The door creaked open. Sara went first, slow but sharp, her eyes sweeping the corners. Julian trailed her, scanning the walls. Simon stepped in like a man who had walked into a room like this too many times before– quiet, steady, already expecting the worst.
Paul was the last to enter. He paused on the threshold, not out of fear, but because he always did. That first impression– the air, the smell, the way the room sat– told him more than anything else.
The hotel room was ordinary. The kind of ordinary that only came after something violent had just happened.
The body was on the bed. Shirt dark with blood, knife in the stomach, handle tilted like a death flag. The sheets beneath him were soaked, but not enough. Too much blood had gone elsewhere.
The floor was worse. A wide stain spread from the side of the bed, thick and uneven, blackening the fibbers of the cheap carpet. The edges were already drying.
The window was shut. Curtains drawn. The fan hummed, stirring the smell: metal, damp fabric, stale air.
Julian swore under his breath. Sara said nothing, just looked, jaw clenched. Simon stood very still.
And Paul? Paul let his eyes wander.
The smell was the first thing– metal and damp cloth. Not overpowering, but clinging. It coated the tongue like rust. Paul breathed shallow, the way he always did at scenes like this.
The sheets had absorbed much of the blood, but they were damp in patches, sticky to the touch. He didn't touch– only observed. A trail had seeped down one side of the mattress, dripping onto the carpet until the fibers underneath were black.
Flies hadn't found the body yet. Thirty minutes, maybe less. The skin was pale, lips slightly parted, eyes glassy but not yet clouded. A neck wound gaped at an awkward angle, edges ragged. That one had bled more than the stomach wound, judging by the splatter near the bedside table.
Paul's gaze slid toward the window. Closed. Outside, traffic noises passed, a child's laugh, the faint rattle of a street vendor's cart. Normal life. Inside: silence. The kind that pressed down on every breath.
Sara shifted her weight, the floor creaking beneath her boots. Julian crouched, careful not to step in the spreading blood. "Crimson décor, eh? Somebody's got an eye for drama."
Simon just stood still, as if he'd seen this room before in another lifetime.
Paul crouched, brushing his fingers close to the floor without touching. The puddle smelled off. Metallic, yes... but too metallic, too raw.
See it? You see it too, right? The bed's wet, but not that wet. He bleeds from the stomach, fine. But stomach wounds don't drain a man like this, not in thirty minutes. So where did the rest come from?
He tilted his head, studying the way the blood spread outward. Too much.
If you stab someone in the gut while they're alive, the bed takes the blood. It pools there first, soaks deep. This.... his gaze shifted between the knife and the stain, ....this is different. See that pool? Darker, thicker, almost black.
But there. His eyes narrowed at the edges of the stain. Some patches were brighter than others, fresh compared to the drying edges. Too fresh – brighter. As if poured later. Mixed. Human blood doesn't do that on its own.
That's more recent. Congealed less. And the volume?? His thought wasn't spoken, but it hovered as if directed outward.
....too much. A human body carries, what, five litres of blood on average? Lose two and you faint, lose three and you're on death's door. Four, you're gone. But this floor alone has three litres at least. Add what's soaked into the bed… impossible. Unless he had two circulatory systems, which last I checked, people don't .
He straightened and looked at the neck wound. The angle. The force.
"Neck first. That's where most of this came from."
Sara glanced at him. "You're saying there was a struggle."
Paul didn't answer. Not directly.
You'd think that too, right? Blood on the floor, window shut, room in shambles. Easy story: he fought, lost, died. But easy stories are lies. Always are.
Julian moved in behind him, murmuring, "Arterial spray would've hit the walls."
He's right, you know. If it were arterial, we'd see jets, fans across the headboard, the nightstand. But here? Nothing. Just pooling, like someone poured it. You don't need to be Sherlock for this, you just need eyes. So what does that tell us? Someone added blood after death. Someone staged it.
Paul turned slightly. His expression was calm, almost casual.
"Too much blood," he said. "And not all of it his."
Julian bent at the bedside, muttering, "Yeah it doesn't match… volume's wrong."
Sara's voice broke in, soft but sharp. "Then whose blood is it?"
Paul didn't answer. He wasn't talking to them. He was talking to you.
That's a good question, isn't it? Could be hospital blood. Bags lifted from storage. When it thaws, it clumps. See that? The darker streaks in the pool? That's plasma separating from clot. Natural blood doesn't do that thirty minutes in. Someone poured frozen units onto the floor. No needle holes, no arterial pattern, just a spill. You can taste the difference too – hospital blood smells faintly of anticoagulants, of preservatives. Not iron alone.
Julian shifted uncomfortably. Simon stayed stone still.
Paul continued, eyes glassy but focused.
So the man died from a wound that wouldn't bleed like this. The real blood is on the sheets, maybe a litre at best. Everything else is counterfeit, borrowed death. Theatrics. Someone wanted us to believe this was a massacre. Someone wanted me to believe. But why me? Why always me?
He crossed the blood puddle, and examined the room from different angle. Staged. Not sloppy enough to be desperate, not clean enough to be professional. A message, then. Always a message. To us? To me? From looking at the build of the victim even he wasn't sure . If he could take out the man in a clear 1v1.
There's obviously a struggle but… he looked at the second room inside. A kitchen and a bathroom. This is too clean. Look at the spilled blood on the floor. It's ended before it even started.
Do you wanna know how would I do it ? Anesthetics , yes . And a hard one, which knocks-you-out in seconds .
He stood at the intersection between kitchen room and outside room. Slowly his eyes closed, recreating the scene once again. His footsteps went backwards slowly. Almost quite. The only sound coming from the ceiling fan, like a ticking clock .
Paul moved without a sound. His eyes focused like a wild predator; ready to devour his prey in the next second. One moment he was at the threshold, the next he was behind Varga. Cloth in hand, knife hidden, eyes half-lidded.
The cloth went first, pressed tight against Varga's mouth. His muffled scream rattled the air, his fingers clawing desperately at Paul's wrist. Three seconds of panic, maybe four.... then dead weight. I remember the way his legs gave out, twitching like cut wires.
Paul dragged him towards the bed with mechanical ease. His breathing never shifted. His pulse didn't spike. The knife came free from his coat. Steel catching the fanlight, humming like it already knew where it belonged.
He slowly lowered the Varga's body into the floor and he himself bent down too . His eyes closed again for quick second and thrust the knife into its destined place.
The cut wasn't clean. It never is. A savage tear across the throat. The first spray burst hot against Paul's cheek, painting a streak across his lips, but he didn't flinch. He leaned into it. Slowly Varga's head touched the floor. Left hand clamping the wound, forcing the arterial jets into a narrow stream.
Varga convulsed. Kicked once, twice. Paul held him tight, not letting even a drop go wasted in the walls or anywhere.
Soon the air reeked of iron. His body screamed even after his voice was gone, gurgling, choking, until finally – nothing.
Soon the empty floor started to turned into the pool of blood. But Paul stayed still. His eyes didn't blink. Face calm as Ocean, not giving up any slight of emotions. He waited. Until the blood circulation stopped.
Finally, he slowly stood up. While also lifting up Varga's body. Gently he placed the body in the bed, took few steps backwards not touching the pool he had just made .
He tilted his head. Studied the pool of blood as though it were a canvas that needed correction. Too shallow. Too light. Not enough depth.
That's when I added more.
He reached inside his coat and pulled the thawing bag, heavy with stolen blood.
Cutting precisely, like a professional. He poured the blood in the pool .
Thick clots dropped first, splattering wet across the crimson pool. Then streaks of plasma separated, curling through the mess, giving it weight. Authenticity. It looked alright now.
With all done . He placed his mark on the stomach.
Paul.... Sara tried to pull him out of the abyss. But Simon cut her off with a low, "Let him finish."
Paul didn't even glance at them. He just kept watching Varga's corpse, his lips twitching into something that wasn't quite a smile. More like recognition.
"This is how it happened," he said softly.
Or maybe– no, maybe he said, "This is how I did it."
Paul again, looked down at the corpse one last time. His mind ticked off the details like a ledger.
Knife: abdominal, too neat.
Sheets: older bleed, limited volume.
Floor: fresh pool, excessive volume, staged.
Source: stored blood, thawed, poured.
Conclusion: message. Not murder, but performance.
Paul straightened, moved to the window. The latch wasn't stiff, no sign of dust clinging to the groove. Maybe he said his goodbyes from here. He opened it with no effort.
Outside, the street carried on like nothing had happened: cars honking, a woman shouting at a vendor, a child bending to pick something shiny from the pavement. The boy turned It in his hand like treasure. His mother barked at him, tugged his sleeve, dragged him away.
Behind him, Sara asked, "What are you seeing?"
Normal. Always normal.
Paul shut the window.
He turned back to the body, to the still face slack against the pillow.
Nothing here belongs to him. Not the knife. Not the blood. Not even the silence. He died, but the story's not his. And we? We're stuck watching the play. Act one. Curtain hasn't even risen yet.
Julian leaned forward, brow furrowed. "Could be staged."
"Yeah," Paul said flatly. "Could be.
Sara cleared her throat. "So he was dead already when they staged it?"
But in his head, to you: Not could. Was.
Every crime scene's a script. That's what people forget. Every drop placed, every knife angle, every overturned chair. It's all blocking, stage directions. And the dead? They're just props. The question isn't how he died. The question's who's telling the story, and why they think we'll believe it. And every stage needs an audience. Guess that's us.
You and me.