###004: THE GIFT

//VESPER//

“Wait!” I yelled, finally strength to move my feet.

“Vesper, don’t!”

Frankie’s shout faded behind as I sprinted outside, immediately lashed by the rain and blurring my vision. I looked left toward the alley, right toward the main street and to the sidewalk.

No car or sprinting figure, not even a shadow. He had vanished into thin air and once again becoming my ghost.

My body was trembling so hard as I went inside. The man was still hunched over the table, spitting out crumpled, spit-soaked hundreds, his wrist hanging at a wrong angle.

Frankie was already there, her face pale but her eyes sharp, looking at the blood on the floor before noticing me.

“Vesper.” She hurried to my side and gripped my shoulders firmly. “You’re done for today.”

“Frankie, I can clean this—”

“No.”  she cut me off, casting a wary glance at the door. “That man… he wasn’t just some drifter, honey. I’ve seen a lot of things in this city, trust me, you need to go home. Now.”

She reached into the register, pulled out twenty dollars, and shoved it into my hand.

“Don’t bother walking. Take a cab. I’ll handle the police when they arrive and these trash,” she gestured to the three men before pushing me. “Go. Now.”

I didn’t argue, I don’t have any fight left in me. This is my very first day of work, and the first one that didn’t feel like drowning, and now it’s drifting apart. Just like everything else.

I walked to the curb to hail a taxi and realizing that who saved me is much more terrifying than those who harassed me.

Because the Architect doesn’t save anyone. He goes for the kill.

Later that night, I dreamed of pale eyes.

They floated in the dark, watching me, following me through empty rooms and closing doors. I ran, but the doors kept slamming shut. I screamed, but no sound came out.

Then the eyes got closer.

Closer.

Close enough to touch—

I woke up gasping.

My alarm was blaring. 5:45. The sound ripped through my skull like a jackhammer. Half-blinded with sleep, my hand reached for my phone, heart still pounding from the dream, but then instead of my phone, there’s another box.

Rectangular and bigger. No. No no no.

Fog left my brain as I stared at it thinking it might explode. Like if I didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t acknowledge it, maybe it would disappear. That hope died immediately as my alarm kept blaring. 5:46 AM and I needed to work..

But my body had another idea, my fingers trembled so bad I could barely grip the ribbon. I pulled it and it came loose too easily, sliding across my palm and falling onto the bed like silk. My thumb flicked the lid lifted open and my entire body went cold.

Inside, nestled in black velvet, were ten fingers, lined up like they were waiting for someone to count them.

My brain didn’t process at first, just saw shapes turning into odd forms. Pink flesh and dirt-caked nails, and knuckles. Then the shapes became real and my stomach twisted, and heaved.

I slammed the lid shut, throwing the box onto the nightstand while tripping to get out of bed and hit the bathroom just in time to empty everything into the toilet.

My stomach seized, saliva pooled inside my mouth as I gagged, and heaved, but nothing came up. Again and again until my ribs started stabbing my lungs and tears streamed down my face.

I stayed there for ten minutes, with my knees on the cold tile and forehead against the toilet seat, shaking so hard my teeth chattered.

When I finally crawled back to my feet, I couldn’t look at the box. My body locks in there, gripping the bathroom doorframe, trying to remember how to breathe.

I forced myself to look again and if I was going to lose my mind, I might as well do it with my eyes open.

That’s when I noticed the paper.

The same from the one yesterday. It lay on the floor face-up, one word written in that same careful script: —Paid.

Like a debt.

My phone buzzed from the nightstand, and I nearly screamed. But it was just a notification, a text from an unknown number. No words, just a link to a website.

I shouldn’t click it. I knew I shouldn’t click it. But I clicked it.

The screen loaded for a moment before it prompted me to a local news site. The banner headline made my vision go gray at the edges: THREE MEN FOUND DEAD IN ALLEYWAY

Below it, three photos shown clearly and recognition seized my brain.

The drunk men from the diner. I scrolled down, reading through the rest of the news. The bodies discovered early this morning behind a closed business on 14th Street. Police have confirm the scene is being investigated as triple homicide.

I didn’t read the names while scrolling further, my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The page loaded a photo from the scene—blurred, yellow tape, body bags on the ground.

One of the victims sustained significant post-mortem mutilation and a broken wrist.

My gaze fell towards the box on my nightstand with all the missing pieces.

I felt like a balloon man losing air, everything going limp. I didn’t even notice the phone slip from my hand, just heard it hit the floor somewhere sounding far away. Denial hit me hard first, horror followed, the blood on my veins turned ice.

He’d killed three men and left their fingers while I slept.

Again—while I slept.

He’d been in my room again while I dreamed about his eyes.

And I hadn’t woken up. Hadn’t heard a thing, hadn’t felt anything.

I looked at the door. Still locked, chained on, and windows closed.

How did he keep getting in?

I thought about calling the police for real this time. But what would I say? Someone broke into my apartment and left me ten severed fingers. Yes, they match the three murder victims from this morning. Yes, I know who did it, and no, I don’t have proof. Yes, my fingerprints are all over everything.

I’d be in a cell by noon.

5:58 AM.

After few attempts of searching my phone, and pulling up Frankie’s name, I sent her a message with shaking fingers: Gonna be 10 mins late. So sorry.

The reply came fast within seconds.

[10 minutes or I find someone else.]

I couldn’t lose another job, I won’t be able to explain to my mother why I was back on her couch full-time. Couldn’t sit in this apartment all day with the boxes under my bed and my brain screaming at me.

I grabbed a trash bag from under the sink and dumped the box in, including the bullet too before tying it tight before heading downstairs and the smell of pancakes hit me soon as I stepped into the kitchen.

Damn, she’s already home!

“There you are.” My mom stood at the stove, flipping batter. “You’re running late today.”

“Something like that.”

“How’s the new job? The diner?”

“Good.” I forced a smile, lying through my teeth. “It’s good. Frankie’s nice, and tips are okay.”

She turned around, spatula in hand and her gaze dropped my hand.

“What’s that?”

My heart stopped. “What’s what?”

“That,” she pointed down using her spatula. “You’re taking out garbage at 6 a.m.?”

“Forgot to take it out last week.” Another lie came too fast. “It started smelling. Gotta get rid of it before work.”

She looked at me for a second too long. Then shrugged and went back to her pancakes.

I was out the back door before she could ask anything else, grabbing the shovel where it was always leaning against the fence. I kept moving, towards past the garden, through the broken birdbath and past the fence line to the far corner of the yard where the ground was soft and the neighbors couldn’t see.

Then, my shovel hit the dirt and I didn’t stop until the hole got deeper and deeper.

My brain yells at me, this is insane, but my body moved mechanically as if it knows exactly what to do. I immediately shoved the trash in soon as it was deep enough, covering it back with dirt before stomping it down flat and scattered leaves like I’d seen in movies.

Standing there, breathing hard, I tried to feel something. Hoping for relief, expecting a crippling fear, or gnawing guilt.

But nothing came, which bothers me more because I should be feeling something.

Not this static numbness. I just buried an evidence, making me an accessory of a crime.

I might as well start digging for my own grave.