I was thirty-two when the fear first settled into my chest. It didn't arrive loudly or demand attention. It came quietly, slipping into my thoughts during sleepless nights and lingering in the silence between conversations. The kind of fear that doesn't announce itself, only whispers—If you don't do this now, you never will.
That whisper followed me everywhere. It followed me into courtrooms, into empty apartments, into evenings where the city lights outside my window felt colder than they should have been. And eventually, it pushed me into marriage.
My name is Ethan Cole. I'm a lawyer—trained to believe in logic, evidence, and the reassuring structure of rules. My parents live far away in a small town where the days still end early and tragedies are spoken of in hushed voices long after they pass. I had built my life in Chicago, a city that moves too fast to grieve and too loudly to think.
I married Mia Harper.
She was a doctor—brilliant, composed, and steady in a way that made people feel safe simply by standing near her. Where I overthought, she observed. Where I hesitated, she decided. There was a calmness to her that I mistook for certainty.
After the wedding, we moved into a newly constructed apartment complex in Rivergate.
Rivergate looked modern, polished, promising. During the day, sunlight bounced off glass buildings, traffic flowed endlessly, and people hurried through the streets with purpose etched into their faces. Cafés buzzed with conversations, and everything smelled of new beginnings.
But night transformed the place.
As the sun disappeared, the city seemed to pull inward, like something retreating into its shell. The streets emptied unnaturally fast. Streetlights stood in rigid rows, pale and unmoving, like exposed spines lining a corpse. When the wind blew, the metal poles produced a dull clang… clang…—a sound that felt too deliberate to be meaningless.
Still, we adjusted.
The first four months passed quietly. Life settled into patterns—early mornings, late dinners, brief conversations before sleep. I told myself this was adulthood. Stability. Safety. Looking back now, that calm feels rehearsed, like the pause before something breaks.
The building itself felt unfinished in ways I couldn't explain. It was new—too new. No CCTV cameras. No dents, no stains, no history. It was as if the place hadn't yet learned how to exist.
One morning, the security guard didn't show up.
At first, no one thought much of it. People are late. People quit. But his chair remained empty all day. His thermos sat untouched beside it, the lid still warm. By evening, unease had crept into conversations.
The police came the next day. They searched the premises, asked routine questions, and left without answers. They spoke calmly, professionally, as if this were nothing more than an inconvenience.
Fear didn't arrive then.
It waited.
A week later, I woke to screaming echoing through the building. Not shouting. Not confusion. Screaming—raw and uncontrolled. By the time I reached the ground floor, a crowd had already formed.
The guard's body lay near the entrance, twisted at an angle that made my stomach turn. His eyes were open, staring at nothing. His mouth was frozen mid-expression, as if he had tried to say something too late.
His hands were gone.
Not torn. Not crushed. Removed.
The smell reached me seconds later—metallic, heavy, clinging to the air. I remember thinking it smelled like a hospital corridor after surgery.
The autopsy report confirmed it. Anesthesia. Clean incisions. Cyanide poisoning. The words were clinical, emotionless. The conclusion was worse.
This wasn't rage.
This was precision.
From that night onward, Rivergate changed.
Cameras were installed. Security doubled. Police patrols increased. But sleep became shallow, restless. Doors were checked twice. Conversations lowered their voices without anyone noticing.
Then came the second death.
A bachelor from the second floor stopped answering his door. Days passed. We assumed he'd gone home. His family called instead—panicked, confused. His body was found curled unnaturally, like a child trying to protect himself.
His hands were intact.
His legs were gone.
The pattern was unmistakable now.
By ten every night, Rivergate emptied as if obeying an unspoken law. Lights went out. Streets fell silent. We asked the police to let us leave.
They refused.
Then came the third incident.
There was no body.
Only two arms and two legs, carefully placed.
That was when people stopped asking questions.
That was when they ran.