The human mind is a labyrinth, each twist and turn concealing truths even the owner might not recognize. In his pursuit of justice, Detective Roy Calhoun had spent years navigating these mental mazes—piecing together fragments of consciousness, revealing the hidden corridors where darkness lurked.
He had seen enough to know that murderers were creatures of habit. Every crime scene was a confession, every repeated act a fingerprint left on the psyche of the hunter. He had spent his career deciphering these grim signatures, peeling back the layers of deception until nothing remained but the raw truth.
But tonight, something was off.
Six silver coins—one from each victim—lay in a neat row on his desk, silent testimonies from mouths that would never speak again. Each one found tucked beneath a dead tongue, the calling card of a methodical serial killer.
Then came the seventh.
"Seven's a crowd," Roy muttered, a dry smirk tugging at his lips. "But at least they aren't loud."
Same coin. Same ritual. Same story. But this time, the victim was a cop.
Roy steepled his fingers, his tired eyes scanning the crime scene photographs. The flickering desk lamp cast long shadows across the evidence, distorting the features of the dead. Then, his gaze landed on the anomaly.
A marble.
Smooth, glassy, larger than a child's toy. Left on the victim's blood. A foreign object in a scene that should have been familiar. It didn't belong, and yet—it was there. A deliberate intrusion.
Sighing he rubbed his temples. Cases like these had a way of getting under his skin. They gnawed at the edges of reason, pulling him into their madness. His old partner used to say he had a habit of overthinking, of getting too deep.
That's when he'd crack a joke—something stupid, something out of place, just to keep himself from drowning.
Why did the scarecrow win an award?
Because he was outstanding in his field.
A half-smirk tugged at his lips. It wasn't a great joke, but it kept the darkness at arm's length.
Roy flicked the marble with his finger—click, click, click. It rolled in a slow arc before settling, a perfect, glassy eye staring back at him.
The coins told him a story.
The marble? It asked him a question.
He leaned back in his chair, exhaling slowly. His office hummed with the faint buzz of an overhead light, the air stale with too much coffee and not enough sleep. He tapped his fingers against the desk, staring at the marble like it had personally insulted him.
"Alright, little glass eye... who the hell invited you?"
Patterns didn't break. Not on their own.
Someone—something—wanted him to see this.
Roy never ignored an invitation.
He pulled out his notepad, flipping through scribbled thoughts from previous cases. He jotted down a single question beneath them: Is the killer playing, or did someone new crash the party?
His lips quirked into a half-smile. "Well, well, well… looks like we've got ourselves a mystery guest. Guess I should roll out the red carpet."
With that, he stood, grabbed his coat, and left the marble exactly where it was.
---
Some days, you're late for no real reason. You just wake up late. And it's completely not your fault. It's just being human.
Jason sprinted down the corridor of his apartment building, barely awake but already racing against fate. If he missed the shuttle, he'd have to walk a whole kilometer—and his lazy bones vetoed that idea outright.
Across the street he jumped over the ocassional puddles of water and sped faster than any other day when he was late.
The shuttle doors slid open with a soft hiss, and Jason, breathless and disheveled, flopped into a window seat. He glanced at his reflection in the glass—
—and froze.
Someone else was looking back at him.
A swirly, weird mustache. A pirate eye patch. A big, lopsided heart on his cheek. And scrawled across his forehead in glittery marker:
"Best Bro Ever"—with a backward 'B.'
His stomach dropped. Elyse. He could practically hear her mischievous voice:
"The Empire has striked back."
A sudden burst of laughter shattered the quiet. Jason turned to see Sophia, phone in hand, capturing every second of his humiliation.
"Jason, new skin unlocked?" she teased.
From a few rows back, Bobby chimed in, "Bro, is this a security patch or a vulnerability?"
Jason groaned, rubbing his face—no use. The marker held firm. "My sister's latest malware update. Can't uninstall it."
Sophia smirked. "Too late for a patch. You're going viral."
Jason slumped back into his seat, defeated but amused. "Good. Let the whole office know—family's my greatest weakness... and my biggest flex."
---
At the shuttle stop, Jason scrubbed furiously at his face with his sleeve, then his palm, then both together—
Nope. The marks faded but refused to dissappear.
"Just perfect," he muttered, shaking his head as he trudged toward the office.
---
At the entrance, Jason tapped his ID on the scanner. The usual green flash... didn't come.
The light blinked—hesitant, uncertain. Then—
BEEP.hearing it jason starts walking but.the beep goes on a little longer, shrill tone. Red.
The security guard stepped forward, blocking his path. "Sir, your ID isn't valid."
Jason frowned. "What? I work here, bro. Maybe something's faulty—let's check again."
But the system refused.
A trip to the security office followed—an ordeal of confusion and swearing. The guard insisted Jason didn't exist. Jason, armed only with sarcasm and frustration, had to escalate.
One call to his manager and a whole lot of technical scrambling later, they found the culprit—
His data was gone. Wiped. Erased from the system.
The likely cause? The recent virus. The company had restored from backups... but somehow, Jason's profile hadn't made the cut.
An hour and a half of bureaucratic suffering later, Jason was finally allowed inside.
He glanced upward, exasperated.
"Bring it on. How much worse can this day possibly get?"