The rain was relentless, each drop a tiny hammer blow on the city's grimy surface. He pulled his collar higher, the fabric offering little warmth against the damp cold.
His name was Jian, and a burning resentment, a quiet inferno, fueled him. His targets, the architects of his torment, were those at Yoloverse, the gaming company that had once held his fascination.
Their recent, nonsensical 'multiverse' integration into all of their games had been a disaster, destroying every virtual world he held dear. He would see them pay, person by person.
Tonight was his first move. His first target was Marcus, the lead developer for the new multiplayer platform.
He knew where he lived from a public record of an interview; his address on a very bland neighborhood near a very plain complex building. He observed Marcus, watching him from across the street.
Jian's mind played back years of disappointment at games and companies. A bitter expression tugged at the corners of Jian's mouth, his dark eyes narrowing.
He clenched his jaw. He felt the growing hatred rise.
It tasted like ash on his tongue. Marcus opened the front door.
His broad frame a silhouette against the soft light inside the door frame of his residence. Jian started to advance, the rain doing nothing to quell the burning passion for retribution.
His pace became purposeful, steps precise on the slick pavement. It would begin soon.
The hallway was dimly lit with a cold white hue, smelling of stale recycled air. Jian had moved in after the front door shut and used the few minutes to move unnoticed.
His breathing shallowed and the hallway grew quiet and heavy as his boots did not echo down the tiled surface. He placed his ear at the door.
Marcus was making noise, an off-key tune, the muffled sound of his video game music resonating through the thin wood. It made Jian sick.
He had killed that world, that piece of art and enjoyment for his own selfish reasons, just for "profit". With a quiet force, he shoulder-rammed the door near its handle, splintering the wood.
Marcus startled, a small cry of shock escaping his throat. "What the…," he began, before Jian, a blur of rage and desperation, pounced upon him.
He brought a sharp combat knife to bear in the sudden confrontation. The next moment, Jian pressed his palm against Marcus' mouth to suppress a yell while lodging his combat blade within his soft flesh.
His body writhed as warm blood trickled through the gaps between his fingers, a stark contrast against his dark skin. The noise had all stopped but Jian had become something other.
Something colder and calculated. This is how it must be for them.
He observed Marcus, his eyes dark. His first kill.
It felt nothing like the cathartic justice he imagined, nothing but a dull, echoing hollowness within him. He only knew his hunt had to continue.
He exited swiftly. He placed the hood of his black rain coat and became one with the rainy streets of the cold urban sprawl.
His boots splashed softly on the wet ground as he made his way down the path that stretched before him. His next target was Olivia, the game director, someone who would have prevented that nonsense integration into the multiverse in all of their franchises had she chosen to use her words, instead she agreed to it.
Her voice a soft sound to his ears that haunted him with regret. He used a combination of tactics to find where Olivia would go for an afternoon out after working in the main headquarters.
He used their social media feeds to map her activities with time codes. The old methods still had their advantages in this world.
He found that she regularly had coffee at an old bookshop downtown. It was rather open with its location but provided a means for him to get up close without a fight.
He entered and was greeted by the rich aroma of aged paper and dark roast, observing Olivia from a shadowy corner of the bookshop. Olivia sat at a small table near the back, a novel open in front of her, eyes lost in its pages.
He found a certain calm and collected stillness in her face that made him loathe his actions, only for a moment. With the grace of practiced hands, he moved towards her.
He did not draw her attention until he had sat himself beside her. She looked at him, her eyes bright as she took notice.
He thought he noticed confusion and some kindness in her smile. He hated it.
He pulled his blade without any grand standing or declaration, only a clean movement toward her. Olivia's scream died before it could escape her throat, his knife finding its mark quickly.
He made sure of it with precise calculated action that only served the mission that gnawed at his mind and heart. Blood spread like an inkblot on the worn wood of her small table, her book soaking with the crimson.
He stood, unblinking, before turning on his heel, walking out the entrance before any noise of the violent action had a chance to resonate around the walls of the old bookstore. Jian continued his calculated hunt for more targets within Yoloverse.
Each strike was carried out with brutal efficiency and with an even more profound emptiness within him. His sleep patterns deteriorated, he seldom rested.
He struck during public speaking engagements where they attempted to explain themselves at the press conferences, and waited outside of homes and at places of amusement for each of the targets that he managed to compile during his hunt. The city grew colder.
A thick mist became a natural cover for him in this twisted endeavor that continued to unravel him and push him down a path of his own self-destruction. The executives that greenlit the nonsensical multiverse push were next.
Men who did nothing more than fill their pockets, all whilst his love for gaming was butchered in the background. They did not even know it, they likely only ever knew spreadsheets and profits.
Their high rises offered many vantages for a predator such as he had become and many angles to plan his deadly ministrations. Each executive was more of a "challenge" for lack of a better word than his initial hunts.
The man that took most of his effort was Victor, the CEO, someone that made all those nonsensical ideas official. The figurehead behind the butchering.
He held many guards and defenses around himself in all respects of his life, and Jian's pursuit of him bordered an obsession that came from an endless source of fury. He broke into Victor's residence near the beach on an unassuming rainy night.
His mansion felt colder than any other place he had struck during the course of his brutal journey. He slowly navigated around the endless empty halls until the moment came when the final encounter started with a sudden confrontation in a long art gallery filled with various statues and large hanging canvasses.
Victor's surprise was masked behind an angry shout at the home invasion but no time for any calls or attempts to defend himself. The security surrounding the area was too spread thin and had a weakness; it would take too long to notice an issue in some areas, giving an opening for the home invader that Jian now had become.
Jian did not talk, his combat knife now an extension of himself. Victor did not expect his foe's efficiency, he did not expect his sudden, deadly force.
His lack of preparation cost him dearly. He fell upon one of his modern sculptures.
Blood coated the abstract form as a soft gurgle became his only communication with the cruel world. It gave Jian no sense of relief or joy, nothing at all.
As he turned from his latest action, he saw a form in one of the mirror's hung up on the long walls. A reflection that was as much like him as it was something new.
A grim and broken man that had chosen his own self-inflicted downfall. The world outside his perception narrowed as his mind grew numb.
His steps became deliberate as he made his exit. The mist did its part in hiding his figure as he made his way back into the night that always held a deep sadness to it.
Jian continued his bloody actions, targeting low level employees that played a small, negligible part in the demise of what once was. The weight of all the things he had done continued to drag him under.
It grew darker with each second of consciousness. His body became gaunt and his mind could only be described as fraying.
He started to notice them now, the police that were a step or two behind his activities. He almost felt nothing at this point.
His most final plan was against the lead investor, the final decision maker behind the monetary push of Yoloverse's fall. They were to be a figurehead that held much value within the system, one with more defense around them than even the CEO that he took so much effort to overcome.
He would lure them into the heart of what they ruined: a live showcase where Yoloverse was scheduled to celebrate its anniversary since its debut. Jian found his way into a vent near the upper rafters of the grand theater with the plan, his mind slowly unraveling.
His only goal is to stop, stop any of the damage being further compounded, no matter how twisted it sounded at this moment. He watched, his eyes growing hollow as the lights of the stage made each piece of his vision almost unbearable, with only small points of focus that served as targets for him.
The main investor made their appearance during their "grand finale". He was a tall and older gentleman with sharp facial structure that carried an arrogance in his stride.
A perfect end for this tragedy. As Jian started to position his body, with the final plunge in mind, a cacophony of yelling arose as several dark uniformed figures rushed to the stage where the investor was being showcased, with his team of protection failing against this new unseen assault.
The place started to quickly descend into chaos and utter madness. Jian was met with confusion before a sharp piercing feeling filled his chest with searing pain.
He looked down to find one of his combat blades embedded into the area with an angle and depth that was intended for harm. The one responsible came out from the black behind Jian and his position, eyes hard as she stared with anger towards his form that swayed back and forth with the sudden pain.
It was Olivia. She had mended from her "demise" somehow and it was a part of her revenge that she would have it here, here as it was intended, but without a single trace of mercy or consideration for the cruel figure before her that caused it all.
As the theater descended further into violence and bedlam, Jian felt more piercing blows of a very sharp and very pointy combat knife enter his chest and soft tissues, the familiar pain was growing now and his consciousness felt as if it was pulling further from reality.
He coughed blood as more blades sunk into him at different angles. They moved with speed and deadly efficiency.
They felt like shards of glass breaking him apart, but his only focus was how all of his hard work, everything he had done, felt utterly and horribly foolish in this moment, the complete loss and waste of his time, a brutal failure on so many fronts, with the added punishment of being killed here.
He had failed everything. The floor turned cold and unfamiliar.
The screams of all the people echoed within the grand room as if within a vast empty cave. Olivia's form appeared over him, her face stern as a statue.
Her words are only a distorted garble of incoherent noise that fell onto a broken vessel that was no longer living within himself. His body fell still in the center of the now fully chaotic auditorium and Jian died as a forgotten name in a sea of screams and chaos.
His plan a terrible failure from his self-inflicted despair, and nothing had really changed within this wicked world he once hoped to change for the better. The theater floor was stained in crimson with a figure of darkness among the broken remnants of light, he was lost.