
The gaze of strangers is a physical weight on his neck, a pressure transforming the act of paying into a public humiliation under the store's spotlights. Shane searches his wallet, his inner jacket pockets, every corner of his clothing, but the tally remains short—failing by a mere couple of euros to reach the price of his vice. The clerk sighs with an impatience that echoes through the store, snatching the pack of tobacco from the counter with a swift hand that puts an end to Shane’s hope.
“Es reicht nicht,” the man sentences, returning the coins with a disdain that hurts more than the external cold.
Shane’s face ignites under the neon lights, a victim of a confusion biting at his vitals. He curses himself in silence for choosing this corner of Europe, wondering why his steps did not lead him toward France, where his tongue would slide with the fluidity of a river over the French he mastered. Instead, he is stranded in this country of syllables that strike like hammers, feeling like an intruder who has crossed an invisible border into total alienation. The clerk launches a flurry of guttural words that crash against Shane’s ears like stones, leaving him in a stupid silence as shame chokes his throat.
Suddenly, a woody and expensive fragrance, smelling of power and ancient libraries, invades the store's rancid air. A man materializes beside him like an apparition from another world; he is a giant of blonde curls hidden behind dark lenses that seem to reflect Shane’s misery with elegance. He wears a black coat that falls with the perfection of a sculpture and a tailored suit that screams opulence in every stitch, shattering the local's decadent aesthetic. With a movement choreographed by confidence, the stranger slides a fifty-euro note across the counter—a gesture of almost comic extravagance in this setting of dusty shelves.
“Lass es gut sein. Für ihn auch,” the man says in a deep voice that seems to domesticate the room.
The cashier snatches the bill with the greed of someone fearing it might vanish, but before his fingers can brush the change, the stranger halts him with a commanding gesture, signaling that the remainder belongs to the establishment. With a composure that feels almost insulting given the shop's urgency, the man takes the pack of cigarettes Shane could not afford and heads toward the exit. Hollander remains anchored to the linoleum, a statue of salt staring into the void, processing the humiliation and relief waging war in his chest. The chime of the bell above the door pierces the silence—a light, metallic ring that acts as a spring for his senses.
Turning his head, Shane discovers that the figure in the dark coat has not vanished into the street's gloom. The man is there, silhouetted against the glow of Berlin’s streetlamps, holding the pack between gloved fingers while a barely perceptible nod indicates a silent invitation. His dark lenses hide any trace of intent, but his relaxed posture suggests the encounter did not end at the counter.
Shane walks toward the stranger, feeling each step on the pavement is an act of blind faith. The man maintains a tomb-like silence—a muteness heavier than any word—and with a ritualistic slowness, he opens the pack to offer a cigarette. Hollander takes it with trembling fingers, treating it like a glass relic, and settles it between his lips while his hands sink into the depths of his cheap coat in search of a flame that isn't there. The emptiness in his pockets serves as a reminder of his defeat, but as he looks up, he meets the stranger’s unshakable attention.
The man produces a silver lighter that gleams under the street’s dying light, a metal jewel that seems to carry the weight of an inheritance. With a measured movement, he coaxes a flame whose golden dance illuminates the space between them. He leans toward Shane, bringing the fire to his face with a proximity that allows the heat of the combustion to brush the journalist’s skin. In that fleeting instant, the glow acts like a photographic developer: the stranger’s face emerges from the shadows, adorned by moles that look like constellations upon pale, perfect skin.
Beneath the frame of his blonde curls, Shane could almost swear the man’s eyes—now visible over the edge of his lenses or through them due to the closeness—are an electric blue so intense they defy natural logic. It is an unreal color, a discharge of frigid energy that seems to pierce through the Berlin mist and drive itself directly into Shane’s consciousness. The cigarette catches, smoke begins to ripple between them like a veil of gray silk, and for an eternal second, time freezes on that sidewalk where a destinationless journalist has just been baptized by the fire of a dark angel.
“Thank you,” Shane murmurs, releasing a puff of smoke that vanishes quickly into the frozen air.
“What is your name?” the man asks. His voice carries a metallic weight, and his accent is a blend of guttural sounds and a rough cadence that Shane cannot identify with any country he knows.
“Hollander. Shane Hollander,” he responds, rushing the words and feeling the weight of his own clumsiness while the cold numbs his lips.
“Good...” the stranger limits himself to saying.
The silence that follows is dense, interrupted only by the sound of a distant engine. The man takes a step forward, invading Shane’s personal space, and extends a gloved finger to point at the cigarette the youth holds. Shane blinks, confused by the gesture, until the man repeats the movement with a quiet insistence. Understanding the request, Shane extends the cigarette to him with a clumsy motion.
The man takes the filter between his index and middle fingers. Shane watches intently as the stranger brings the tobacco to his lips and takes a deep drag, closing his eyes for a moment. The orange ember brightens, casting a copper glow over his high cheekbones and the bridge of his sharp nose. As he exhales, the smoke emerges in a straight column that hits Shane’s chest, enveloping him once more in that scent of expensive cologne and wood emanating from his coat. The man returns the cigarette, keeping his electric blue eyes fixed on Shane’s, while the burnt paper tip still sizzles between them.
“I like your freckles,” the man says suddenly, in that voice that rumbles in Shane’s chest.
“Pardon?” Shane responds, blinking fast, thrown by the bluntness of the comment.
“Your freckles. Where are you from, Shane Hollander?”
“Canada.”
Shane bites his lip as soon as he finishes speaking. He feels vulnerable, exposing his origin to a stranger who seems plucked from an elegant nightmare. In his mind, his parents' voices echo a warning; they would lament his lack of survival instinct, handing information to a stranger on a deserted Berlin street in the middle of the night.
“Far from home,” the man comments, observing the small dark spots on the bridge of Shane’s nose.
“Yes...”
“You do not look Canadian.”
“I’m half Japanese,” Shane lets out, unable to curb his own tongue.
“It makes sense. You have beautiful eyes.”
The compliment falls like a drop of boiling oil on Shane’s skin, sparking a blush that warms his cheeks despite the biting wind. He lowers his gaze for a second, feeling the weight of such direct observation. The man does not stop scrutinizing him, maintaining a rigid and dominant posture.
“And you... where are you from?” Shane asks slowly, trying to regain some balance in the conversation.
“Russia.”
The word leaves the man’s mouth with a cutting hardness.
The cigarette ash breaks away and falls onto the gray sidewalk, disintegrating as it hits the cold cement. The burnt paper is reaching its end, consumed by the air and the shared drags, leaving the filter almost flush against Shane’s fingers.
“What will you do tonight, Shane Hollander?” the Russian asks, his height forcing him to tilt his head slightly to hold the gaze.
“Oh, I... why?” Shane stammers, feeling the remaining smoke trap itself in his lungs out of nervousness.
“Do you know the club Berghain?”
“Yes.”
Of course Shane knew. If you ever come to Berlin, you have to understand that Berghain is not simply a nightclub; it is a where the city keeps its darkest secrets. Imagine a former GDR power plant, a massive block of stone and iron that looks like an impregnable bunker. Upon entering, you leave your phone and your identity behind to submerge yourself in a labyrinth of industrial sounds and blinding lights. There are two main worlds: downstairs is the Berghain floor, with a techno so heavy it hits your organs, and upstairs is the Panorama Bar, where the atmosphere is a bit lighter, yet equally intense. It is a place of absolute freedom and pure hedonism, where hours vanish, prejudices burn, and the only thing that matters is the rhythm that does not stop until Monday morning.
“I will be there with some friends. I could see you there.”
“I...” Shane pauses, feeling the sting of reality in his empty pockets. The image of the stone-faced bouncers and the endless line in the rain returns him to his status as a resource-less foreigner. He has no money for the entry, for a drink, or for the transport back.
“Say my name. They will let you pass,” the man sentences, as if he were dictating a universal law that admits no reply.
“And what is your name?”
“Ilya Rozanov.”
The name rings with a deep vibration, a combination of soft sounds and sharp endings that seem to fit the dangerous elegance of its owner. Ilya adjusts the collar of his black coat, hiding part of his jaw, and gives him a final nod before stepping backward, integrating into the gloom dominating the street. Shane remains there, the extinguished filter in his hand and the name of a Russian stranger etched into his mind, wondering if that surname will be a golden key or a trap.
Reason screams at him to stop, to turn around and retreat to the safety of his rickety bed. Going to Berghain is a terrible idea—a financial and logistical error that would leave his pockets hollow. Shane mentally counts the coins he has left: he has just enough for the transport to get near the club area, but that means condemning himself to an interminable walk back to the hostel under the biting dawn cold. He will not be able to afford a single drop of alcohol, a glass of water, nothing. It is a plan without a safety net.
However, boredom is a weight more unbearable than poverty. Shane reviews his own existence and finds only a straight line of safe, gray decisions. His entire life has been one long yawn; even his career as a journalist stalled in the insignificance of social critique that no one reads. Taking that plane to Germany was his first and only act of bravery—a break from the predictable Shane his parents knew—but since he landed, nothing has happened. He has spent weeks dragging his feet through Berlin without finding a single story worth writing.
Until tonight.
Berghain is a name he has heard in whispers, a legend of excess and walls where he has never dared set foot because he feels like an impostor—someone who doesn't fit into that aesthetic of leather and shadows. But the name Ilya Rozanov burns in his memory like a promise. Shane exhales a sigh of resignation and begins to walk toward the nearest metro station, his heart pounding against his ribs. He knows he is being reckless, but for the first time in twenty-four years, he prefers the risk of a disaster over the vacuum of one more night with nothing to tell.
The air here is different; it vibrates with a dull hum rising from the floor and into the bones. The line is a serpent of leather, latex, and pale faces twisting under a jaundiced, dying light. Shane moves forward with his hands buried in the pockets of his cheap coat, feeling his clothes are a poorly made costume in the middle of this industrial shadow runway. As he nears the entrance, the volume of the music increases—a mechanical heartbeat hitting the chest like a closed fist.
Reaching the front of the line, the world stops. A bouncer of colossal dimensions, his face covered in tattoos that look like cracks in marble, blocks the way. His gaze is cold, devoid of any trace of emotion. Shane feels sweat chill his neck as the guard scans his figure with unbearable slowness, pausing on his old shoes and his half-Japanese face that cannot hide the panic.
“Heute nicht,” the giant sentences with a tomb-like voice, indicating with a dry jerk of his head that he should leave.
“Ilya...” Shane stammers, feeling his throat close. He clears his voice and tries again, firmer. “Ilya Rozanov. He told me to come.”
The name falls between them like a heavy stone. The bouncer does not move immediately; he blinks once, and his expression shifts from indifference to a tense suspicion. He leans slightly toward Shane, invading his space with a scent of tobacco and metal. For a second, Shane is certain he is about to be shoved out of line in front of everyone, but the guard pulls a radio from his belt and murmurs quick words in German that Shane cannot decipher.
Seconds pass and the Berlin cold seems to bite harder. Then, the bouncer lowers his arm, steps aside, and unhooks the metal chain with a clang that echoes through the entrance. With a gesture of his hand, he signals for him to pass, while the others in line watch the scene with a mix of envy and awe. Shane crosses the threshold, leaving the street behind to submerge himself in a dark hallway where the woody scent of Ilya Rozanov seems to be impregnated in the walls.
Upon crossing the threshold, Shane feels that sound ceases to be a frequency and becomes a physical force hitting his sternum and making his teeth vibrate.
The sound system molds the air with surgical precision, creating a dense atmosphere where time fragments and disappears. Shane walks dazed, passing the coat check where the clinking of hangers and the murmur in a thousand languages create a chaotic prologue. He climbs the stone stairs, feeling the techno beat grow darker and deeper as he reaches the main floor. Here, light is a scarce luxury: strobe flashes cut the darkness like silver blades, revealing for milliseconds a mass of bodies moving as a single organic creature, undulating and feverish.
The environment exhales a raw hedonism. There are no phones capturing the moment, only the absolute present. Shane observes outfits that defy gravity and logic: leather harnesses sculpted over bare skin, chains shining with sweat, and custom lingerie transforming the attendees into deities of an eternal night. It is a sensory ritual where the smell of tobacco, expensive fragrances, and the effervescence of bodies create an intoxicating perfume that makes the young Canadian dizzy.
Climbing toward the Panorama Bar, the rhythm shifts slightly, yet the intensity holds its ground. Shane feels minute beneath the infinite ceilings, traversing corridors that lead to hidden corners: smoking areas resembling luxury bunkers, the mythical swing oscillating in the gloom, and the electric energy emanating from the darkrooms. He feels like a trespasser in a universe where freedom is the only law—a space where people come to shed their external identity to become nothing but flesh and sound.
Among the sea of shadows and neon, Hollander desperately seeks Ilya’s silhouette. His eyes, used to the street's gray light, now dilate before the spectacle of interlaced bodies and the mystique of a place that seems to have forgotten the outside world exists. On one of the elevated platforms, where the smoke is thickest and the music seems to be born from the very walls, he finally spots the Russian’s imposing figure. Rozanov observes him from the heights with a glacial calm while holding a glass that reflects the room's blue flashes.
Shane plunges into the heart of the mass, feeling human heat wrap around him like a damp, electric blanket. His shoulders collide with bare backs and torsos covered in leather harnesses that creak upon contact, but he does not stop; Ilya’s presence above is a lighthouse preventing him from sinking into the sea of bodies. The smell of sweet sweat, tobacco, and that woody perfume he already recognizes as a mark of ownership guides him through the twilight.
At the foot of the platform, Ilya Rozanov watches him climb every step. The Russian has set aside his black coat, revealing a dark silk shirt open halfway down his chest, where the moles on his skin seem to merge with the club's shadows. He does not hold a plastic cup, but a thick glass with a transparent liquid that shines like a diamond under the strobes.
When Hollander reaches his side, the music is so loud that the air feels solid—a constant pressure in the ears that nullifies any rational thought. Ilya says nothing; he simply takes a step toward him, closing the distance until their chests almost touch. With a large hand and long fingers, he takes Shane by the nape—a firm pressure that admits no resistance—and forces him to lean his head toward his ear.
“You came,” Ilya lets out, and his voice, though a whisper, cuts through the techno roar like a blade.
The Russian pulls away just a few inches, enough to look Shane in the eyes with that electric blue that, in the club's darkness, seems to emit its own light. With his other hand, Ilya pulls a cigarette from a silver case and places it directly on Shane’s lips, repeating the street ritual, but this time in the center of a sanctuary of excess. The man feels his knees weaken; he is surrounded by strangers dancing as if the world were ending in five minutes, but Ilya’s gaze keeps him anchored, making him the only fixed point in that chaotic universe.
Rozanov smiles—a minimal expression that barely curves his lips—and slides his thumb across Shane’s cheek, brushing one of his freckles with a delicacy that contrasts with the brutality of the concrete surrounding them.
Ilya grips Shane’s shoulder, a heavy hand marking territory, and guides him toward the center of a circle of figures that seem sculpted from the same granite as Berghain’s walls. The music hammers the floor, yet this group remains static, like a marble court in the middle of a noise storm.
“Shane, meet my friends,” Ilya says near his ear.
Standing out before him is Svetlana. She is an imposing vision: a dark-skinned woman with a voluminous afro that seems to capture the strobe light flashes. Her features are strong and elegant, but what leaves Shane breathless are her eyes—an unreal mix of ice blue and storm gray that analyze him with feline curiosity. She wears a metallic mesh outfit that leaves little to the imagination, moving with a grace.
Around her, the rest of the group maintains the same aesthetic of power and coldness. They are men and women with tense jaws, dressed in expensive leathers and dark silks, all with a neatness that is unsettling in such a chaotic place. Their gazes are sharp, devoid of the blurred drunkenness dominating the other dancers; they seem to be on a mission, observing the club like generals on a battlefield.
Shane feels a pang of discomfort tighten his stomach. He looks at himself, with his cheap coat and frayed cuffs and his Canadian shyness, and feels like a printing error in a luxury magazine. The difference in class and world is an abyss opening beneath his feet. Svetlana gives him a minimal smile—a curve of lips that does not reach her glacial eyes—while the others scrutinize him in silence, as if deciding if he is a guest or simply a toy Ilya has picked up from the street.
“He is a journalist,” Ilya adds, and Shane feels the word sound small and ridiculous in that setting.
“A journalist?” she asks, and her voice is a deep purr barely distinguishable over the techno bass. “And what story do you seek here, Shane? Do you think this place allows itself to be caught in words?”
Hollander feels his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. Before he can articulate a response in his rushed English, one of the men in the group—a broad-necked fellow with a shaved head—lets out a quick phrase in Russian. The group erupts into a dry, brief laugh, and the man directs a look at Shane that resembles a wolf observing a wounded rabbit.
“On pohozhe na zakusku,” the man says, and the rest of the circle nods with predatory amusement.
Shane does not understand a single syllable, but the tone of voice and the way they surround him tell him he is the center of a private and dangerous joke. Feeling panic rise up his neck, the man manages a forced smile—an empty gesture of courtesy that only serves to accentuate his role as an intruder at that table of giants. He laughs because it is the only thing he knows how to do when fear paralyzes him, trying to appear part of a game whose rules he ignores completely.
Ilya, who has kept his hand on Shane’s shoulder, feels the tension in the youth’s muscles. His expression hardens and his jaw sets with a violent force.
“Hvatit. Vedite sebya prilichno,” Rozanov sentences with a voice that sounds like the crack of a whip.
The group falls silent instantly. Ilya’s authority is absolute; the laughter dies in his friends' throats and Svetlana takes a step back, regaining her mask of elegant indifference. The Russian leans toward Shane’s ear, his warm breath brushing against cold skin.
“Ignore them. They are hungry for new faces,” he whispers, while his electric blue eyes sweep the venue. “Come with me, we need something strong to wipe that frightened look off your face.”
They reach one of the polished bars, where bottles gleam under the ultraviolet light like vials of precious poison. The Russian does not wait for the bartender to attend to him; he simply gives a signal and, in seconds, a small, heavy glass appears on the counter, filled with a dense, transparent liquid that seems to vibrate with the music's bass.
Hollander observes the glass with distrust. The memory of his empty bank account hits his mind, but Ilya’s hand, still near his arm, silently pushes him to accept the gift.
“What is this?” Shane asks, raising his voice to be heard over the industrial roar shaking the walls.
Rozanov leans toward him, letting the heat of his breath graze the journalist’s ear. His electric blue gaze is fixed on the glass, reflecting the room's neon flashes.
“Drink it,” the Russian simply responds, with a brevity that admits no replies.
Shane takes the cold glass between his fingers. The liquid has a penetrating aroma that clears his nostrils—a mixture of pure alcohol with a trace of something herbal and bitter. He drinks it in a single gulp. Fire races down his throat with a violence that forces him to close his eyes, burning away the shyness and the exhaustion he had been dragging since the street. It is a heat that explodes in his stomach and expands through his veins, making the techno rhythm cease to be an external noise and become the beat of his own heart.
Upon opening his eyes, the world seems to have gained sharpness. Ilya’s face is only inches away, observing Shane’s reaction with an almost scientific curiosity. The Russian takes the empty glass from Shane’s hand and places it on the bar without looking away from him.
“Now Berlin begins to make sense, doesn't it, Shane Hollander?” Ilya says with a smile that, this time, does seem to reach his eyes.
The Russian wastes no time with trivial chatter; he launches questions like short darts, straight to the bullseye, maintaining a minimum distance that forces Shane to respond without thinking.
“Why Berlin, Shane?” Rozanov asks, watching the journalist’s pupils dilate.
“I was looking for something... real. Something that wasn't the mowed grass of my neighborhood,” Hollander lets out, moving his hands erratically.
“And what have you found?” Ilya’s voice is a murmur filtering beneath the music.
“Cold. And that I don’t know how to ask for tobacco in German,” Shane admits with a weak laugh that escapes without permission. “In Canada, everything is orderly. Here, everything looks like it’s going to break or burn.”
“Are you afraid of burning?” Ilya leans in further, his shoulder brushing Shane’s.
“I came to write, but I have nothing. I’m a journalist without news, Ilya. A social critic who doesn’t understand the society he criticizes,” Shane confesses, revealing his failure with a lightness that would scare him if he were sober.
The Russian listens to every word with glacial attention, without judging, only collecting data. His blue eyes travel over Shane’s face, pausing on the movement of his lips.
“Do your parents know where you are tonight?”
“They think I’m in a library or something like that,” Shane lies with a clumsy smile. “They wouldn’t understand this.”
“No,” Ilya agrees with a dry gravity. “They wouldn't.”
Rozanov reaches out and adjusts the collar of Shane’s cheap coat, his fingers brushing the skin of his neck for a second longer than necessary. The interrogation continues—questions about his childhood, about his Japanese mother, about how it feels to be a stranger everywhere. Hollander answers everything, pouring his life over the nightclub bar, unaware that every response is a thread with which the Russian is weaving a net around him.
“Are you afraid of death, Shane?” Ilya repeats, electric blue eyes fixed on the journalist’s dilated pupils.
“I...” Shane blinks, feeling the heat of the drink rise up his neck. “I hadn't thought about it. Not that way. In Canada you don’t think about death, only about retirement and health insurance.”
Rozanov does not flinch. His face remains like a carved mask, imperturbable before the youth’s confusion. He leans in a bit more, reducing the space between them until Shane can see the reflection of Berghain’s lights in the iris of his eyes.
“And of blood?” he launches the second question—shorter, sharper.
Shane swallows hard. The hair on his arms stands on end beneath his cheap jacket. The image of blood—hot and vivid red—contrasts violently with the club’s cold, gray aesthetic. The discomfort he felt with Ilya’s group returns, yet this time it’s laced with a dark fascination he cannot control.
“I don’t know,” Shane murmurs, his voice sounding strangely honest amidst the sensory chaos. “I’ve never seen much. Just my own when I cut myself shaving.”
Ilya tilts his head, observing Shane’s neck with predatory attention. His long fingers drum against the bar’s surface, following a rhythm that has nothing to do with the DJ. There is something in the Russian’s stillness that terrifies Shane, yet simultaneously, he feels that this question is the gateway to the story he has been seeking for so long.
“Tell me, Shane Hollander... are you vegan?” Ilya asks with a seriousness that is almost comic in this setting of excess.
“What? No... well, I eat everything. Why?” Shane responds, letting out a nervous laugh.
“It is a pity. Diet is important. I am very selective about what I consume,” Rozanov sketches a minimal smile, revealing perfect white teeth for a second. “Everything must be fresh. If the source is contaminated, the flavor is ruined.”
Hollander nods, though he doesn't understand why they are discussing nutrition in the middle of a techno club. The heat of the drink continues to rise through his head, making him feel light—almost ethereal. Ilya pulls back slightly and takes Shane’s chin, forcing him to hold the gaze. The strength in his fingers is immense, though he barely seems to be applying pressure.
“Berghain is a place of transformation, Shane Hollander. You enter as one person and leave as another... or you do not leave at all.”
The strobe light fragments reality into black and white pieces. Fear is there, but the curiosity that brought him to Berlin is stronger—a magnetic force pushing him toward the abyss represented by those blue eyes. The Russian releases Shane’s chin, yet the trace of his cold remains etched into the journalist’s skin. With a fluid movement, he extends his hand—a silent invitation Shane accepts without question, letting his fingers vanish into the other's marble palm.
“Come. Conversation is an echo; the dance floor is the pulse,” Ilya sentences.
He guides him toward the center of Berghain’s main floor. As they submerge themselves in the mass of bodies, sound ceases to be something heard and becomes something inhabited. The bass is a hydraulic sledgehammer striking, rising through the soles of Shane’s feet until it shakes his lungs. The heat is suffocating—a dense vapor of the breath of hundreds—but Ilya’s body, pressed against his, remains an island of glacial cold.
On the floor, the strobe light fragments the motion. Shane sees Ilya in milliseconds: a flash of white teeth, the glow of electric blue eyes, the silk of his shirt fluttering. The Russian moves behind him, circling his waist with his arms. The strength of his grip is absolute—an iron cage dressed in elegance. Hollander feels the man’s chin rest on his shoulder, and the brush of blonde curls against his cheek is like the touch of static electricity.
The techno rhythm accelerates, becoming more aggressive and primary. Shane closes his eyes and abandons himself to the sway, feeling how Ilya guides his movements with choreographic precision. Every time Shane’s body arches back, it collides with the Russian’s firm, flat chest. He can feel Ilya’s breath on his nape—a frigid air that makes his hair stand up and sends his pulse racing until the throb in his neck becomes a frantic drum.
Rozanov slides a hand upward, tracing Shane’s ribs until he reaches his throat, where his long, pale fingers close with a minimal but possessive pressure. The man gasps, inhaling the scent of ancient wood and cold blood emanating from the man. In that instant, under the bombardment of white lights, Shane stops feeling the weight of his cheap coat and his boring life; he feels vibrant, exposed, and terribly alive—a prey dancing with his hunter in the heart of the beast.
Ilya closes the gap, pressing his torso to Shane’s until not a single atom of air remains between them. The contrast is intoxicating: Shane’s body burns, consumed by a fever of adrenaline and alcohol, while Ilya is a column of ice holding up his structure that's about to collapse.
In a second of absolute darkness, when the strobe gives the eyes a respite but the bass strikes with more malice, Ilya leans in. Shane feels the brush of lips cold as glass against his earlobe. It is not a kiss; it is a tasting, a territorial reconnaissance. His teeth graze the skin with a precision that sends an electric spark down the journalist’s spine.
“Very handsome...” Ilya murmurs, his voice carrying a vibration that seems to pierce the cartilage.
Shane lets his head fall back, exposing the line of his throat, seeking that contact that refreshes and excites him in equal measure. His cheeks are flushed, his breathing an erratic gasp hitting the collar of the Russian’s silk shirt.
“A pity,” Ilya adds in a whisper so faint it is lost to anyone but Shane.
“What?” he manages to stammer, his mind clouded by the heat rising from his stomach. He doesn't understand the word, nor the tone of farewell or hunger underlying the phrase. He only feels the desire for Ilya not to pull away—for that hand now squeezing his neck with elegant strength to stay there forever.
Rozanov does not respond with words. Instead, he slides his tongue along the curve of Shane’s ear, tasting the flavor of his sweat and his life, before biting with controlled pressure—right at the limit where pleasure begins to transform into a sting of pain. Shane moans, losing his balance, but Ilya’s arms are steel chains keeping him upright amidst the tide of bodies. The heat in Shane’s blood becomes unbearable—an urgency pushing him to seek more of that lethal cold Ilya offers.
The constant friction against Ilya’s thighs, coupled with the pressure of that marble hand at his throat, awakens a physical urgency that Shane cannot hide. Beneath the fabric of his trousers, his anatomy reacts with a hardness that both shames and excites him, marking itself against the Russian’s frigid body like a silent plea.
Rozanov notices instantly. An invisible smile traces itself against Shane’s neck while the Russian shifts his free hand with a torturous slowness. His long fingers abandon the waist and descend until they find the hip bone, sinking in with a force that seems to want to mark Hollander’s very skeleton. The pad of Ilya’s thumb caresses that bony edge, moving with a cadence that follows the brutal techno rhythm, while the rest of his palm presses against the area where Shane’s desire is most evident.
“Ah...” Shane’s gasp escapes, breaking in the club’s dense air.
It is a small sound, loaded with a vulnerability Ilya seems to devour. Hollander feels his legs weaken—the outside world is nothing but a smear of white lights—while the contact of that ice-cold hand on his burning skin creates a short circuit in his nervous system. Ilya moves his hip with predatory subtlety, rubbing against Shane’s erection, enjoying how the young journalist shudders and seeks more of that forbidden touch.
“You are so alive, Shane Hollander,” Ilya murmurs against his nape, and his cold breath is the perfect contrast to the wildfire between Shane’s legs.
Rozanov’s fingers now close over Shane’s belt, pulling him back, forcing his spine to lock against the Russian’s firm chest. Shane throws his head back, eyes rolling, searching for air in a place where there is only music and the scent of a man who seems to want to consume him whole. With a movement dripping in lethal confidence, Ilya slides his right hand from the hip bone toward the center of the blaze consuming the journalist.
The metal of Shane’s belt buckle yields with a click only they perceive beneath the bass roar. Ilya’s fingers—long and gifted with an inhuman strength—slip beneath the fabric, bypassing the resistance of the cotton until marble skin meets skin on fire. The contrast is so violent that Shane lets out a dull moan lost in the room's roar, arching his back while his eyes fix on the power plant’s infinite ceiling.
“Look at me, Shane,” Ilya orders in a frigid whisper, pressing his mouth to the youth’s ear while his hand closes with technical firmness around Shane’s erection.
The movement begins: a slow, almost ritualistic cadence that ignores the techno’s frantic speed to impose its own rhythm. Ilya strokes Shane with terrifying precision; his cold fingers envelop the journalist’s latent heat, rising and falling in a caress that is both torture and ecstasy. Shane feels the floor vanish; his hands desperately seek Ilya’s silk arms to keep from falling, while the Russian’s touch pushes him toward an abyss of pure sensation.
Around them, people continue dancing—a choreography of strangers brushing shoulders, unaware that inches away, the Russian is milking the vitality of his prey. Every time the strobe explodes in white, Shane sees Ilya’s silhouette reflected in his own eyes: a figure of shadows with an electric blue gaze that does not blink, observing with scientific curiosity as Shane’s face decomposes into a grimace of agonized pleasure.
“Your blood beats so hard down here,” Ilya murmurs, pressing his thumb at the tip of Shane’s excitement, stopping just as the youth is about to collapse. “It is almost as if you were calling me.”
Hollander gasps, mouth open, trying to catch oxygen in air that only smells of sweat, ozone, and Ilya’s ancient perfume. The Russian’s hand moves again—this time faster, rougher—forcing Shane to face an intensity his polite Canadian body never imagined. Pleasure is a blade cutting his thoughts, leaving only the touch of Ilya’s ice against his seething skin and the desire for this moment of violent transformation to never end.
He no longer cares about the mass of strangers surrounding them, nor the laws of decency, nor the fact that he is in the epicenter of the techno mecca. His world has shrunk to the space occupied by Ilya’s body. Shane seeks Ilya’s mouth—not to kiss him, but to drown his own cries in the cold of the man’s breath. He gasps directly against the Russian’s lips, inhaling air that tastes like winter and precious metals. His fingers dig into Ilya’s silk forearms, seeking an anchor while the movement of the Russian’s hand becomes faster, harder—a friction generating sparks in his nervous system.
“Ilya... please...” Shane begs, voice broken and eyes clouded by a mist of pure desire.
The journalist is on the edge of the precipice. He feels that familiar, electric pressure accumulating at the base of his spine—a heatwave threatening to overflow and mark his submission before the stranger. His hip moves by instinct, seeking more speed, more pressure, surrendering completely to the skill of those marble fingers. He is one second, one harder touch away from breaking and covering the Russian’s hand with his own vitality.
And then, with masterful cruelty, Ilya stops.
The hand goes still, maintaining a firm but static grip on Shane’s excitement. The sudden vacuum of motion feels like a freefall from a skyscraper. Shane opens his eyes—unfocused and bright—letting out an animal sound of complaint, a sob of frustration that dies in his throat when he meets Ilya’s electric blue gaze.
The Russian observes him with a terrifying calm. No trace of agitation marks his face; his breathing is nonexistent, his composure perfect. He enjoys Shane’s agony, the way the youth trembles under his control, trapped in that unbearable limbo where the climax has frozen at the skin's gates.
“So impatient,” Ilya whispers, and his voice sounds like the crunch of snow beneath a boot. “Did you truly believe I would give you this for free, Shane Hollander?”
“What...?” Shane stammers, his voice cracked and his body vibrating from the accumulated electricity that finds no exit. “Why... do you stop?”
Rozanov does not respond immediately. In that instant, the Russian sketches a slow smile—an expression that is not human, but purely predatory. Under the club’s ultraviolet light, Ilya’s lips curve just enough to reveal teeth that shine with an unreal whiteness; Shane feels a shiver as he notices that his canines look sharper, longer than anatomy should dictate.
They are fangs, Shane thinks for a microsecond, feeling the pulse in his own neck strike with a frantic force. But the haze of alcohol, the lack of oxygen, and the interrupted climax sabotage his judgment. No, it is the light... it is the effect of that drink... I am too excited, he lies to himself, while his body continues desperately seeking the touch of that hand of ice.
“Berlin gives nothing away, Shane,” Ilya murmurs, and his frigid breath hits the youth’s burning lips.
Ilya closes the distance and devours him. The kiss is not a caress; it is a collision of worlds: the febrile heat of Shane’s mouth hits the absolute cold of Ilya’s, a contrast that makes the journalist’s brain explode into white sparks.
The Russian introduces his tongue with an invasive authority, exploring every corner of Shane’s mouth with a voracity that seems to want to snatch away his breath. Hollander moans against his lips, tasting the metallic and ancient flavor emanating from the Russian—a mixture of expensive alcohol and something deeper, something mineral. Saliva slides down the corner of his lips, a thread of moisture shining under the strobe flash, while Shane bites Ilya’s lower lip with desperation, seeking to confirm if what is before him is flesh or marble.
The kiss turns savage—a struggle of tongues and teeth where Shane loses track of where his body ends and his hunter’s begins. Ilya’s lips are firm, almost hard, and every time his canines accidentally graze Shane’s tongue, a lightning bolt of exciting pain travels down the youth’s spine. It is a carnal, wet, and noisy exchange that ignores the surrounding techno; Shane feels he is drinking directly from a source of dark power, clinging to the collar of Ilya’s silk shirt to keep from collapsing while their erections collide through their clothes.
Just before breaking contact, Ilya sinks his teeth into Shane’s lower lip. It is not an accident of the frenzy; it is a deliberate incision—precise and sharp. Shane lets out a muffled cry that merges with the floor's roar as he feels the sharp sting and the sudden heat of metal on his tongue. The wound opens, and a drop of blood—dense and vibrant—begins to sprout, sliding down his chin like a ruby tear.
Shane tries to pull back by pure instinct, expecting Ilya to move away at the accident, but the Russian holds him with a force that immobilizes his vertebrae. Instead of pulling away, Ilya leans in again, pressing his lips to the open wound. With a slowness bordering on the mystical, the Russian begins to lick the blood; his tongue travels over the cut with a disturbing devotion, sucking every drop with an intensity that makes Shane’s knees buckle.
The journalist feels that his blood does not flow out, but is dragged into Ilya’s mouth. It is a wet, hot, and rhythmic contact that empties his mind of any doubt. The pain of the lip transforms into an electric pulse traveling directly to his crotch, making him gasp in an almost animal way. Ilya pulls away a mere millimeter—his lips now stained with a bright red that stands out against his marble skin—and observes the wound with a satisfaction that chills Shane’s blood.
He turns around with a grace that defies the bunker’s gravity and begins walking toward the shadows of the upper hallways.
“Come,” he repeats, without looking back, knowing the trail of his own blood has chained Shane to his shadow for the rest of eternity.
Shane follows Ilya through a hallway that seems excavated in the earth's vitals, far from the main roar, where the techno becomes a dull throb reverberating in the bones. The Russian opens a heavy door and guides him into a room that is a sanctuary of shadows and excess. The walls—of raw, cold concrete—are partially covered by velvet curtains so dark they seem to absorb the scant neon light filtering from the ceiling. In the center, a bed of colossal dimensions—dressed in black silk sheets that shine like oil—dominates the space. The air here is different: it smells of ancient incense, iron, and that eternal cold Ilya radiates.
Ilya stops before the bed and turns around, observing Shane with a predatory calm. With slow and calculated movements, he begins to shed his silk shirt. Every button that slides away reveals skin of an unreal whiteness—a perfect marble surface where the beat of a heart or the trace of human warmth cannot be seen. His shoulders are wide and his muscles are marked with a definition that seems sculpted by a Renaissance artist. Left bare-chested, the room's bluish light outlines his figure, turning him into a deity of shadows.
“Undress, Shane,” Ilya orders, and his voice—now stripped of the club's noise—sounds like the edge of a razor.
Hollander obeys with trembling fingers, feeling his clothes are an obstacle between him and the story about to consume him. He discards the cheap coat, the shirt, and the trousers, left exposed before the Russian’s electric gaze. The room's cold hits his burning skin, but the erection still throbbing with force and the wound on his lip—still stinging with a metallic trace—keep him anchored to the present.
Ilya observes him in silence, his gaze traveling over the freckles on his shoulders and the tremor of his thighs. The contrast between Shane’s human vulnerability and Ilya’s static perfection is absolute. The Russian sits on the edge of the bed, extending a pale hand to invite him closer, while his eyes fix on Shane’s neck, where the jugular beats with a force that seems to call to the teeth Ilya hides behind his minimal smile.
Rozanov remains seated on the edge of the immense black silk bed, a figure of marble governing the shadows. His electric blue eyes shine with an intensity that reduces Shane’s will to ashes. The silence in the room is absolute, broken only by the runaway heartbeat the journalist feels in his own ears.
“On your knees, Shane,” Ilya orders. His voice is not a request; it is a physical law.
Hollander obeys instantly. His knees hit the dark rug softly, leaving him level with the Russian’s frigid thighs. Excitement is a thick fog preventing him from seeing the danger; his judgment has dissolved in that carnal desire to be claimed. Ilya stretches out his long-fingered hand and, with a slowness bordering on the sacred, takes Shane by the chin, forcing him to lift his face toward him.
“Open your mouth,” Ilya murmurs, leaning in until their faces are millimeters apart.
Shane opens his lips, revealing his moistened tongue and the trace of the wound Ilya caused on the dance floor. His eyes are clouded, lost in the static perfection of the man before him. In that moment, Ilya gathers his own essence; he leans slightly and spits into Shane’s mouth.
The fluid is dense and possesses a coldness that burns. Shane receives it as if it were a dark sacrament, feeling how that trace of Ilya slides down his tongue and throat. It is not just saliva; it is the seal of an ancient property. The journalist swallows by instinct, closing his eyes as a spasm of pure pleasure travels down his spine, further hardening his anatomy. He feels humiliated and elevated at the same time—a prey grateful for the attention of its predator.
Ilya observes the trail of moisture on Shane’s lips with glacial satisfaction. He slides his thumb to clean the youth’s corner, pressing firmly into the soft flesh.
“Suck,” Ilya sentences, and his voice is a dull thunder in the bunker's silence.
Shane launches himself toward him with animal desperation. His lips seek the Russian’s cold with brute force, enveloping him in an attempt to sate a hunger that is no longer just sexual, but existential. He begins to work with his mouth in a frantic, rough manner, letting his tongue travel over Ilya’s frigid surface while his hands dig into the man’s marble thighs. The journalist is beside himself; judgment has died and only the instinct of the prey adoring the hunter remains.
“Open your mouth wider,” Ilya orders him, pulling his curls back to force him to widen his opening, exposing the vulnerability of his throat.
Rozanov grabs him by the nape and pushes him deep, claiming the space with a firmness that ignores Shane’s biological limits. The Russian’s size and hardness force Shane to arch his back, feeling the air escape his lungs. The journalist begins to choke—a guttural sound of struggle and pleasure rebounding off the velvet walls. His eyes fill with involuntary tears, shining under the bluish light, while his hands seek desperately for something to cling to.
Hollander gasps through his nose—a broken, agonizing rhythm—while his cheeks hollow and his throat surrenders to Ilya’s invasion. The heat of his own blood pounds in his temples, a savage pulsation competing with the dull throb of the techno still vibrating in the floor. Ilya observes him from above with Olympic calm, enjoying every spasm of asphyxiation, every broken gasp Shane emits as he loses himself in the immensity of a man who knows neither fatigue nor mercy.
Ilya stops the movement suddenly, closing his steel-strong hand over Shane’s hair to force him away. The journalist emerges from the contact with a flushed face, red lips, and breathing turned into a desperate whistle for lack of oxygen. A thread of saliva glitters on his chin, reflecting the room's bluish light like molten silver.
“Enough,” Ilya dictates, and his voice has the coldness of an open grave.
Shane blinks, disoriented, his body trembling in a note of frustration traveling to his bones. The vacuum the Russian leaves is unbearable—an abyss pushing him to want to beg for more.
“Stand up,” Ilya orders him, rising from the bed with liquid grace, without a single muscle in his face revealing any agitation.
Shane obeys with legs like jelly, feeling the bunker's cold air lick his naked skin. He barely remains upright, his heart hitting his ribs like a caged bird sensing the end. Ilya observes him from head to toe, evaluating the vibration of his muscles and the way Shane’s erection still claims attention—red and throbbing against his belly.
“Now, lie on the bed,” Ilya says, pointing to the black silk sheets that look like a pool of shadow waiting for him.
Shane moves toward the mattress as if in a trance. At the touch of the silk, the fabric's cold gives him a shiver that makes the hair on his arms stand up. He lies down, left vulnerable, with heavy limbs and eyes fixed on the marble figure of Ilya now looming over him. The contrast of his fair skin against the bed’s deep black is almost artistic—an offering of human flesh upon an altar of darkness.
Shane moves toward the mattress as if in a trance. At the touch of the silk, the fabric's cold sparks a shiver that makes the hair on his arms stand up. He lies down, left vulnerable, with heavy limbs and eyes fixed on the marble figure of Ilya now looming over him. The contrast of his fair skin against the bed’s deep black is almost artistic—an offering of human flesh upon an altar of darkness.
Ilya climbs onto the bed with torturous slowness, crawling over Shane until his knees settle on either side of the youth's waist. The Russian’s weight, dense and firm, crushes Shane against the mattress, stealing his breath once more. Rozanov leans in, letting his blonde curls brush the journalist’s forehead, and his blue eyes—now two pits of pure hunger—fix on the jugular beating with suicidal force in Shane’s neck.
“Spit,” Ilya orders, extending a pale hand before the journalist’s face.
Shane does not hesitate. With his mouth still hot and his judgment long gone, he lets his saliva fall onto Ilya’s palm—a shimmering, dense trail marking his absolute surrender. The Russian observes the fluid with scientific, almost mystical intensity, and then does the same: he spits onto his own palm, mixing his frigid essence with Shane’s biological heat. Ilya joins his fingers, stirring the liquid until both substances become one—a wet, silver bond under the neon light.
With his hand still moistened by that mixture, Ilya slides it downward, tracing Shane’s tense abdomen until he reaches the center of the blaze. The contact is an electric shock; the cold of the mixture and the roughness of Ilya’s palm envelop Shane’s excitement with a force that wrenches a muffled cry from him. The Russian begins to stroke him, using their shared moisture to lubricate the movement, rising and falling with a cadence that ignores any trace of mercy.
“Fuck... Ilya!” Shane gasps, arching his back so sharply his shoulder blades sink into the silk mattress.
Pleasure is a whip lashing him. He feels Ilya’s hand, firm and glacial, governing his body with a mastery that makes him feel small—a simple note in the Russian’s symphony of darkness. Each time Ilya’s fingers tighten, Shane feels his soul escaping through his pores, seeking refuge in the man dismantling him piece by piece. The sound of Shane’s gasps is the only thing filling the room—an erratic rhythm competing with the dull throb of the club beneath their feet.
Ilya leans in, observing how Shane’s face contorts in ecstasy, enjoying his prey's total vulnerability while his hand continues working with a speed that pushes the youth toward an abyss from which he will never want to return.
Rozanov settles between Shane’s legs, gripping his thighs with a strength that will leave the mark of his fingers etched into the pale skin like a stigma of ownership. Shane feels his legs being spread wide, exposing his total vulnerability to those electric blue eyes that now shine with a supernatural light—a luminescence that does not belong to this world. Ilya observes him from above, his marble torso tensing as he positions himself, and for a second, the bunker’s silence becomes so dense Shane can hear the crash of his own heart.
Then, Ilya penetrates him in a single movement—deep and absolute.
“Ah!” Shane’s scream breaks against the ceiling.
The sensation is a head-on collision: the invasion is cold, hard, and of a magnitude that seems to tear the journalist’s very reality apart. It is not merely a physical act; it is as if a block of burning ice were carving a path inside him, claiming every nerve and every fiber of his being. Shane digs his nails into the black silk sheets, arching his neck back until his vertebrae creak, while his lungs struggle to catch oxygen that seems to have vanished.
He begins to move with seismic power, each thrust a hammer blow shaking Shane’s skeleton against the mattress. The Russian is a machine of frigid precision; no sweat beads his skin, no fatigue claims his muscles—only that implacable rhythm dismantling the young Canadian’s sanity.
Shane gasps, eyes rolling back, feeling pleasure and pain merge into a single, sharp note. Ilya’s size fills him completely, stretching his limits to the point of delicious agony. Each time the Russian’s body collides with his, Shane feels himself disintegrate beneath the weight of an eternity he cannot fathom, trapped in the sway of a man devouring him from the inside out.
Every strike from Ilya is a dull explosion of flesh hitting flesh. Shane feels the impact at the base of his spine—an electric shock clouding his vision and stealing the control of his limbs. The Russian moves with mechanical potency, his hips striking with a force that rattles Shane’s lungs, forcing out broken gasps: animal sounds mixing with the rustle of black silk.
The Russian exhales frigid air over Shane’s face, observing with cruel fascination as the journalist decomposes beneath his weight. The thrusts become short, rapid, and brutal, seeking the very depths of Shane’s being. The youth feels himself breaking, his anatomy insufficient to contain Ilya’s immensity; his head strikes the headboard repeatedly in a trance of agonizing pleasure and pure carnality.
Upon reaching climax, his vision stains a blinding white—an electric light searing his retinas while his body arches in a violent, eternal spasm. His muscles tighten to the brink of tearing, and semen erupts with desperate force, staining the black silk and Ilya’s marble belly.
Shane floats in a vacuum of pure euphoria, his mind turned to static. From afar, as if coming from another dimension, he hears Ilya’s voice. It is a guttural whisper, laden with a vibration that does not belong to human vocal cords; words in an ancient, dark tongue—a sentence Shane cannot decipher but feels vibrating in his bone marrow.
Ilya does not stop. Even though Shane has emptied himself, the Russian accelerates the pace, becoming a motor of carnal destruction. His thrusts are now deeper, seeking the epicenter of the youth's life. Ilya’s face is transformed: his pupils have devoured the blue, leaving two black pits of infinite hunger. He feels his own climax—a discharge of cold, lethal power—about to explode inside the journalist.
In that instant of maximum tension, something returns Shane to reality with brutal force. The white of his eyes vanishes as he feels an absolute, glacial weight upon his throat.
Ilya sinks his fangs into Shane’s jugular.
The pain is a needle of ice piercing the skin and driving deep into the artery. Shane’s eyes fly open, regaining consciousness just as he feels his blood being claimed. The bite is deep, voracious; Ilya’s teeth act as ivory anchors pinning him to the mattress. Shane feels the powerful suction—a rhythmic vacuum extracting his vital heat while the Russian comes inside him in a perfect synchrony of sex and death.
The journalist tries to release a scream, but only a gasp emerges, muffled by Ilya’s mouth, which now seals the wound. The sensation of being emptied while being filled creates a final short circuit in his brain. Life escapes him in hot gushes that Ilya swallows with religious devotion, while the vampire’s body tightens one last time, delivering his cold seed into the depths of the prey he has just claimed forever.
Ilya does not merely drink; he surrenders to a feast of the senses. His lips, cold as steel, seal the wound in Shane’s neck so that not a single drop of that crimson liquor is lost. Shane feels the powerful suction—a rhythmic vacuum that seems to pull his soul from his toes to his throat. Each swallow Ilya takes is a pulsation of agonizing pleasure racing through the youth's nervous system, erasing pain and replacing it with an intoxicating weakness.
Ilya’s tongue moves with unholy skill, licking the edges of the incision to stimulate the flow, savoring the iron, alcohol, and adrenaline saturating his prey's blood. The Russian emits a vibrating purr that Shane feels directly in his bones—a note of absolute satisfaction as his marble body begins to regain a subtle, almost imperceptible hint of human warmth thanks to the life he is stealing.
“More...” Shane’s body seems to implore in a final spasm, while his eyes remain fixed on the ceiling, watching reality vanish into shadows.
Ilya pulls away a mere few millimeters, just enough to let the air hit the open wound, and then strikes again—this time more gently, using his tongue to clean the trail of blood escaping toward Shane’s collarbone. Each lick is an electric caress, a way of definitively marking territory. The vampire closes his eyes, surrendered to the flavor of the young Canadian, while his hands remain buried in Shane’s thighs, keeping him anchored to that black silk bed that has become his altar of sacrifice.
The journalist feels himself turning to smoke, his weight disappearing, and only that point of contact on his neck existing where Ilya is devouring his future. The room's cold no longer bothers him; now, the only heat he recognizes is that of his own blood entering the throat of the man who has claimed him for eternity.
Ilya withdraws his fangs with a soul-tearing slowness, leaving behind two perfect orifices that leak one last crimson thread. The Russian observes his prey with a renewed gaze; his blue eyes now shimmer with a violet hue, charged with the energy he has just snatched from the youth. He leans in one last time, brushing his blood-stained lips against Shane’s pale cheek.
“Very handsome...” he murmurs, his voice sounding like the echo of a breaking glacier. “You are very lucky, Shane Hollander from Canada.”
Shane lies upon the black silk, his limbs heavy as if forged from lead. The world is a blur of distorted colors and sounds; ecstasy and blood loss have created an opium cloud in his brain, preventing him from grasping the magnitude of the mark on his neck. He tries to articulate a word, a question, but his tongue refuses to obey and his eyelids weigh tons. He feels numb, floating in a pool of mercury where time has ceased to exist.
Rozanov rises from the bed with supernatural elegance. He dresses with fluid movements, buttoning his silk shirt without a single fold out of place. He is once again the image of aristocratic perfection. He stops at the threshold of the door, casting a long shadow that blankets Shane’s inert body.
“We will see each other soon,” Ilya sentences, and his smile is a promise that seals the journalist's fate.
The door closes with a metallic click that echoes in Shane’s skull like a gunshot. The silence that follows is sepulchral, broken only by the increasingly slow and erratic beat of his heart, while the darkness of the room begins to dance before his eyes, preparing him for the awakening of a world that will never be the same.
☆━━─────「✦」─────━━☆
Shane sits before his typewriter in the gloom of his hotel room, where the only relief is the rhythmic clacking of keys against the platen. The blank paper begins to surrender to the ink, reflecting the shadows that still dance in his memory.
Berlin is a gash in geography, a tear of urban flesh that defies stitching.
Entering Berghain is plunging into a bottomless pit where the "self" disintegrates like a sugar cube in poison. There, time is a broken compass; the clock, a corpse. Upon emerging to the surface, memory is a devastated battlefield. No one knows if the sun hitting your face is the same one you left behind or if eons of sweat and darkness have passed.
It is the crossing into a dimension where logic kneels before excess. The cold bites with the fury of fire, and thirst is a beast in the throat that laughs at the purity of water. One enters that thicket with the hunger for a chronicle and ends up being only the blood trail of a hunt that pulses, eternal, beneath the skin.
Suddenly, a sharp and authoritative knock echoes on the wood of his door.
Shane jolts, feeling his heart leap against his ribs. He stands with a certain heaviness, the dizziness still claiming its quota of blood. However, the hallway is deserted. Only the echo of his own steps and the smell of old carpet greet him in the solitude of the corridor.
Frowning and with a hollow sensation in his stomach, he closes the door and returns to his desk.
Upon arriving, he stands petrified. On the metal surface of his typewriter, right above the roller where his article rests, lies a pack of cigarettes. It is an elegant brand, an old design he does not recognize, and the aroma it gives off is a blend of expensive tobacco and that mineral perfume he inhaled in the bunker.
There was no one in the room. He heard no window. But the cigarettes are there.