The flames licked at the charred remains of the building, sending black smoke curling into the darkening dull purple sky. The Flayer emerged from the flames and rubble of the crumbling building, his skin charred and blistered, but alive. His breath came in ragged, pained gasps as he scanned the scene. The heat radiated off the ruined building, yet something cold settled into his bones. Neither the Butcher nor Felix was anywhere to be seen.

  His cold, lifeless gaze swept over the destruction, taking in the ruined landscape without emotion. The flames crackled behind him, yet he walked forward as if the fire didn’t exist. From his pocket, he pulled out the dagger. The very same dagger, engraved with ancient symbols, that he had once offered to Felix all those nights ago. The weight of destiny rested in his palm.

  The Flayer moved quickly, heading down a deserted alley that cut between the broken remains of old warehouses and abandoned lots. It was a path few ventured into, allowing him to slip away unnoticed as the fires behind him raged on.

  He soon arrived at a place near the outskirts of Briarcliff. Where the Cliffside district bled into the outermost regions. A border between the city’s two divided halves, a decaying underpass that separated the Cliffside from Riverside below. It was an area forgotten by the city, where rusted fences lined the road, and weeds pushed up through cracks in the pavement. Few ventured here.

  There, in the shadow of the overpass, stood Felix. His back was hunched, his body trembling, his right hand a gory mess from the bullet wound Specter had inflicted earlier. The metal pipe he held in his left hand was slightly bent, streaked with blood. His clothes were torn, dirt-streaked, and singed from the explosion, with a noticeable burn wound on his shoulder. The back of his head bled from where the Butcher had thrown him aside like a rag doll.

  Felix didn’t turn to look at the Flayer immediately, but the air between them was tense, alive. When Felix finally turned, fear and pain filled his amber eyes, but a spark of defiance, and perhaps even anger, shone there too.

  The Flayer stepped closer, his voice like a whisper from a nightmare. "Felix Carney," he said, his voice like a whisper from a nightmare.

  Felix said nothing. His grip tightened around the metal pipe, but his body quivered, betraying the fear that still gripped his soul.

  "You’ve been silent for too long, Felix," the Flayer continued. His voice was unnervingly calm. "Talk to me."

  Felix dropped the pipe with a clang and stared back at the Flayer, his lips quivering. His throat tightened as he tried to speak but the words caught somewhere between terror and defiance. He had sworn never to speak again. But now... his sister’s face flashed before his eyes. The curse be damned.

  "I want you to die," he whispered, each word cutting his throat like broken glass.

  He waited for the ground to tremble, for something—anything—to happen. But the air remained still. The Flayer’s cold eyes didn’t flinch. Nothing broke. The Flayer simply laughed, a cold, cruel sound that sent chills down Felix’s spine.

  "Oh, Felix," the Flayer sneered. "I was once like you. I resisted, I denied my fate… but the curse does not allow its chosen to escape."

  Suddenly, the Flayer lashed out with his dagger. Felix raised his arm instinctively, catching the blade, but it sliced deep into his flesh. He cried out in pain, stumbling back.

  "That fancy voice of yours won’t be able to kill me," the Flayer said, a twisted grin spreading across his scarred face. "Not when I’m a former wielder."

  Felix gritted his teeth, blood dripping from his arm. He reached down and grabbed the metal pipe once more, clutching it tightly despite the tremors in his hands. Fear still gripped him, but something darker was beginning to take root.

  "Either you kill me or I kill you," the Flayer said, his grin fading.

  Felix swung the pipe wildly, but his arms felt like lead. The Flayer moved with terrifying precision, his hand snapping out to catch the pipe mid-swing. Felix felt the shock of it reverberate up his arm, the metal vibrating in his grasp before the Flayer yanked it from his hands, sending it clattering to the ground. Then, with a sudden movement, the Flayer moved forwards and delivered a brutal punch to Felix’s gut. Felix collapsed to the ground, gasping for air.

  "Pathetic," the Flayer sneered. "You aren’t ready to accept your fate. You never were."

  Felix coughed, struggling to catch his breath. His head was swimming from the pain, but he forced himself to look up at the man who had brought the curse upon him.

  The Flayer crouched down beside him, a cruel glint in his eyes. "If you won’t accept it, then I’ll kill you myself and find a new ‘special firstborn’ to continue the cycle. Maybe your sister, Elaine? After all, with you gone, she’ll become the new firstborn, won’t she? Even with one arm, I’m sure she’ll be more useful than you ever were."

  Felix’s heart pounded in his chest, fear crashing over him like a tidal wave. His sister… Elaine. Even now, she was still in danger. That fire he had buried deep within him flared to life once more, but the overwhelming fear that had kept him running all these years dulled it.

  The Flayer raised his dagger, his cold eyes gleaming with cruel and cold apathy. "Useless to the very end."

  Felix. Kill him. Kill him now!

  The dagger plunged downward.

  The Butcher limped down the deserted streets, his body covered in burns and cuts, his cowhead mask charred and broken on one side, revealing half of his handsome but scarred face. His blue eyes burned with a fury that drove him forward, the pain far from enough to stop him. The explosion had taken a toll, but the Butcher was not so easily killed.

  He had felt this kind of pain many times before, but it didn’t matter. The hunt always came first. His eyes filled with nothing but fury, he slowly followed the path the Flayer had taken. The scent of blood and fire that remained in the air guided him like a predator to its prey.

  Finally, he arrived at the border between the Cliffside district and the outer regions. His eyes immediately fell upon Felix, standing frozen in place. Felix’s metal pipe was bent, dripping with blood, and his body trembled. His gaze was locked on the ground before him and at his feet lay the Flayer’s corpse.

  The Butcher’s eyes flicked down to the body. The Flayer’s head was unrecognizable, bashed in beyond repair. His skull was crushed, a crimson mess of shattered bone and pulped flesh. His broken teeth protruded out at odd angles from what remained of his face, his tongue lolled lazily between broken lips. Blood pooled around his body, a dark, spreading stain against the dirt. Even in death, his hands gripped the bloodstained dagger with the strange symbols carved into its hilt.

  For a long moment, the Butcher stared in silence.

  Felix turned to face the Butcher, his amber eyes wide, but there was something else in them now—something the Butcher hadn’t seen in Felix before. He wasn’t running. He wasn’t fighting. Felix stood still, trembling, but it wasn’t fear that held him in place.

  The Butcher stepped forward, his heavy boots thudding softly against the ground. Felix didn’t flinch or move; his amber eyes locked onto the Butcher’s with a strange, hollow intensity. The Butcher stopped inches away from him, staring down into the young man’s face.

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  He should have felt anger. Rage boiled in his veins whenever someone stole his kill, and Felix had just done that—stolen his right to prove he was the supreme predator. He should have torn Felix apart where he stood, ripped him to shreds. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

  Something about Felix reminded him of a different time. A time when he was much younger, before the hunt had consumed him. Before he became the beast inside. When he still believed in something—hope, maybe. When his foster mother had been alive, when there was still light in his world. But that light had gone out long ago, leaving him in the darkness.

  The Butcher’s blue eyes softened, just slightly and only briefly. "The police will be coming for you," he said, his voice low.

  Felix’s voice trembled. "I know."

  The Butcher glanced over his shoulder, toward the bridge that led away from Briarcliff. "Take the old service road behind the warehouses," he said. "It leads to the cliffs. A drainage tunnel runs beneath the bridge. It’ll get you out of the city before anyone notices you’re gone. Keep your head down. Never look back."

  Felix looked up at him, his eyes still wide, still filled with that strange emotion that the Butcher still couldn’t quite place. He didn’t speak, just nodded once, the tremble in his body still visible.

  For a fleeting second, the Butcher wondered if he had a smile on his face. He remembered how he had wished for someone to save him once, to pull him out of the darkness. But it was too late for that. The hunt was all he had left. But maybe, just maybe, it didn’t have to be the same for Felix.

  The Butcher’s eyes turned cold once more, his voice harsh. "Get going."

  Felix’s lip quivered as he muttered, "T-thank you." He turned and stumbled toward the path the Butcher had given him, disappearing into the distance.

  The Butcher watched him go, his expression unreadable. He looked down at the Flayer’s corpse once more, crouching beside it. He yanked the dagger from the Flayer’s lifeless hand and drove it into the corpse’s chest again and again. Blood splattered and oozed from the fresh wounds, dark and thick, pooling around his gloved hands.

  Rising to his feet, the Butcher dipped his fingers into the blood and approached the nearest wall, writing a single message.

  Then, without a word, he turned and disappeared into the darkness.

  The scene was a mess of flashing blue lights, blackened debris, and the lingering smell of smoke and ash. Lewis, Sarah, and a squad of police officers arrived at the site after receiving numerous reports of explosions in the area. The once towering building now lay in ruin, rubble scattered across the ground as the last flames were being doused by firefighters. The late evening had given way to night, and the entire scene unfolded under a cold, starless sky.

  Lewis led the group, his face characteristically stoic. The reports had come too late, and whatever had happened here had already run its course. Now, the task was to sift through the aftermath and see if Felix—or the Butcher—had left any trace behind.

  The officers were spread out, combing the area, searching for clues, any survivors, or bodies. It wasn't long before one of them, a man named Officer Briggs, waved to Lewis. "Sir, we found a body."

  Lewis walked over quickly, Sarah beside him. They were led to a patch of rubble where several officers had gathered. On the ground lay a corpse. The man's face was utterly unrecognizable, caved in with brutal force. Blood had dried around his shattered skull, and the dirt beneath him was soaked in crimson.

  Briggs swallowed hard, probably trying to suppress the urge to throw up. "We couldn’t identify him. His face is too… destroyed."

  Lewis stared at the body for a long moment. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the corpse, noticing a few things the others hadn’t. "This is the Flayer," he muttered.

  Briggs turned to him, confused. "How can you be sure? There’s nothing to go on. No ID, no records. We don’t even know who this man is."

  "He’s the Flayer," Lewis repeated, more certain this time. "His shoes—sturdy, worn in a way that suggests he’s been on the run for years, but there’s no dirt. He wasn’t running today. And his build matches the description we’ve pieced together over time." Lewis pointed to a small, almost unnoticeable dagger still clutched in the dead man’s hand. “The symbols on that dagger match the ones that were in this building before. Not to mention that a dagger like that would be the ideal tool for flaying people."

  Briggs blinked, still trying to comprehend the deductions. "And you’re sure it’s him?"

  Lewis nodded. "I’d bet my badge on it. This was the Flayer."

  My brother’s killer.

  Sarah, standing beside him, suddenly pointed to a nearby wall. "Lewis. Look at that."

  Lewis turned to see what she was pointing at. Scrawled in dark red, blood-soaked letters was a message, crude but unmistakable:

  I killed the Flayer just as I said I would—The Butcher.

  Sarah’s face twisted in frustration as she looked from the wall back to the body. "The Butcher gave us the slip again, didn’t he? He killed the Flayer just like he said he would." She kicked a loose stone in frustration. "He always gets away."

  But Lewis’s eyes stayed fixed on the message. No. This wasn’t the work of the Butcher.

  He looked up at the sky, trying to choke back the emotions that were rising. The Butcher didn’t do this to cover his tracks. He was covering for Felix. Lewis could feel it deep in his bones, a connection between these two predators—Felix and the Butcher. Maybe Felix wasn’t a killer. Maybe he was just a victim, forced into circumstances he couldn’t control, just like how Lewis had always been chasing shadows after his brother Martin had been butchered by the same man.

  He could hear Martin’s voice sometimes, late at night, telling him to let it go. But Lewis couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe the Butcher had chosen to protect Felix, just like he couldn’t protect Martin. Thompson had been right, hadn't he? Lewis had ignored the deeper truth, blinded by his own need for revenge. Thompson had believed Felix was a victim. Now Thompson was dead, flayed like the others, and here was the Flayer, dead too. But the truth felt more complicated than ever.

  "What do you think happened to Felix?" Sarah asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

  Lewis smiled faintly. "He has been given a chance to write his own story."

  Sarah raised an eyebrow at the strange answer. "That doesn’t sound like something you’d say," she remarked, giving him a sly smile.

  Lewis shrugged, not saying anything more. There was no point in explaining something, even he wasn’t sure he believed. He turned and walked away, leaving the dead, the destruction, and the bloodstained wall behind.

  Five days later, in a room far from the stench of death in Briarcliff, Wǔshī sat at an altar in her modest but elegantly decorated apartment. The soft glow of incense filled the room, curling smoke rising from a bronze burner. A small photo rested at the center of the altar, framed in black: her sister, Rebecca Lee.

  She had lit candles beside the photograph, their flames flickering in the still air. Wǔshī’s eyes were heavy with memories as she bowed her head in silence, whispering a prayer in her native tongue. Her hands were steady, as always, but tonight, there was something fragile in the way her fingers traced the edges of the photograph.

  Her sister’s face in the photo was young, smiling—a face Wǔshī hadn’t seen in years. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her sister was now gone. Because of the Flayer.

  A soft knock came at the door, breaking her thoughts. She took a deep breath, gathering herself before standing and walking to answer it. The door creaked open to reveal a man—Captain Monroe in a cheap gray suit with a narrow tie, one of her informants within the Briarcliff police department.

  "Is it done?" she asked.

  Monroe shifted uncomfortably before replying, "Yes, the Flayer’s dead. We found him near a building that went up in flames at the Cliffside district. Face bashed in, but they were sure it’s him. The Butcher had left a note saying he had murdered him. That’s all I know for now."

  Wǔshī’s heart skipped a beat, but she kept her face impassive. She had been waiting for this moment for years, ever since her sister had been taken from her in the most brutal way possible. "And… what of Specter?" she asked.

  The captain hesitated, looking down. "I strongly believe that Specter didn’t make it either. There was… a collapse. So far, we strongly believe that it was only the Butcher and Felix that survived. "

  The silence between them hung heavy for a long moment. Wǔshī felt a strange hollowness open inside her chest. Specter was a tool, an assassin she had hired to kill the Flayer, but his death didn’t matter to her as much as Felix’s escape. The Flayer was gone, but the questions surrounding his death—and Felix—remained. She couldn’t believe that Felix would encounter the Butcher and escape just like that. Perhaps he was special.

  "I… I’m sorry," Monroe added awkwardly, unsure of what else to say.

  Wǔshī gave him a nod, her face still a mask of calm. "You’ve done your job. Leave."

  As soon as the door closed behind him, Wǔshī returned to the altar, staring at her sister’s photo once more. The Flayer was dead. The man responsible for Rebecca’s death was gone, and yet… there was no peace. Only an emptiness, like the one she had felt since the day her sister was taken.

  She knelt before the altar, her fingers trembling for the first time in years as she placed a single piece of incense in the burner.

  "I’ve done it, Rebecca," she whispered, her voice soft, barely audible in the stillness of the room. "He’s gone now. You’re free."

  But the words felt hollow.

  She had always thought that vengeance would bring closure, that killing the Flayer would fill the gaping hole left by Rebecca’s murder. But as she stared into the flames, she realized something terrifying.

  Nothing could ever bring her sister back.