Giving the body one last glance, Katie stood up and jammed her blade into the body’s heart, just to be sure. Once, a while ago, one of her targets, a serial killer, took a hit to the chest and was still breathing. Katie let her guards down as she thought he was dead, and he made a jump on her. The result was an arm that was almost cut apart.

Thankfully, it didn’t leave any lasting effect on her, at least not physically, but ever since than Katie made sure to confirm her kill. As much as she enjoyed the thrill of being jumped on and attacked, completely by surprise, she wasn’t ready to die just yet, not when there was so many other things in life to be excited for.

As the attempt rapist was dealt with, Katie walked into the bathroom and stripped down. Naked, she stared into the mirror for a few minutes, enjoyed what she saw, before stepping into the shower. Everything that she did made her heart beat and her skin wet.

As hot water ran down her body, Katie closed her eyes and enjoyed the moment. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open. Something didn’t feel right. She smiled as she remembered what was missing. Quietly, she walked out of the shower, went through her clothes, found her dagger, and slit it across her left arm.

Blood immediately came out in a small, yet beautiful, stream. Katie smiled and walked back into the shower and turned up the heat. As the burning water ran through her open wound and caused a skin tearing pain, she smiled in satisfaction.

Now everything was perfect.

The shower took ten minutes. Katie only turned off the water when she felt a bit dizzy. She frowned and looked down, and saw the bottom of the bathtub was already stained red. She touched her forehead and walked out, almost stumbling in the process. She slowly walked out of the bathroom and went through her bag and pulled out a t-shirt and a pair of pants and put them on.

As all was done, she returned to the bathroom and checked herself over again. Suddenly, she held her left arm out and glanced down. She cut it on purpose before the bath. Now it was smoother than the surface of her phone. She ran her finger through that spot, and she barely felt a scar.

Ever since she could remember, Katie knew she was special. For one thing, drugs don’t work on her. For another, she heals really quickly. Once, when her parents were still around, she ‘accidentally’ stabbed herself in the leg. Her parents were out shopping when that happened, but when they came back half an hour later, she was already helping them carry the things they bought.

To a normal human being, this would just mean they didn’t need to see a doctor for a cold or a cut. To Katie, this meant she could do anything she wanted to herself without fear of dying in the process. She would still need to have nutrient intake to replace the blood she lost, but that was just an insignificant flaw.

But when Katie looked up at the mirror again, she saw something that wasn’t there a second before.

It was a familiar figure.

Katie turned around and found herself staring at a translucent form of Jaison. His eyes were bright red as if the man hasn’t slept for weeks. They stared at Katie, radiating pure hatred. The part of his neck which Jean severed was still open and dripping blood.

“Wow!” The girl’s mouth hung open as if she just saw a priceless jewel. “Are you a ghost?”

“I will break every bone in your body...” The ghost said slowly, expecting to see the fear on her face, but what Katie did next was something he didn’t expect to see.

Katie reached her right arm out and touched the shadowy figure’s face. Her hand went right through. “That’s odd.” She rubbed her fingers together. Her head tilted slightly, wondering. “I’ve never seen anything like this before, and you are not the first guy I killed. You’re not even in the first ten. Why did you turn to a ghost when everyone else didn’t?”

“Haven’t you heard what I said?” Jaison stared down on Katie’s pretty face, and for the moment he wanted to pin her down and make her scream and cry and beg for mercy, but he wouldn’t give her mercy. He would torture her for as long as possible before ripping her to shreds.

It annoyed him to realize there wasn’t a hint of fear on Katie. If anything there was only curiosity.

No. It pained him.

“I will rape you and cut you into a thousand pieces. You will be alive and screaming the entire time!”

“That sounds fun.” Katie said full heartedly as she stared at the bloody menace. “Unfortunately, I’m not ready to die, at least not yet. Dying is boring, I think, and I have so many things I want to do with life.”

“Well, fuck you.” Jaison reached forward and punched Katie in the stomach, and the girl was immediately thrown out of the bathroom. She hit a wooden shelf and shattered it. Splinters of wood went into her back while her intestines complained from the impact of the contact.

Coughing, Katie wiped her hand on her lips and felt something wet. She looked down on her hand and saw blood. Smiling, she stood back up and reached inside her pocket, taking out the dagger she used to kill Jaison.

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Jaison moved forward. Katie took a swing, but her weapon went through the shadows without touching anything. As the blade left Jaison body, the dead man’s figure solidified once again, and his knee made contact with Katie’s stomach, sending her onto the ground.

But this beating, as relieving as it was, didn’t put Jaison into a good mood. He was enjoying torturing the girl, but he didn’t sense any negative emotions, like fear, anger, hatred, or dispair, from his victim. Perhaps a human being might be lied to, but after his transformation, Jaison could sense everything from human beings, and all he felt from Katie was satisfaction and even pleasure.

To an entity like him, it was like eating wood. It pained his mouth and didn’t give him any help.

Sending another punch into Katie’s chest, Jaison paused briefly. What the hell is wrong with this girl? He knew she was a bit of a masochist, but this was too much. Being a psychopath didn’t derive a person of her fear, and there was no way it could make her turn all the pain and fear into pleasure.

But the fact remained. The more he beat her, the more pleasure she was radiating.

Finally, two minutes later, Jaison reached down and grabbed onto the dagger Katie dropped. He knelt down and pushed it into her stomach, piercing her guts.

Katie screamed, but that scream was immediately turned to a loud moan.

“Ehhh.” Jaison groaned in frustration. He twisted the blade cruelly, and blood, Katie’s blood, formed a puddle on the floor. “I thought you love pain. Enjoy this? Bitch?”

Katie looked up. Her lips painted red. “Hell yeah.” Jaison paused for a second, searching his mind for creative ways of torture, but the next second he felt an excruciating pain in the stomach.

He looked down and saw another dagger in his chest.

“How…”

Katie reached down and pulled out the blade in her stomach. A large wound covered half her stomach, revealing parts of her intestine, but she simply ignored it. The pain was bone chilling, and it was starting to hurt so much it was getting numb, but she fought off the urge to lay down and sleep. There was something much more interesting at hand. Something she enjoyed.

Interrogation. Not only so, interrogating a ghost. She didn’t have time to enjoy the pain.

Katie casually pushed the blade into Jaison’s heart. This time it didn’t simply fall off. The ghost screeched as he took a few steps back and hit a wall.

“How did you come back to life?” Katie asked.

“You think I’ll tell you anything, bitch? I’m already dead. Do your worst. You can’t threaten a dead man.”

“Yes. In that case, let me start first. You can just sit back and wait. Thankfully, you seem to be having a great time.” She glanced at the two daggers inside the ghost’s body.

“I killed you, but for some reason you came back to life. I’m not sure why, but I noticed how you were torturing me. Of course, you might be doing that for fun, but I feel like you are doing this out of instinct as well.”

“Judging from the amount of pain you felt, both physically and mentally, before I killed you, it is reasonable that you became this…” She threw her hands up, trying to find a noun, but nothing came out. “thing because you were tortured. It’s the hatred and agony that made you what you are. It is also the source of your power. That’s why you are torturing me. You wanted to absorb my negative emotions. Fear to you is like food to human beings. The more you have, the stronger you become.”

Jaison growled. He didn’t want to admit it, but Katie was right. He had a similar assumption and everything she said matched his experience, but he didn’t have the obligation to answer Katie. He simply turned his head over in a resistant feeling.

The girl smirked and glanced down on her stomach. The wound was healing, but she was really starving. Healing took energy. The mixture of intense pain, bone chilling itch, and unsuppressable hunger ran through her mind. She took out a chocolate bar and rested it on the table next to her. She wanted to let herself hang there for a moment. This was something she has never experienced before, and ten seconds later Katie felt like she should do this much more often. Removing her attention from the pleasure, Katie kept on talking.

“That brings us to the next question. What exactly are you?” Katie tapped her chin. “Well, of course, you are the soul of the dead seeking vengeance on your killer. You want to kill me as brutally as possible. But what exactly are you? A fury? A ghost? Then again you still retain your own conscious and logic...”

Jaison remained quiet.

“Well, nice talking.” Katie shrugged and took out a match from her pocket and lit Jaison on fire.

The ghost screamed. He tried to move, to fade away, but he was too weak. Ever since he was killed/reborn, he has never ingested any energy. The only reason he had the energy to beat up Katie was because he himself died painfully, and this pain made him stronger, but that energy has ran out. Plus, two blades were inside him.

Jaison didn’t know the science behind this, but he could feel these alien objects messing with his control of his body. After his transformation, he felt a surge of energy circulating through his body. It allowed him to do things like making himself untouchable by Katie. His newly gained instincts told him he could do so much more, but he was stuck in a painful position. Without new energy intake, his power was like a puddle, and it was constantly being dried up.

He could only scream as his conscious, his soul, was burned away. In the end, everything about him was turned to ashes.

When a human being dies, there’s a possibility he could become a ghost and stay in the world of the living. When a ghost dies, well, it’s ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

Katie watched as the soul was set aflame. Only when Jaison finally perished did she stand up, devour the piece of chocolate bar, and start packing up. She was out of the room in just minutes.

The fight between her and Jaison created quite the chaos, but thankfully Katie booked a room relatively distant. When she logged it, she also told the front desk she might be doing some wild activities and don’t check the room out if there were some noise. With a slight blush, the young girl at the front desk nodded.

It was so she could kill her victims without attracting unwanted attention, and now it also made sure a spirit perished without anyone realizing it.

Carrying her black bag, which made up all of her properties, Katie walked down the stairs and out of the hotel room through the back door. Her ID was at the hotel to make sure something like what she just did wouldn’t happen, but Katie was someone who tortured and killed for fun. If she didn’t have a skill or two with forging IDs, she would be long dead by now.

Hours after she departed, a hotel maid walked into the room. Seconds later, a scream rang out.