Episode 4 — "Blood on His Hands"
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Cold Open
Rain hammered the quad like it wanted in. Students shuffled under umbrellas, heads down. A janitor taped MISSING posters over a bulletin board already sagging with them. Faces of the dead stared back through plastic sleeves, smiling in photos taken at birthdays and dorm mixers. Amanda. Nate. Gordon.
At the base of the clocktower, Lacey Tran (21) clutched her phone like a lifeline. She'd gotten a text in the middle of class.
"MEET ME AT THE TOWER. COME ALONE. I KNOW WHO HE IS."
She thought it was Elena—same snarky shorthand. She thought maybe this was the break.
She ducked inside the tower stairwell. Cold stone. Wet footprints spiraling upward.
"Hello?" she whispered.
Her phone buzzed again.
"ALMOST THERE."
She climbed, sneakers squeaking on the old iron steps. The top chamber smelled of rust and bird shit. A single bulb swayed, shadows crawling like fingers.
"E-Elena?"
A shape stepped from behind the bell. White porcelain. Crack down the cheek.
Lacey's scream ricocheted off the stone. She bolted, feet hammering the stairs down.
Halfway, her phone chimed in her hand:
"JASON DID THIS."
She looked. Just a glance. That's all it took.
Her foot missed a step. She pitched forward, chin slamming iron, teeth snapping with a wet clatter. She tumbled, limbs cracking against railing, cartwheeling in a rain of blood and screams until she hit the ground floor with a crunch so final the storm outside seemed to pause for it.
Her phone landed beside her, screen spidered. A final notification popped.
"SO HE LEARNS."
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Act I — Fallout
Jason Hale sat in Detective Vance's cramped office, a shitty metal chair under him, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. He hadn't showered; smoke and blood clung like another skin. Ryan was asleep in the hospital wing with sedatives dripping into his arm. Elena sat beside Jason, notebook clutched so hard the cardboard bent.
Vance flipped a folder onto her desk. Photos spilled—Amanda's broken smile, Nate's mangled head on the stairs, Gordon's body crushed into angles a man shouldn't fit, and now Lacey, sprawled under the tower with her spine shaped like punctuation.
"Four," Vance said flatly. "Four fucking bodies in as many days. Guess who keeps showing up in every goddamn police report?"
Her eyes pinned Jason.
Jason's jaw tightened. "Because I'm the one seeing what the rest of you miss."
"Or you're the one making sure people fucking die near you," Vance snapped.
Elena slammed her palm on the desk. "Bullshit. He's not—"
"Not what? Not dangerous? Not fucking cursed?" Vance barked. "Girl, wake up. Every time you orbit him, somebody's blood ends up on brick."
Jason stood. "If you think I did this, cuff me."
Vance's stare didn't blink. For a long second, the room smelled like ozone before a strike. Then she shook her head. "No. You're not sloppy enough. Whoever's pulling this shit is using you like a fucking mirror. They want you looking guilty. And right now? It's working."
She shoved a manila envelope across the desk. "Someone mailed this to the precinct this morning. No return address. Open it."
Jason did. Photos spilled. Old, grainy, Polaroid style. Professor Knox, younger, standing over a bloody tarp with three other students. Faces blurred. A body under the tarp, hand dangling lifeless.
On the back of each photo: WELCOME TO RAVENWOOD.
Jason's stomach dropped.
Elena whispered, "Jesus fuck."
Vance leaned forward. "Whatever game this is, your professor's tangled up in it. Question is—are you smart enough to live long enough to figure it out?"
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Act II — Knox
Jason caught Knox after class. The old man looked like stone that refused to erode.
Jason shoved the photos onto his desk. "What the fuck is this?"
Knox's eyes flicked over them. No flinch. No denial. He lit a cigarette even though the office had a NO SMOKING sign taped right above his head.
"History," Knox said simply.
"You were there," Jason hissed.
"Yes," Knox said. He took a drag, exhaled. Smoke curled against the photo of the tarp. "One night. A death that should never have happened. The school buried it, because reputation pays more than truth. I buried it too, because I was young and weak. But somebody never stopped digging."
Jason slammed his fist onto the desk. "People are dying now because of this. Because of you."
Knox's gaze sharpened. "No. They're dying because the killer has chosen you. I may have skeletons, Hale, but you—you're the obsession."
Jason's phone buzzed. He looked.
"DOES HE LOOK LIKE A TEACHER OR A FUCKING KILLER?"
Jason shoved the screen at Knox. "You see this?"
Knox leaned forward, unbothered. "Then the question becomes: what do you see, Jason? A mentor? Or a mask waiting to be worn?"
Jason wanted to smash his phone through the wall. Instead, he pocketed it and stormed out.
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Act III — Jason Snaps
That night, Jason sat in the dorm common room, elbows on his knees, staring at the carpet pattern until it blurred. Elena sat across from him, eyes red, notebook open but blank.
"Say something," she begged.
Jason laughed once, sharp and ugly. "What do you want me to say? That I'm okay? That I can outsmart this fucker while everyone around me gets gutted like pigs?" He shook his head. "I'm not okay, Elena. I've got blood on my hands whether I touched them or not."
"You're not the killer," she said firmly.
Jason shot her a look that could cut glass. "Tell that to Vance. Tell that to the texts. Tell that to every corpse stacked like warnings."
Elena leaned forward, voice breaking. "Then fight. Don't let this bastard turn you into what they want. You're the only one smart enough to flip this fucking script."
Jason's phone buzzed. He yanked it out.
"SHE BELIEVES YOU. SHOULD I BREAK HER FIRST?"
Jason slammed the phone onto the table, veins bulging in his neck. "Fuck this." He stood, pacing like a caged animal. "They want me rattled. They want me watching shadows. Fine. Let's rattle back."
Elena frowned. "What do you mean?"
Jason turned, eyes dark, voice a snarl. "I stop running. I stop waiting for texts. I hunt the motherfucker down."
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Ending Cliffhanger
Jason stalked back to his room, adrenaline making every muscle electric. He shoved the door open—
—and froze.
The closet door was wide open. Ryan's bed was empty.
On the floor, written in blood across the carpet, were the words:
"KNOCK KNOCK. READY FOR CLASS?"
Jason's phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out with shaking hands.
"TURN AROUND."
He did.
The mask stood in the hallway. Silent. Still. One hand raised in a wave.
Jason's body moved on instinct—he lunged. The figure stepped back into the dark and was gone.
Jason's roar filled the dorm: "FUCKING COME BACK!"
Doors opened. Students peeked out. But the hall was empty.
Jason stood, chest heaving, fists shaking, eyes burning holes into the dark where the mask had been.
For the first time, he didn't feel like prey.
He felt like a goddamn predator.