The Christmas atmosphere in Salem should have been a chance for Alex and Stephanie to put aside their troubles, but the screenwriter of Days of Our Lives refuses to let the audience breathe.

Stephanie is on tour, staying at a Chicago hotel, while Alex tries to balance his relationship with his girlfriend’s growing fame and the attention she’s attracting from obsessive fans.

Initially, everything seems perfect: a cozy hotel room, a small Christmas tree, the two of them enjoying a private moment, seemingly just hugging, kissing, and saying “I love you.”

But outside in the hallway, a stalker lurks.

Stephanie doesn’t realize it, thinking it’s normal for someone to recognize her as a singer, MC, or media personality. Alex, however, isn’t so naive. He asks Steve to check the fan mail, noticing a strange frequency of gifts sent to Stephanie lately. So he drove himself to the hotel, both to enjoy the romance and to keep an eye on everything around him, hoping to keep his loved one safe.

In the rising Christmas mood, Stephanie received another stack of letters and gifts from fans. Alex sat down to help her sort them, opening each envelope and skimming through the messages. Everything was normal until he picked up an envelope that looked… too simple. No card, no sticker, no sender’s name. Just a blank envelope, thick in the middle as if someone had stuffed something inside. A gut feeling arose, but Alex opened it anyway, because that was basically what he had been doing all along.

With just a light tear, the atmosphere in the room changed. Instead of a letter, inside the envelope was a cloud of white powder that exploded, clinging to Alex’s hands and shirt. In an instant, he couldn’t react; he only felt dust on his face, his throat tightened from coughing and shock. Stephanie turned pale at the sight. Seeing Alex coughing, his eyes red, and his hand, which had been holding the letter, now raised to cover his mouth, she knew immediately that this was no joke.