Chapter Text
It was dark by the time you got home, the coppery smell of blood stronger now that you were indoors. Kicking your shoes off, you put a plastic bag on top of the kitchen counter, the blood seeping from its contents painting the clear material red.
You hung your winter coat up along with your scarf before pushing the sleeves of your jumper up to your elbows and carefully parting the handles of the bag to take a look inside: a pair of kidneys, a heart and the majority of a thigh. Still warm.
You set the kidneys aside to cook now, placing the others in labeled bags to be frozen. Maybe you'd marinate the flesh first... You put your apron on, dealing first with the storage of the things you'd save for later, before turning back to the kidneys, only to find them missing, with your window ajar.
Staring at the empty plate, your gaze flicked between it and your window. How had you not heard them enter? Although what worried you more was who had entered. Had someone figured you out? And if so, why only take the kidneys? You looked outside, but it was too dark to make out anything. And it was most likely the perpetrator had already left.
Sighing, you pulled the window shut and turned the key, trying the handle to check it was locked properly. Drawing your curtains, you inspected the now empty plate. A small pool of blood and beside it, a drop of tar. You held it up to the light, observing it carefully.
It looked like the same stuff you'd seen at your job in the lab as a pathologist, smeared across the flesh of a man who was found dead and dissected in the middle of a forest, discovered by an unfortunate group of hikers. The crime scene was messy, careless at best, which seemed unusual for this person.
Previously, the scenes of their murders were left near meticulously clean and perfect, nothing but that same black substance. You almost admired them, their skills and clearly extensive knowledge of human anatomy. But now DNA was left in multiple places, in saliva, hair and fingerprints, but all of it matched to a man who had been dead for the past eight years. A college student by the name of Jack Nyras. He'd be around your age if he was still alive.
Pulling the heart back out of the freezer, you began to cook, thinking over the person who had entered your house and left with nothing but a pair of kidneys. It was strange behaviour, put mildly, even more so for them to have left behind traces of something that was connected to them. Did they want you to find them? Probably not. Maybe their carelessness extended past their murders.
But where did the tar come from? You'd run tests on the black viscous substance, it clearly was tar. But what puzzled you and your colleagues was the organic matter in it. Almost as if it was coming from them. But that wasn't possible.
Whoever the tar belonged to, the numbers of bodies for which they were responsible for had been increasing at an unusually fast rate. Five in the past two weeks. Yet what troubled you was the fact that some of the bodies they'd left behind had matched yours perfectly. Cuts in the same place, same organs removed, even the same number of stitches when they closed the wounds.
Cutting the herbs, you tried to recall hearing or seeing anyone during your kills, but came up empty. Yet evidently, there was someone watching or monitoring you. And then copying you. You had found it incredibly amusing when your colleague suggested that this killer and you were the same person, seeing as how similar the corpses left behind were. But you couldn't say anything without placing suspicion on yourself, so you kept quiet.
You oiled the pan, searing the meat that was now seasoned to your liking. You half considered leaving a trail of kidneys to try and lure this person to you, seeing as that seemed to be their favourite. You put the lid on the pan and left the meat to cook as you poured yourself a drink, your mind still focused on whoever had broken into your house, especially since they were clearly the same person replicating your kills.
You settled on the conclusion that one day, they will return. You'll be ready then.
You finished putting together your meal, still slightly bitter that your initial plan had been ruined with the robbery of your kidneys. You were looking forward to them too. You wondered when they'd find the body you took them from, seeing that you'd probably try and have to act like you had no idea how they'd died at work, investigating for any clues knowing full well that you'd get rid of any, should you find one. This was your favourite part of the job, you thought as you started setting the table, being able to interfere with the process of identifying the killer: you. Or, more recently, your copycat.
As you ate your dinner, you found your mind returning to the body you'd been examining today, more so who could have done it. It was next to impossible for Nyras to still be alive, but for someone to go as far as to leave traces of his DNA behind... Something they hadn't left behind before. And why Jack? For all you knew, he was some random college kid declared missing and then later dead. Maybe you could find something about him on the internet. Any leads as to why anyone would use his DNA. Or if it was possible that he was still alive.
After you cleared the table and washed the dishes, you sat down in front of your computer, beginning to search for anything under the name of 'Jack Nyras'. Initially, not much. A few people with similar names on social media, some articles on his disappearance... You read a few of them, but none offered explanations to your questions. Just some kid that randomly vanished. You looked at an old photo of him, the one from his college ID. He looked maybe 18, with hair in neat braids, wearing what looked like a black hoodie. Again, nothing special.
You continued searching, randomly clicking on a shady looking crime blog, claiming to know what happened exactly on the night Nyras disappeared.
You squinted at the bizarre story, one which sounded more like an urban legend than the truth. A medical student who got involved with a cult, ended up being unwilling sacrificed to a devil, followed by a very graphic description of his eyes getting gouged out and hot tar being poured in the sockets, all of which ultimately ended in the sacrifice failing, turning Jack into a horrifying kidney-eating monster with grey skin, three tongues and... that was enough bullshit for one day.
It seemed like a bizarre story, yet managed to explain too many factors of the case for your liking. The medical accuracy of the organ removals, the tar, the traces of Jack. Even the vanishing of the kidneys from your kitchen counter.
You were about to click of the page when you caught sight of an attachment at the bottom of the page, titled "Mitch's Story". You considered the viruses opening this might cause, but curiosity overcame your more rational worry.
You downloaded the file and opened it, leaning forward in your chair to read it. It was the story of a boy who claimed to have seen Jack, who woke up to a gash on his face, only to find out his left kidney is gone. Doctors then proceeded to do absolutely nothing about this and let him go home. The boy then woke up to a creature leaning over him, it attacked, the boy runs but later passes out. Then he's back at the hospital. He receives the news that his brother is dead. He then goes home to find his dead brother's corpse because no one decided to remove it from the scene, with a half eaten kidney beside it, covered in 'black goo'.
Likely story, you thought, closing and deleting the document. Sounded like the work of some attention-seeking, edgy teens. What was it with this guy and kidneys anyways?
You shut off your computer, instead deciding to go to bed. Sparing a look at your clock, you found it was already nearing 11:00, and even though you didn't need to be up early tomorrow, sleep would be welcome after the incredibly long day you've had. That lady had put up quite the fight when you killed her, leaving you sore and bruised. Disposing of her body was no easy feat either.
You got ready for bed and lay down, sleep coming slower than usual to your occupied mind.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
You woke up what must have been hours later, groggily blinking your eyes until they shot open at the sight of a dark figure looming over you, indecipherable except for the blue mask that stood out in the darkness, without a mouth or a nose, just black, gaping holes in place of eyes.
You froze in place, staring into the cavernous eyes of the mask. They too stayed perfectly still for a little while, just watching with their hand clamped over your throat, not to choke but to silence, until they stood up and backed away, climbing out the window with what looked like practiced ease, shutting it behind themselves.
You shot upright, breathing heavily and rubbing your neck as you stared at the second window this person had used to break in. Was that Jack? It matched Mitch's description perfectly... Were you seeing things? But where they came into contact with you had felt perfectly real , you thought, getting up to check the window. The total lack of lights on your street was usually to your advantage, but now, in the complete darkness, you had no way of seeing the figure, who already seemed to be dressed in nothing but black. You needed to replace your locks, you thought, securing your windows for the second time tonight, despite your efforts being seemingly ineffective against them.
You sat down on your bed, certain that you couldn't fall back asleep after that encounter. Your heart was still pounding in your chest, and your breaths came in short an quick gasps. Lifting your shirt enough to expose your lower back you checked yourself for any sign that a kidney might have been removed.
Finding nothing, you relaxed just barely and lowered your shirt, before catching sight of a smear on your clothes. This time, it appeared intentional, the substance was like blood and that black 'goo' combined to illustrate a circle with an X in the middle, right on the centre of your chest, where your heart belonged.
After taking off and replacing the ruined item of clothing, you held the shirt in your hands, inspecting the mark on it. In some places the threads were pulled loose, like it was done with a sharp object. You reached over to turn on your bedside lamp, only for your fingers to come into contact with a slip of paper. You frowned, picking it up before switching the light on. You held it up to your face to read the messy writing in the dim light, your eyes straining slightly.
'Find me', it wrote, followed by the same symbol as the one that was drawn on your shirt. Find him at the symbol. The symbol over your heart. Maybe it wasn't even in reference to your heart, you thought, thinking back to dinner. Did he mean the place where you took the heart? Or the place that was closest to your heart? You rubbed your eyes, sighing at the vagueness of his clues. Why couldn't he come to you? Seemed only fair when they'd spent the last couple of weeks copying, and apparently stalking you.
The clock on your wall now read 2:00am, which still left you with a decent span of time before the sun began to rise, and from recent patterns in murders he seemed most active at night. You got up from bed and got dressed, pocketing the note left on your bedside table before making your way downstairs.
The irony wasn't lost upon you with your previous statement of 'being ready' for the next time he'd turn up. But you hadn't expected him to come again so soon. Twice in one night, with nothing before. Or just nothing that you've noticed. Grimacing at the thought of someone having been watching you for who knows how long, you pulled open a drawer and retrieved a knife. You tested its sharpness and stored it in a pocket from which you could retrieve it quickly, should you need it.
Putting on your boots, you unlocked your front door and stepped out into the cold night. You closed your hand around the handle of the weapon in your pocket and began walking towards the place where you'd taken your last victim's life.
It wasn't a long distance away, and luckily there weren't many people around either. You kept your head down, stepping off of the pavement and into a densely forested area at the edge of town, with nothing to guide you but memory and a few worn out paths.
Eventually you came into a clearing, pausing there momentarily to observe your surroundings. The sky above you was clear, and stars were finally visible away from the light pollution of the town. You let yourself admire them for a moment, before pulling your gaze away and continuing in the direction of the location you suspected Jack was waiting for you.
It was dark, almost pitch black save for the little moonlight that penetrated the dense greenery, with the sticks and dead leaves beneath your feet making stealth entirely impossible.
As you walked, you heard a splash beneath your feet, as if you'd stepped into a puddle. It would have been easy to dismiss it as that if it wasn't for the fact that it hadn't rained in days, and the liquid was warm. Freezing in place, you slowly looked down, straining your eyes in the dark.
Your right foot was submerged almost to the ankle in blood. You reeled back, eyes blown wide as you stared at the blood that seemed to have flown from up ahead and accumulated here. Grimacing, you gave the blood a wide breadth and continued on, pulling your knife from your pocket.
Seeing the figure of a person in the near distance, you halted, watching with baited breath as you observed the person hunched over another who lay in the undergrowth, the sound of flesh being cut open loud in the silence of the surroundings.
You took a step back, ready to flee, when the head of the figure shot up, twisting back to look at you with empty sockets.