POLICE LINE — DO NOT CROSS
The yellow tape fluttered in the wind, a brittle laugh tearing through the silence.
My bandaged hand pulsed with a dull ache, the stitches Ren had sewn pulling taut as I clenched my fists. Across the street, a woman in a faded housecoat yanked her dachshund’s leash, hurrying past the mansion.
"Excuse me," I croaked, my voice raw from screaming into the void. "What… happened here?"
She froze, eyes darting to the house as if it might lunge.
"Some lunatic butchered the whole family last week. Even the children." Her whisper trembled. "They say he smiled while doing it. Left their bodies arranged like dolls in a tea party."
My throat closed. The Reflection’s voice purred in my ear:"Little Kaito would’ve grown up to wire electrodes to your mother’s eyelids. You saved him."
The world tilted. I stumbled back, sneakers skidding on gravel, and ran.
The playground was a carcass.
Police tape coiled around the swing set like cobwebs, and the sandbox had been excavated into a shallow grave.
A rusted slide arched toward the sky, its metal groaning in the wind. The air smelled of wet mulch and something sharper—bleach, maybe, or the tang of old blood.
A couple argued by the broken merry-go-round, their voices sharp as glass:
"—heard the killer buried them alive! Made the parents watch the kids suffocate first—""—cut out their tongues, my sister said. So they couldn’t beg."
A pink flip-flop lay abandoned near the swings. I’d bought Mom one just like it years ago, after she’d admired a pair in a shop window. The memory curdled in my gut.
"They were destined for Prometheus’s child labs," the Reflection hissed. "I gave them peace."
Bile surged. I retched into the bushes, vomit splattering neon-green weeds. The acid burned, but not as much as the truth: I’d bought that flip-flop. I’d killed those children.
The stairwell reeked of ammonia and decay, each step creaking like a dying man’s bones.
CRIME SCENE — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY glared from the third-floor door, but the knob turned easily—too easily, as if inviting me back.
Inside, the walls had been stripped to the studs, exposing jagged pipes and frayed wires. But the blood…
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It wasn’t just splattered. It was art.
Swirls coiled across the ceiling like crimson galaxies. Handprints smeared the fridge in frenzied arcs.
A perfect outline marked where the pregnant woman had died—my silhouette, frozen mid-crouch. Her ghostly face stared up from the floorboards, mouth open in a silent scream.
"You did this," the Reflection cooed. "You painted this masterpiece to protect her."
My knees hit the floor. Vomit exploded from my throat, acidic yellow mingling with the brownish crust on the tiles. The stench—rotten meat and cloying sweetness—clawed down my windpipe.
"Every cut was a love letter," the Reflection sighed. "Every scream a lullaby."
The alley stank of piss and rotting fish. A plastic bucket sat by a dumpster, rainwater sloshing with green algae and cigarette butts. I plunged my hands in, scrubbing my face until my skin rawed. The water tasted like poison, but I gargled it anyway, spitting chunks of bile onto the asphalt.
"Look at you," a voice sneered.
Three men blocked the exit. The leader swung a baseball bat tattooed with tally marks. "Wallet. Phone. Now."
I laughed—a wet, broken sound. "Kill me."
The bat cracked my ribs first. White-hot pain bloomed as I crumpled. Steel-toe boots stomped my spine, my arms, my face. Blood pooled in my mouth, metallic and warm.
"Pathetic," the Reflection tutted. "Let me—"
Darkness swallowed me whole.
"Signal’s moving again!" Ren slammed the steering wheel as traffic snarled ahead.
Rain sheeted the windshield, blurring the taillights into hellish constellations.
Hana clutched Karen to her chest, the AI’s hologram flickering with Shinra’s nosediving vitals.
"His pulse is weakening… oxygen dropping… Ren, pull over!"
They abandoned the car, sprinting through honking gridlock.
Ren’s combat boots pounded the pavement, Hana’s lab coat flapping like a ghost behind her.
"If he dies…" Hana choked."He won’t," Ren lied, vaulting a stalled bicycle.
Cold.
Dark.
The walls rose again, but now they breathed.
Left side: Mom braiding my hair. Shizumori’s laugh. Hana’s bandages.Right side: The Yamazaki tea party. The sandbox graves. The Wei family’s blood galaxy.
Silver threads now stitched my memories to his.
First kiss. First kill. Mom’s lullabies. The pregnant woman’s choked sobs.
The walls lurched closer, glass groaning.
The Reflection stepped through the right wall, his white coat pristine, scalpels glinting in his hands.
"We’re not split. We’re fused."
His voice- it wasn't like the one i've been hearing. It wasn't dark, eerie, It was almost normal. Like mine.
He pressed his palm to the glass between us. My hand rose to meet it, unwillingly.
"It's good to finally see you, face to face... Nishi Shinra" he said.