All Chapters of Buried in His Shadow: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

When Dad got the emergency call to return to the precinct, they still hadn’t found all the pieces of my body scattered across the city.Outside, thunder cracked and lightning tore through the sky. Rain poured in sheets, drowning the streets. Every available officer, along with K-9 units, was deployed to search the area.Detective Foster stepped through the precinct doors, soaked and panting, holding a bloodied evidence bag. “This bag didn’t get wet,” he said, handing it to my dad. “Jerry, see if there’s any trace DNA left on it. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”Dad nodded and opened the bag. Inside were small, evenly sliced chunks of reddish-brown flesh.In that instant, Dad’s eyes turned bloodshot. His breath grew ragged, like he was trying to keep his rage from boiling over.“This bastard… This wasn’t just murder. These were cut off while the victim was still alive.”It’s been eight years, and this was the first time I’d seen my dad cry for me.Detective Foster’s face darkened, and h

Chapter 2

In the precinct lobby, my one and only friend—and deskmate—Melissa Benjamin was talking to an officer. She explained how my phone wasn’t going through, and I’d completely ghosted her on a day we were supposed to meet. Her eyes were red and brimming with tears, and just watching her fall apart made my heart twist painfully. I instinctively reached out to wipe her tears, but my hand passed right through her cheek. Frozen, I stared at her face, then laughed through the tears in my own eyes.‘Thank you. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for not giving up on me,’ I thanked her. While the officer was asking for my parents’ contact information, Dad walked into the lobby. He barely spared Melissa a glance before cutting in, “No need to follow up. I’m Lisa’s father. She’s not missing. She got grounded for messing up and isn’t allowed to hang out with her little gang of bad influences.”He emphasized those last five words, and I saw the blood drain from Melissa’s face as she looked dow

Chapter 3

I didn’t die that day.At the last second, I jumped out the window, where someone found me and rushed me to the hospital. The doctors said I was lucky. Any later, I would’ve been gone for good.The woman in the bed next to me peeled an orange for her daughter while glancing my way. “Thank God you’re okay. Your parents must’ve been worried sick!”I watched with envy as she peeled an orange, gently separating each slice and feeding them to her daughter one by one. The reflection in the hospital window showed just how alone I was.Still, I tried to convince myself, or maybe I was trying to convince the whole world. I laughed and said out loud, “Yeah… My mom and dad love me so much.”Suddenly, the hospital door slammed open. I turned and saw Mom and Dad rushing in, faces full of panic and urgency.A wave of emotion flooded over me. I forced myself to sit up despite the pain, tears rolling down my cheeks. “Mom… Dad…”I was terrified. I didn’t want to die. I just wanted someone to hol

Chapter 4

Dad's voice was hoarse as he asked, “Theo… is that really you?”Theo nodded hard, eyes welling up with tears. “Yeah, Dad. It’s me. I’m back.”For a moment, the always-composed Dad grabbed Theo into a tight embrace, his arms clapping against Theo’s back with force. “You’re alive… and breathing. My son... Your mom and I have waited eight years. You’re finally back!”“My baby! My Theo is back!”Mom rushed over, clutching Theo’s coat sleeves before collapsing into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably.“All these years… Where have you been? Why didn’t you ever call? Not even once!”Theo apologized, “I’m sorry, Mom, Dad. I just wanted to make something of myself before I came back. I didn’t mean to keep you in the dark.”Mom beat at his chest with her fists, crying out all the grief and longing she'd buried for eight years.Dad gently helped her up, his eyes scanning Theo from head to toe. “Did you get hurt in that crash? Are you okay?”“Yeah,” Mom added. “Everyone else on that flight d

Chapter 5

Maybe I really am the heartless villain my parents always said I was.“By the way, where’s Lisa?” Theo suddenly asked. “I brought all her birthday gifts, from when she turned ten all the way up to eighteen!”It was only then that my parents seemed to remember I existed. They stood up in a panic, suddenly eager to go pick me up from the cemetery.“What cemetery?” Theo asked, confused. “Why would she be there?”Dad fell silent, and Mom brushed it off with a casual wave of her hand. “Every year on the anniversary of the crash, your father and I make her kneel at your grave. This year she wouldn’t stop mouthing off, so we made her stay there for another two more days.”“What?” Theo’s voice rose in disbelief. “How could you do that to her? Who can stay like that for three days without collapsing? Did either of you even try calling her?”His eyes were full of frustration, pain, and disbelief.He used to be the one who loved me more than anyone. When we were kids, he’d save up his allo

Chapter 6

Dad stood up and stumbled a few steps back.“No… It can’t be Lisa… No! This isn’t real! I must be wrong!”Panicked, he rushed to destroy the reconstructed face on the table. However, Detective Foster burst through the door and stopped him just in time.He grabbed Dad’s hand, ready to ask what was going on. Then he saw the face, and his expression changed instantly.“Lisa?”Dad struggled like a man possessed, trying to tear the face apart.“No! That’s not Lisa! I got it wrong! I must’ve gotten it wrong!“She’s just hiding out at a friend’s place. She’s not dead! She’s not!”“How long are you going to stay in denial? Jerry, when has your reconstruction work ever been wrong?” Detective Foster snapped, eyes red. From his coat, he pulled out a hospital report.“Last night, we found the victim’s missing right leg. There were surgical screw holes in the bone, and after cross-checking with hospital records, Lisa’s name came up.”Dad’s fight started to fade. His movements slowed unt

Chapter 7

As soon as Dad sent out a message on his phone, he took off like a predator on the hunt, charging headfirst into the downpour and into the alley.There, a tall man in a black raincoat had cornered Melissa. In one hand, he held a surgical scalpel.He turned his head at the noise, revealing only his eyes beneath the hood. It burned with the thrill of destruction, twisted satisfaction, and pure madness.Pain shot through my whole body just looking at him, the kind that lived in my bones and never faded.In that dark room, my arms tied up… the cold sting of the scalpel… the sound of meat squishing in a bag… and his sickening smile in the shadows.Dad’s eyes locked on the man’s scalpel and outfit, and suddenly, everything clicked. His face twisted with fury as he stared at the Butcher.“It was you! You killed my daughter! I’ll kill you!”He grabbed a wooden board from a nearby pile of construction debris and charged at him.Dad had gone through years of combat training, and right no

Chapter 8

“I knew something was wrong that day! I tried to report her missing, but you stopped me! If we’d filed a report then, maybe Lisa would still be alive!“All these years, you never cared about her. Where were you when her classmates were burning cigarette butts into her arm? Where were you when they called her a worthless orphan? When she texted you for help, where were you?!“And just when I was about to find her, you came in and shut everything down. You killed her hope!“She cared so much about you! She never talked back, not once, because you hated kids who weren’t obedient. You hated it when she didn’t get perfect grades, so she studied till her hands cracked from the cold and bled. She even told me once that she thought it was her fault Theo died, and she deserved for you to take your grief out on her!“Eight years. Eight whole years! Has your heart been stone this whole time? Or was Lisa just never your daughter to begin with? Your whole damn family doesn’t deserve her!“If I

Chapter 9

Mom shot to her feet. “Jerry, that’s not funny!”Theo looked just as stunned, his face ghost-white. “This is just another one of Lisa’s pranks, right? She’s mad I faked my death, so now Dad’s trying to guilt-trip us or something? Lisa can’t be dead…”Mom nodded furiously, grabbing onto Dad’s arm like a lifeline. “She’s just upset about Theo, isn’t she? Did she put you up to this? Lisa always loved to make things up!”Smack!Dad’s hand landed hard across Mom’s cheek.His voice trembled as he stared straight at Mom, lips quivering. “Lisa didn’t lie. Do you remember what I told you about the Rainstorm Butcher eight years ago? That night, when I went to the precinct to examine a victim, that girl was Lisa.”Mom shook her head. “No, that’s not true! She called me that night! She was clearly—”Then her voice faltered. Her expression changed.That call she brushed off as Lisa “playing games”—the one she’d hung up on, wasn’t a game. It was a desperate plea for help, and she’d ignored i

Chapter 10

At the hospital, Mom woke up mute. The doctors said it was a trauma response. Her mind had shut down to protect itself, and with it, her voice.That mouth, so quick to slash me open with words before, didn’t owe me anything now. I’d stopped expecting apologies or love from it a long time ago.Some things, when they come too late, feel more like rot than redemption.‘It’s too late, Mom. You missed your chance.’It turned out that even this cursed house could feel less like home once the unwanted, good-for-nothing burden like me was dead.Mom also clutched my photo like a lifeline now.The cruel irony was that they destroyed almost every picture of me years ago. What she held now was a tiny snapshot from my hundred-day celebration.She would look at Theo, the son she once worshiped, and even at Susan’s pregnant belly with hollow eyes, as if she didn’t see them at all.Sometimes, the madness lashed out.She’d grab Theo’s arm and sink her teeth in so deep that blood poured down hi

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