Felix watched the scene unfold from outside the church, his body trembling as he gripped his bleeding shoulder. The Butcher and the Flayer. Two unstoppable forces, each drenched in blood, each radiating an aura of death. He couldn’t hear their snarls over the ringing in his ears, but the violence was unmistakable. He watched as the Butcher roared, slashing and hacking with a cleaver while the Flayer dodged and countered with his own skills.

But something in Felix shifted as he watched them tear each other apart.

It wasn’t him. The monster who skinned people alive, the predator that had haunted Briarcliff with such cold apathy—it wasn’t Felix.

He had believed that the Flayer lurked within him. That the curse from his past had twisted him into something monstrous, something inhuman. But now, seeing the real Flayer, seeing the hollow detachment in his eyes, Felix felt a surge of realization wash over him. This wasn’t his doing. He wasn’t the monster.

But he knew who was.

His stomach churned as the realization settled in. His breath quickened, heart pounding in his chest. He was no longer watching the brutal fight—he was elsewhere, deep in the darkest recesses of his mind, where buried and twisted memories clawed their way to the surface like ravenous beasts.

Felix Carney had been born on April 13, 2001—a Friday the 13th. His parents, Oisin and Beatrice Carney, had always believed sinister omens marked his birth. Their world of occult rituals and dark prophecies convinced them that Felix's arrival wasn't just an event, but an omen of something much larger.

The Carney household was a place of shadows. Skulls, bones, talismans, and ritual symbols littered the walls like a twisted museum. Animal sacrifices under the cold glow of the moonlight became a regular occurrence in his young life, but for Felix, it was normal. At least, it was the only normal he had ever known.

He still remembered the way his parents would look at him—not with love or affection, but with reverence. To them, he was not their son but a vessel for something far greater, something darker.

His younger sister, Elaine, had been kept away from all of this. Felix was never sure why. She had lived a life apart, a life of simplicity and normalcy, while he had been thrust into the heart of his parents' madness.

It wasn’t until his thirteenth birthday that everything shifted.

It was the night they abandoned him deep into the woods, to a place that still haunted his nightmares. The air had been thick with the scent of decay, a rancid stench that clung to the back of Felix’s throat. Twigs snapped underfoot, each step sending jolts of terror through his body. The ground beneath him squelched as he moved, the wetness of fresh blood mingling with the soft earth, coating his shoes in a dark crimson sheen. Every breath he took tasted of iron and fear and the other children were terrified, confused, and just like him. They were told it was a trial; a ritual that would prove which of them was "worthy."

But the truth of the ritual was much worse.

The memory of that day played out in Felix’s mind like a horror film. One by one, the children turned on each other, their desperation to survive turning them into animals. He could still hear the screams; still smell the blood that soaked the ground. The carnage, the terror—it was all too real.

Felix had survived. Somehow, he had been the last one standing. But there was no victory, no reward—only horror.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

The worst part was when he appeared.

A large man clad in dark clothing emerged from the shadows. His eyes were hollow, lifeless, like two bottomless pits of nothingness. Felix could see him now as clearly as he had that night, methodically flaying the corpses of the children, peeling away their skin with the same apathy Felix had just seen in the Flayer outside the church.

His stomach had churned back then, too, but Felix hadn’t moved. Fear had gripped him so tightly that he hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away as the man worked through the bodies. Each cut and slice was perfection, like the talented artists of history.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, the man had turned to Felix.

"You are the chosen one," the man had said, his voice as cold as the night. "You will continue the cycle. This is your fate."

He had offered Felix a bloodstained dagger, its handle marked with symbols Felix had seen countless times in his parents’ rituals. His hand had trembled as he reached for it. Something deep inside pulled him toward the blade.

But something stronger—a sliver of humanity buried beneath the terror—had pulled him back. Felix had stumbled away, refusing to take the blade.

"You cannot escape your destiny, Felix," the man had warned with his eyes boring into Felix's very soul. "If you refuse, you will only bring ruin upon yourself and those you care for."

But Felix hadn’t cared. He had fled, running through the dark forest until the caws of the crows dwindled, until the screams of the dead children faded into nothingness.

***

Felix blinked, the memory so vivid it was as if he was living it all over again. He could almost feel the cold air of that night; hear the crunch of leaves beneath his feet as he ran for his life.

He had thought he had escaped, but when he returned home, he realized he hadn’t.

His parents had looked at him with terror in their eyes, the reverence gone, replaced with fear. They never spoke of what they saw in him, but he could feel it in the way they moved around him, in the way they wouldn’t meet his gaze. Their own fear consumed them.

One night, they decided they needed to "destroy" him to save themselves. As they entered his room, knife in hand, Felix could sense the fear in the air. He called out to them, begging them to stop.

But something snapped.

The chandelier above them gave way, crashing down and impaling his father through the chest. His mother screamed, but the bookshelf beside her toppled over, crushing her instantly.

Felix had stood there, horrified as the life drained from their bodies, the realization dawning on him that it was his fault. His voice had killed them.

He fled to his sister, Elaine, hoping she would listen. But when he tried to explain, the curse struck again. A freak accident severed her arm, leaving her screaming in pain. That was when Felix realized what he was—a walking disaster, cursed to bring death with every word he spoke.

From that day forward, he remembered vowing to never speak until the day he died.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Felix’s chest tightened. The Butcher and Flayer faded from his view, replaced with the crushing weight of guilt and fear that had haunted him ever since. He wasn’t the Flayer. He wasn’t the monster who skinned people alive.

But the Flayer was real. And he knew exactly who it was.

The Butcher might have believed he was hunting a monster, but Felix knew better. The man who had marked him, the man who had haunted his dreams—that was the true Flayer. And calling him a monster wouldn't be enough to describe what he - what it was.

And now that Felix had refused his destiny, he knew what would happen next. He had known since that night.

The Flayer would hunt him down, just like he had hunted down so many others.

Felix’s breath stopped completely in his throat, his chest tightening as though an anvil had clamped down on his lungs. His hands shook uncontrollably, slick with cold sweat, and the world around him seemed to twist, the edges of his vision blurring as panic gripped him. Every muscle screamed for him to run, to disappear—but he was frozen, trapped in the memories that clawed at his mind like ravenous beasts. He hadn’t felt fear like this since the night of his thirteenth birthday. No. The fear he was feeling now was much worse, a level he had never known before. The fear that clawed at your insides and hollowed you out from the core.

He had to run. Even though he knew it wouldn’t matter in the end, he had to keep running. He had to confront this darkness.

Thompson pedaled his bicycle along the darkened streets, the cool evening air rushing past his face. His bicycle’s old gears clicked softly as the wheels turned beneath him. Most people in his line of work drove cars—after all, they were quicker, more practical. But Thompson had never learned to drive. He’d never even tried.

It wasn’t because of some trivial excuse like fear of the road or lack of time. No, Thompson’s reason for never stepping behind the wheel was buried deep in his past, tangled in the twisted roots of trauma. His father had once owned a car—an old, rusted beast of a machine that rumbled through their neighborhood like a tank. The same car his father would take out whenever he drank too much and drove recklessly around town, spewing obscenities into the night air.

One evening, when he was just seven, his father had been driving his car drunk, as usual, shouting and screaming at Thompson's mother while the boy sat in the back seat, helpless. There was a sudden swerve, the screech of tires on asphalt, and the car veered off the road. It had missed a tree by inches. The memory still haunted him—the way his father had gripped the wheel, white-knuckled, before lashing out at his mother for every mistake she had ever made.

His mother had always been the soft one, the silent one, too tolerant, too submissive. She had never fought back, never defended herself, and that had broken something inside Thompson.

He never wanted to touch a car after that. Never wanted to feel the same rush his father did, never wanted to have that much control—or lose it. He found solace in cycling—something simpler, something that allowed his mind to work freely, to observe, to connect the dots that others couldn’t see. Like now.

He knew where Felix would be.

The pieces had been falling into place ever since he saw Felix earlier. A guy like that, someone with such deep trauma, he’d need comfort, somewhere to hide. Thompson knew that kind of guilt, that kind of fear. People like Felix went to places where they thought they could find solace. Refuge. Somewhere they could escape their own thoughts, places that connected to deeper parts of their psyche—faith, guilt, sanctuary.

A church.

Not just any church, though. There was only one decrepit church left in this part of Briarcliff—the place people went to when they had nowhere else to turn. Thompson had been there once, himself. After his parents died, he had sat in one of those pews for hours, watching the sunlight filter through the dirty stained glass. He hadn’t prayed. He didn’t believe in anything that made sense. Despite that, he had sat there, seeking something—anything.

And Felix, running from himself, from his own darkness, would’ve sought the same place.

He pedaled harder, the idea solidifying in his mind. The Butcher would have followed Felix there—he was obsessed with the hunt, and Felix was his prey.

By the time he reached the church, the moon was high in the sky, casting an eerie silver glow over the abandoned building. Thompson stopped his bike just outside the old church doors, his sharp eyes scanning the surroundings. His instinct was right—the Butcher and Felix had been here. But now they were gone.

The faint smell of blood in the air easily told him that they were here. His mind raced, but his face remained neutral, almost childlike in its expression of curiosity. The Butcher wasn’t far. He couldn’t be. People like that didn’t just disappear. They stayed close to the hunt, close to the scene of their obsession.

Unless he had suffered severe injuries? If so, he would still rest nearby.

He began searching the nearby streets, his mind ticking through each possibility. Where would a predator like the Butcher go to rest? Somewhere dark, somewhere hidden, but still within reach of his prey.

After a few minutes, Thompson’s eyes locked onto a large, muscular figure slumped in a darkened alley, just past the church. He moved closer, his breath steady, his heart oddly calm. The figure was gigantic, covered in blood, with crude bandages and strips of torn fabric pressed against his wounds, barely stopping the blood from leaking out.

"Are you the Butcher?" Thompson’s voice was calm, as if he was merely asking for directions.

The figure didn’t respond, only kept breathing heavily, the sound rasping through the air like a dying beast. Thompson, intrigued, stepped closer, his mind immediately flashing back to his childhood.

***

Thompson had always been different. Even as a child, he had been too smart for his age. Too observant. His father couldn't stand how easily he saw through his deceptions, his pretense of being a "good man." His mother, on the other hand, had loved him dearly, but she was weak, too tolerant of the man who had beaten them both, who had destroyed what little family they had left.

The day his mother died was forever burned into his memory, as clear as if it had happened yesterday. She had never wanted him to see her like that. He remembered the way she had looked at him, smiling through her pain, always trying to shield him from the darkness in their home. But Thompson had found her anyway—hanging from the ceiling, a noose around her neck, her body swaying gently. He had tried to save her, had screamed and cried as he cut the rope, her lifeless body crumpling in his small arms.

That image had scarred him for life. Shattering something inside of him that never fully healed. His father had found him there, kneeling beside her body, and in his drunken rage, he had blamed Thompson for her death. They had fought. Thompson, just eleven years old, had pushed his father away in a blind panic, not realizing how close they were to the staircase. The old man had tumbled down, his neck snapping with a loud crack at the bottom.

After that, everything had changed. The world had branded him a murderer, a monster in the making. But Thompson had seen it differently. He wasn’t the monster. His father had been the monster. His mother’s death had been the catalyst that had forced him to grow up far too fast. It was as though the part of him that should have cared had been hollowed out, replaced with a fascination for understanding the darkness in others—because deep down, he had been trying to understand himself.

***

Thompson snapped back to reality as he stepped closer. Fear had crippled him as a child, made him feel powerless. But now, standing before a bleeding giant, he felt none of that fear.

And then the figure turned.

Pale, transparent eyes met Thompson’s, and for a moment, time seemed to stop. Those eyes. Hollow. Empty. Uncaring. It was like staring into the void, like looking into the embodiment of death itself.

He had seen that look before. Long ago. In his father’s eyes. The same soulless stare of a man who had lost everything, including his own humanity.

Thompson's breath caught in his throat, but not from fear. No, this wasn’t fear. This was something else. The Flayer was everything Thompson had feared and revered—an empty, hollow force of nature, killing without meaning, without remorse. Just like the darkness he had carried within himself for so long.

His mind raced, analyzing everything in an instant. The Flayer wasn’t just another criminal, another predator. He was something far worse. A force of nature. A cog in the machine of death, killing not for reason, not for thrill, but because that’s what he was.

Pure, undiluted evil.

A smile tugged at the corner of Thompson’s lips as a realization dawned on him. The Flayer wasn’t just a criminal—he was a reflection. A mirror of everything Thompson had feared and revered. Everything he had spent his life trying to understand. He wasn’t just facing a killer—he was facing his own reflection, the embodiment of the darkness that had haunted him for so long.

In that moment, Thompson knew. He wasn’t going to make it out of here alive.

The power of death settled over Thompson like a thick fog, but instead of panic, there was calm. He had always known this moment would come—not this exact way, not this exact time, but death had never felt distant to him. It had been there, watching him, waiting patiently ever since that day with his father. Perhaps that’s why he felt nothing now. No fear. No regret. Just… acceptance.

"You’re just like him," Thompson whispered, his smile widening. "Just like my father."

The Flayer didn’t move.

He had been watching, observing, analyzing for so long. But now, face-to-face with this monstrosity of a man, he realized the truth.

It had never been about the other criminals, had it? All these years, chasing shadows and understanding others, he wasn’t just looking for the monsters out there—he was searching for the one that had always lurked inside him.