Content Advisory: This chapter contains explicit depictions of death, severe bodily injury, and blood, alongside intense psychological and emotional trauma. Scenes include graphic imagery and distressing events that may be unsettling to some readers. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
01:15 AM | N.P.U. Headquarters, North Metro
Adrian's boots echoed faintly across the empty hall, the hollow click of each step bouncing off the sterile walls. His body ached from the rooftop—every joint protesting—but the satchel of files remained untouched. Too heavy. Too much. Tonight, the guilt pressed harder than any physical weight.
"I'll read them later," he muttered, voice rough, rasping with fatigue. Elias didn't argue. He knew better.
The physiotherapist's office smelled faintly of antiseptic, sharp under the fluorescent glare. Adrian lay face down, sweat soaking into his shredded jacket, skin raw from bruises.
Hands pressed, kneaded, dug into muscles, methodically working, eliciting a grunt or hiss from him with every touch. Anxiety churned low in his stomach, coiling tight like steel wire.
Will Marcus make it?
The thought looped, relentless. Every pulse pounded it faster, every twitch reminded him—the boy had gone first. Teeth clenched against nausea, jaw tight enough to leave a faint ache in his temple. The therapist worked quietly. Some truths didn't need words.
When the session ended, he sat up slowly, every movement deliberate, thanking her with a voice rasping like sandpaper.
Outside, the neon glow of North Metro reflected off the wet asphalt. The drive home was a blur—tires humming, light streaking past, the city alive while he felt suspended in stasis. He didn't light a cigarette. Couldn't. Every nerve raw, exposed.
02:27 AM | Adrian's Safehouse
He collapsed onto the bed, clothes damp with sweat and city grime, jacket shredded from rooftop friction. Not enough energy to reach for a lighter. Not enough to think beyond the aching in his shoulders and the crushing weight in his gut.
Eyes open. Nothing. The city outside moved on. He didn't.
His phone lit up: Anonymous Number.
[Trigger Warning – Graphic Content Ahead
The following scene contains intense and graphic depictions of death, severe injury, and gore. Reader discretion is strongly advised.]
[Note for Sensitive Readers: A summary of the scene is provided below. If you prefer to skip the graphic details, scroll down to the summary section and continue reading from there.]
Heart hammering, he froze. The image loaded before he could process it.
Marcus. Dead. A single shot hollowed his skull, leaving a clean, cruel void. Teeth fractured, jagged, catching the dim light like a frozen, macabre grin. The right eye ballooned grotesquely, veins threading through the glossy white like angry red rivers.
Fingers—gone—stumps twitching faintly. Blood pooled beneath him, thick and dark, congealing at the edges while fresh rivulets shimmered wetly. Veins faintly visible through torn flesh. The metallic tang of blood hung heavy in the air, mingling with the acrid bite of gunpowder.
Every detail—each fracture, bulging vein, the wet gleam on broken teeth—was precise, clinical, impossible to look away from. Silence settled like smoke, heavy and suffocating, letting the horror linger in the room.
Adrian gagged, retching into the sheets, stomach twisting violently. Clutched the phone like it burned, skin pressing against the smooth glass, heart thudding in his ears.
"Adrian. I see it."
Elias's voice cut through immediately, calm, clipped.
"I—I—he—he shouldn't—he wasn't supposed to—"
"I know. I know. Focus. You did what you could."
"You don't understand—he…" Adrian's voice broke. "His face. That grin—he was alive, excited!"
"I know. And now he isn't. We'll handle it. You handle yourself first."
The brief moment of reason shattered when Elias abruptly cut the call. Silence filled the apartment. The exhaustion that had been simmering finally surged, dragging him under.
Sleep came jagged, reluctant, suffocating.
A Nightmare.
Marcus's face appeared first—boyish, bright, alive, grinning. Then his body. The blood. The ruin of flesh. Veins threaded beneath pale, torn skin, each contour of death sharp and surgical, precise enough to etch itself into Adrian's chest.
Copper clung to the air, thick and metallic. Every heartbeat hammered it deeper, echoing like a drum in a cavern.
What if…
What if he'd handed him the card sooner?
What if he'd stayed longer on the roof?
What if he had fought harder for him?
What if he—
Exhaustion cut the thoughts short.
Then her voice. Vivienne's. Cold, sharp, cutting like glass against bone, scraping across Adrian's raw nerves.
"You can't do anything right, can you? You never could. You never can. You're a mistake, making mistakes everywhere you go."
Adrian jerked awake within the dream, heart hammering, skin crawling as though the cold had seeped into his bones. The nightmare layered itself: flashes of childhood, Harold's strained tolerance, the boy who resembled Harold's brother she carried in secret.
He remembered the fight he had overheard at seven: Vivienne's icy voice slicing through the room.
"You think you can protect him? You're pathetic!"
Harold's restrained anger: "Vivienne, calm down! Don't—don't talk to him like that!"
Vivienne spat, "He's nothing but a mistake!"
Adrian's small, trembling form pressed into a corner, piecing together the horrifying truth—he was the product of her affair with Harold's brother, and the venom in her words carved itself into him.
The car accident replayed in brutal loops: Harold had t-boned to shield him, leaving Adrian with a weight he had never shed—the crushing guilt of being the cause of Harold's death, even inadvertently.
Every memory, old and raw, festered alongside Marcus's death—the boy's grin, the blood, the precision of it all—while Vivienne's taunting voice laughed in his mind.
"You never could do anything right."
Adrian awoke with a guttural scream, drenched in sweat, eyes snapping open to the dim room and the still city outside. The shadows were silent, static, but the flashes of Marcus's grin burned behind his eyelids. His chest heaved violently.
Every nerve raw. Every muscle trembling. The nightmare, the memory, the guilt—they converged into a suffocating weight.
Nothing had stopped. Not the night. Not sleep. Not the city. Not even his own body screaming for release.
[Scene Summary! Gore-Free Version]
In this scene, Marcus dies tragically, and Adrian experiences an intense, traumatic nightmare. The events trigger overwhelming guilt and memories of past trauma, including his complicated childhood and family conflicts (He is an affair baby). The scene focuses on Adrian's emotional turmoil, grief, and psychological struggle.