Sunday morning was no different, except for how much worse it was.

Felix had hoped Saturday's calmness meant his body and mind were settling, that maybe he'd gained some control back. But he had spent the past few hours hunched over his toilet, vomiting violently. He had been retching ever since Mrs. Harper’s death. And now, as the weak light of dawn filtered through the grimy window, Felix felt like he had nothing left to give.

His body shook with exhaustion as he flushed the toilet and leaned heavily against the wall. The bathroom mirror was still shattered from the night before with shards of glass littering the floor. They reflected pieces of his face, but it wasn’t his face he saw. It was someone else’s, someone evil, someone capable of—

Felix shook his head, trying to clear the images. He couldn’t let himself go there. Not again.

As Felix stepped toward the door, a sudden, sharp sting brought him back to reality. He winced, looking down to see a shard of glass jutting from his foot, blood already welling up around the wound and seeping into the cracks between the tiles. For a moment, he just stared at it, the pain distant, almost surreal—like it belonged to someone else. Bending down, he plucked the glass out, watching as a fresh, thin stream of blood trickled down his foot. He threw the shard across the bathroom, hearing it clink against the wall. He needed to clean up the glass eventually, Soon. But not now.

He limped back into the main room of his small apartment—a simple space with a bed, a chair, and a small table. The floor was cluttered with the remnants of his scattered belongings, but the emptiness of the room made the mess seem insignificant. Felix didn’t have a television. He got rid of things like that a long time ago, when he realized that every reflection in the screen was another opportunity to see the horrors that followed him everywhere.

He lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. His mind was a storm of memories, flashing images of Mrs. Harper’s death playing on repeat in his head. He could see it so clearly—the way her face slammed into the porcelain sink, the blood spraying across the bathroom tiles, her severed tongue dangling in her mouth. The razor blade, sharp and cold, cutting through flesh and muscle like it was nothing. And the look in her eyes—shock, terror, pain.

I need fresh air. That’s all. The fresh air of the beautiful, cold, blue ocean. Just some fresh air, to get out of this room, out of this building. Out of the walls in my head, in my room.

But the memories pulled him back. He could see her again, that final moment. She was standing at the sink, taking that jittery sniff of whatever drug she was on. He had been behind her, hadn’t he? Or maybe beside her? It all blurred together now. She’d fallen—hadn’t she? Slammed her face into the sink, that awful cracking sound of bone against porcelain. But was it really a fall? Or had he… pushed her?

Felix groaned and rolled over, clutching his stomach as the nausea surged again. He forced himself to the bathroom and vomited, the retching echoing through the small room. His body trembled, sweat dripping down his forehead. He gripped the toilet seat with trembling hands as he fought to steady himself. The darkness was creeping in again, stronger than before. It had been growing since he moved into this damned apartment.

He could remember everything clearly but he didn’t want to. The darkness had other plans. It wanted to pull up all the things he was desperately trying to bury, all the bloody things hidden in the darkest recesses of his mind.

Felix flushed the toilet again. He forced himself to breathe, to focus on the sound of the toilet flushing as he sent the contents of his stomach swirling down the drain. Then, for a split second, he saw something else in the water—something red, something that looked like blood. And in the swirling mess, he saw her tongue. Mrs Harper’s severed tongue bobbing up and down in the toilet lifelessly, mockingly.

My tongue... my mouth... cut off

Felix slammed the toilet lid shut and bolted out of the bathroom, his heart pounding in his chest. The voice was growing louder, that same voice that had taken over him long ago. The curse. He couldn’t let it control him again. He couldn’t let it drag him back to that place.

His hands shook as he grabbed his notebook and pen from the bedside table. He needed some fresh air, something to clear his mind. He scribbled a quick note to himself: Get outside. Get away.

Felix pulled on his jacket and hurried out of his apartment, locking the door behind him. The cold hallway of the building was a stark contrast to the stifling heat of his room. It was a relief, in a way, to feel the chill on his skin. It made him feel alive, real, like he wasn’t just trapped in his own mind.

The stairs creaked beneath his feet as he made his way down to the building’s exit. He didn’t care where he was going, just that he needed to be anywhere but inside that apartment. The memories clung to him like a second skin, and he had to shed them, if only for a little while.

Detective Sarah Halloway arrived at the crime scene early that Sunday morning, her breath fogging in the cold air. The sun had barely risen, casting the city with a sickly gray light. The hum of police radios and the conversations of the uniformed officers on duty as they kept back the curious onlookers who had gathered, were the only sounds that filled the air. Yellow crime scene tape flapped in the breeze, marking off the area surrounding the apartment building.

She tightened her scarf around her neck as she approached the front of the building. Stepping under the crime scene tape, her boots crunched on the pavement as she made her way toward the body. The morning light barely penetrated the gloom that clung to the city streets. The scene in front of her was a grisly one—one she had seen too many times in her career. Yet, it never got any easier.

Rebecca’s body was sprawled against the pavement, her flayed skin a pale contrast to the white, cracked bricks. Fresh blood was still pooled around her, mingling with the rainwater that had fallen sometime during the night, turning the ground beneath her into a sickening slurry of red and gray. Her abdomen had been sliced open, her entrails brutally exposed, and a deep cut ran across her flayed arm. Her glassy eyes stared out at nothing and for a moment, Sarah could see them sparkle in the faint morning light. Like the moon.

Sarah sighed and rubbed her temple, feeling the familiar cold creeping up the back of her neck. Another victim. Another flayed body. The city seemed to be drowning in blood lately, and it was her job to sift through the carnage and make sense of it all. She had been working homicide for over a decade, and though she had seen her fair share of nightmares, something about this particular case felt like bony fingers latching on to her brain and squeezing it as hard as they could. This wasn't just another random act of violence or some calculated statement. It was detached and banal.

And it wasn’t the first.

"Detective Halloway." A young uniformed officer called Martinez approached her, his face pale and drawn. He was new to the precinct, still learning the ropes. Sarah had seen that look on countless rookies—the mix of fear and resolve, trying to make sense of the violence that seemed to permeate every corner of the city. He glanced at the body, then quickly looked away, clearly unsettled. "We’ve got the crime scene secured. The coroner is on his way. It’s… pretty bad."

Sarah nodded, not looking away from the body. "Yeah. I can see that."

She crouched down beside Rebecca, careful not to disturb the evidence. Her keen eyes scanned every inch of the scene, taking in the details. The way the cuts were made, the position of the body, the remnants of a broken bottle lying just a few feet away. She made mental notes of everything. A familiar process honed from years of experience and training.

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"What do you think detective?" Martinez asked, as he stepped closer.

"That she was killed by a murderer," Sarah replied sarcastically with a smirk, standing up and dusting off her pants. "Whoever did this wasn’t in a hurry though. They took their time with her. That tells me they’re confident, maybe even comfortable."

Martinez swallowed hard, glancing again at the body. "Jesus… what kind of person does something like this?"

"A very sick one," Sarah replied flatly.

Martinez nodded, though he still looked a bit green around the gills. "Do you think it’s the same guy as the Martin Lawrence case?"

"I’m not sure but we need to operate under the assumption that it’s the same person," she said. "Who found her?"

"Resident in the building," Martinez replied. "He was heading out for work this morning, found her like this."

Sarah nodded, her mind already working through the possibilities. This wasn’t just a killing. This was something else—something deeper, darker. She had seen cases like this before, but none as brutal as this. The level of detachment it took to flay someone like this… it was monstrous.

She stood up, scanning the area around the body. The blood spatter suggested the attack had taken place here, right outside the building. The killer hadn’t even bothered to move the body, hadn’t tried to hide what they had done. That meant they were either extremely confident or they wanted to be seen. Maybe both.

"Have we identified the victim?" Sarah asked.

The officer nodded. "ID in her purse. Name’s Rebecca Lee. Asian-American, mid-twenties. She lived in the building."

Sarah’s jaw tightened. A woman out for a night on the town, probably never saw it coming. She glanced at the entrance to the building, wondering what kind of place she had lived in, what kind of life she had led. It didn’t really matter now.

She knelt down again, her eyes narrowing as she studied the wounds. This wasn’t a crime of passion. It wasn’t even about power or control. There was no rage here, no emotion. The killer had just been going through the motions, performing a task they had done a hundred times before. And that kind of detachment scared her more than anything else.

Footsteps approached, and Sarah glanced up to see the coroner arriving, his assistant carrying a gurney behind him. The coroner, Dr. Miller, was a man in his late fifties, with a lined face and gray hair that seemed to be perpetually disheveled. He gave Halloway a nod as he crouched down beside the body.

"Morning, Detective," he said, his tone flat. "Looks like we’ve got ourselves another one."

Halloway gave a short nod, her arms crossed over her chest as she watched him work. "What can you tell me?"

Dr. Miller let out a low whistle as he inspected the wounds. "Flaying. The cuts are clean, beautiful. The sort of flaying talent you read in books of the medieval period. The killer knew exactly where to slice to get the skin off in one piece."

Sarah’s stomach churned, but she kept her expression neutral. "How long do you think she’s been dead?"

Miller examined the body for a few moments before answering. "Judging by the state of rigor mortis, I’d say she’s been dead for at least seven hours. Maybe more."

Sarah did the math in her head. Seven hours ago would put the time of death around midnight. "Any signs of a struggle?"

Miller shook his head. "No defensive wounds that I can see. Either she was incapacitated before the flaying began, or she didn’t see it coming."

Sarah’s eyes narrowed. The killer was definitely a monster. A monster who knew how to subdue his victims. He was just like the Boogeyman from her father’s sick bedtime stories. How did those stories end, anyway?

Miller stood up, wiping his hands on his gloves. "I’ll know more once I get her back to the lab, but I can tell you one thing for sure—whoever did this wasn’t in a hurry."

Sarah nodded. "Thanks, Doc. Let me know as soon as you have the full report."

Miller gave her a nod and signaled for his assistant to prepare the body for transport. Sarah watched as they gently lifted the remains onto the gurney.

Sarah’s eyes swept over the scene one last time, her mind picking apart the details. The location, the method, the victim… there was a pattern here, she just had to find it. Somehow, this reminded her of another case, one she had heard about but never worked on herself.

The Butcher.

He had been active in the city for years, targeting criminals, people who preyed on the weak. His kills were brutal, but there was always a purpose. He was a predator, hunting other predators. But this? This didn’t feel like the Butcher’s work. She could see that now. This felt different—colder, more detached. Whoever had done this wasn’t hunting for sport or satisfaction. They were killing because it was simply what they did.

What if there was another killer out there, someone even more dangerous than the Butcher?

She shook the thought from her mind. She couldn’t jump to conclusions. She had to focus on the evidence, on finding the killer before they struck again. But the fear remained.

"Get this area locked down," Sarah ordered, turning to face Martinez. "I want a full sweep of the building, top to bottom. And make sure we get the security footage from every camera in a two-block radius—if we’re lucky, we might get a glimpse of our killer."

Martinez nodded and moved off to relay the orders. Sarah watched him go before turning her gaze back to the spot where Rebecca Lee’s body had been. The flayer was out there somewhere and she just hoped she could catch them before they struck again.

Felix stood at the sidewalk, watching the crime scene from a block away. He had seen a bit of it already, glimpses of the flayed skin and hacked-off flesh, the way the police moved around the body, the expressions they had on their faces. The name Rebecca Lee kept echoing in his mind, a name he had never heard before that morning. A name that somehow clung to him like an old memory. He didn’t know how he knew her name, but there it was, resounding in his head like a bell that wouldn’t stop ringing.

Rebecca Lee.

Felix’s throat tightened, a bitter taste rising in his mouth as his stomach churned violently. He clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms as he forced himself to stay rooted to the spot. Warm tears fogged his vision, but he didn’t wipe them away—didn’t even notice them as they traced burning paths down his cheeks. He didn’t know this woman. He had never met her in his life, had no idea what she looked like beyond what little he could make out from the scene—the flayed remains of her body, the blood pooling on the pavement. And yet, he felt connected to her. Bound to her suffering in a way that made no sense.

"I’m sorry," he muttered quietly, his voice drowned out by the commotion around him. "I’m so sorry."

The tears kept coming, but he didn’t wipe them away. The images were starting again—those terrible, vivid images that always came to him. He could see her. Rebecca Lee. He could see her in that black dress, walking down the street, oblivious to what was about to happen. He could see the knife slicing her abdomen as she was pinned to the wall of her apartment. He could see someone knocking her out, dragging her limp body from the apartment.

And then… the pain. The unimaginable pain she must have felt when she regained consciousness, only to find her skin flayed from her body, her entrails spilling out onto the cold, wet pavement. He could see the rain falling around her, as it mixed with the crimson pools forming around her body.

Felix winced, squeezing his eyes shut, but it didn’t help. The images wouldn’t stop. She was dying, and there was nothing left of her but agony. She couldn’t even scream. She was beyond that now, too far gone to even cry out for help. The giant of a man who had done this stood over her, staring down with cold, detached eyes. Eyes that didn’t care about her suffering. Eyes that saw her as nothing more than a piece of meat.

Then Felix saw it—the giant of a man. The one who had done all of this. It was… him. He saw himself staring back, those same cold, lifeless eyes fixed on the dying woman before him. His own reflection was monstrous and bloody.

He gasped, snapping out of his horrifying daydream. His heart leaped out of his chest and hung in his throat, and for a moment, he thought he would vomit right there on the sidewalk. But he swallowed it down, forcing the bile back into his stomach.

Why? Why did the darkness always have to follow him?

Flayed. Flayed. Flayed. The word repeated in his mind like a drumbeat. It was the same as before. The same pattern, the same horrific details, the same giant of a man. Always, it was him.

Felix turned away from the crime scene, unable to bear it any longer. His shoulders shook with silent sobs as he walked away, muttering under his breath, "Sorry. I’m so sorry. I deserve to die for all the death I’ve caused…"

The thought gripped him with a sudden clarity. Death. It was always with him, like a shadow he couldn’t escape. He had tried running, tried apologizing, but it was never enough. The darkness always caught up with him. If he always brought death and darkness wherever he went… then maybe the answer wasn’t to keep running. Maybe the answer wasn’t to keep apologizing for things he couldn’t change. Maybe the answer was… something else.

Felix paused, standing at the edge of the sidewalk, his eyes drifting to the oncoming traffic. The cars blurred together, their headlights flashing in the early morning gloom. The air refused to move past his throat as a terrible thought began to form in his mind—an idea that seemed to offer a strange kind of peace. The answer was simple. The answer had always been simple.

Running wasn’t the answer. It had never been. If the darkness followed him wherever he went, then maybe the only way to end it… was to stop running altogether.

He tugged at his black jacket and walked away. He knew just where to put his plan to motion.

"I’m sorry…"

It had to end.