I didn't sleep again.
I couldn't.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those damned smile balls. Their crooked grins. Their gleaming yellow (and now green) surfaces streaked with blood. And the eyes of the victims — empty, glassy, locked in the final expression of fear or numbness.
At 6:00 a.m., I was back at the precinct, staring at the evidence board.
Four victims. Four locations. Four different methods.
And now, four smile balls — each bearing a fragment of a larger symbol, a spiral slowly taking form. A spiral that seemed to be guiding us somewhere.
Or warning us.
Alex entered the office right on time, his coat still wet from the drizzle outside. He nodded to me and sat down quietly. As always, we skipped the pleasantries. We were long past the phase of small talk. When you're hunting a ghost, words don't mean much. Plus Alex doesn't talk much either, so why force him?
I pointed to the updated sketch of the spiral. "It's becoming clearer," I said. "See this curl? It's moving inward. Like a target."
Alex studied it. "Like it's pointing to a center?"
"Exactly." I grabbed the map. "Check this out. We plotted all four crime scenes. If we follow the spiral's logic… the center might be here."
I circled a cluster of blocks between East Glenn and Harrow Point — an old industrial area filled with derelict warehouses and closed factories. A graveyard of rust.
"We need to canvass that area. If the killer's guiding us toward something… it might be there."
Alex nodded. "I'll get the gear."
By midday, we were driving through Harrow Point — a place the city had tried to forget. The sky was overcast, the buildings looming like broken teeth. Graffiti covered most of the walls, and shattered windows reflected nothing but gray.
We parked near an old canning plant. The street was silent except for the wind howling through busted vents.
"This place gives me the creeps," I muttered.
Alex was already out of the car, scanning the perimeter. We walked side by side, checking each building one by one. Most were locked, boarded up, or completely gutted inside.
But then we found it.
Warehouse 11.
The doors were chained, but there were fresh scratches on the metal. Someone had been here recently.
I drew my weapon. "Cut the lock."
Alex did. The chain clattered to the ground like a dead snake. We pushed the doors open.
The interior was huge — hollow, echoing with our footsteps. Dust danced in the filtered light coming through cracks in the roof. But amidst the dust and decay, something didn't belong.
In the center of the warehouse floor, someone had drawn a spiral. With chalk. Eight feet in diameter.
And at its core… another smile ball.
This one was purple for some reason.
We approached slowly, cautiously. I knelt beside it, examined it under the flashlight. The smile was different again — smaller, more reserved. Almost… sad? Huh?
There was no blood on this one. No ink either.
Alex looked around. "No body."
I nodded. "Just the ball."
"Could be a warning," he said. "Or an invitation."
I scanned the spiral again. It was meticulously drawn, each line equally spaced, the curl precise. This wasn't graffiti.
This was ritual.
"This is getting worse," I muttered.
We checked the rest of the warehouse — offices, storage areas, stairwells. No sign of life. No recent activity.
But something didn't sit right.
"This wasn't the site of a murder," I said. "It's a placeholder. A midpoint."
Alex nodded. "The center isn't here. It's deeper in."
We returned to the precinct and compiled our findings. I updated the board: Fifth Smile Ball – No Victim. Location: Warehouse 11. Symbol Center Emerging.
"This could mean two things," I said. "Either the killer's getting sloppy… or he's accelerating."
I sat at my desk and started reviewing every missing person report from the last forty-eight hours. Most were noise. Teen runaways. Drug cases.
But one stood out.
Erica Monroe. Age 34. Journalist.
Last seen two nights ago, just a few blocks from Harrow Point. Investigative reporter known for covering cold cases and conspiracy theories. Had filed multiple FOIA(Freedom of Information Act. The primary benefit of using FOIA requests and other legal means is that journalists can access information that would otherwise remain hidden.) requests on unsolved homicides — including some I recognized.
I pulled her file and began reading. Erica had been looking into a series of killings from six years ago — murders never solved. The ones we'd reviewed yesterday.
"She's chasing ghosts," I muttered.
Alex looked up. "You think she got too close?"
"Closer than we ever did."
I found her last published article. A blog entry from three days ago:
"There are patterns in the chaos. Spirals in the void. If no one else will see them, I will. And I'll follow them to the center, no matter what's there."
I felt my stomach turn.
"She knew," I whispered. "Or at least… she suspected."
We traced her cell signal to a phone tower near the East Glenn train yard — less than a mile from Warehouse 11.
We didn't wait for backup.
The train yard was enormous, a winding maze of rusting railcars, broken fences, and graffiti-tagged storage sheds. We moved fast, checking each car systematically.
And then, we found it.
A rust-colored box in the back of a car, slightly ajar.
We opened the back of the car slowly before opening the box.
Inside was a folding chair. A camera on a tripod. A notepad. A smile ball — blue this time — sitting beside a portable light.
And Erica Monroe.
Her eyes were sewn shut. Her mouth, too.
Her body was besides the box. No signs of struggle, disturbance or blood. A murder with no clues left behind.
Might as well be the most perfect murder he ever did.
I turned away, clenched my jaw. The air felt heavier here.
"This is it," I said. "The spiral led us here."
Alex stared at the body, expression unreadable. "And what now?"
"Now we bring hell with us."
I was done playing catch-up.
I called for a task force. I wanted every report from the last six years involving mutilation, smile-like wounds, toy-related clues, anything. I didn't care how small. I needed everything.
This wasn't just a spree. It was a doctrine. A belief system.
The killer wasn't improvising. He was orchestrating.
And Erica Monroe? She'd figured it out.
She followed the spiral. She walked the line. And it swallowed her whole.
Now it was our turn to walk it — before it swallowed us too. But I don't want to stop even if it risked our lives. The souls of the victims need peace and justice.
We had bagged the camera and Erica's notepad. I held the small, worn notebook carefully, as if it were the only heartbeat left in that cold train yard.
Back at the precinct, I sat at my desk while Alex uploaded the footage from the camera to our encrypted server. The notebook, though fragile, was mostly intact. Its first few pages were just names — some crossed out, some circled. A few matched cold cases we had never solved. Others were completely unfamiliar.
But then I found something.
A drawing.
A spiral.
Just like the ones on the smile balls.
It was faint, done in pencil, curled tightly, almost shaking with obsessive detail. Next to it were the words: "The closer I get, the smaller it becomes. The smaller it becomes, the louder it screams."
Beneath that:
"Five layers. Five victims. Then it begins again."
Five.
I stared at the list of victims on the board. Marjorie. Victor. Jacob. The unknown girl in the apartment. Erica.
That was five.
"Alex," I called. "Come look at this."
He moved beside me silently, reading over my shoulder.
"She knew the cycle," I said. "The spiral isn't just a symbol. It's a process. Five murders, each one closer to the center. And when it's done... something resets."
"Resets?" he asked.
I flipped through more of the notebook. One section was just a page of repeated phrases, all capitalized, in shaky handwriting:
IT HAS A CORE
IT WANTS TO BE SEEN
THE SMILE IS NOT HAPPY
THE SMILE IS THE GATE
THE GATE MUST OPEN
I shuddered.
This wasn't just someone chasing leads. Erica had spiraled herself. She didn't just investigate this thing — she let it consume her.
"Any footage?" I asked.
Alex nodded and turned the monitor toward me.
It was not the best quality, with a time stamp from two nights ago. Erica sat in a chair. Alive. She looked worn, dark circles under her eyes, hair a mess. The kind of look people have when they know they're out of time.
"I don't think I'll get to publish this," she began, voice trembling. "But if you're watching, and you found me… then the smile found me too."
She held up one of the smile balls — the blue one. "This isn't a joke. This is a signal. A marker. I followed the spiral. I followed the rules. I got too close."
"The killer doesn't just choose victims. He performs them. It's like… it's like he believes he's conducting a ritual. Each murder is a stroke of a symbol, a chant in a silent language. And once he completes the five, he starts again — but tighter. Deeper. Closer to the center."
I paused the footage.
"She believed there was a… religious aspect," I said. "Or cult-like."
Alex frowned. "But we haven't seen any links to known cults."
"Maybe because it's not about belief," I said. "Maybe it's personal. One man's madness. His own religion."
I resumed the tape.
Erica now looked behind her, uneasy.
"If I disappear, it means he's watching. If my mouth is sewn shut, it means he's listening. Don't speak his name. Don't look into the smile. Just find the center. Stop the spiral. Please—"
The video cut off there. Static.
I sat back, breath shallow.
"She knew it was coming," I whispered. "She knew she was going to die."
Alex leaned on the desk. "She tried to warn us."
I nodded, my mind already racing through connections. "The killer needs five. That's the rule. After five, he moves to a new ring. New victims, but always closer to the center. He's guiding us — but only if we survive long enough to see the pattern."
Alex flipped open his tablet. "Then we should map every historical set of five, as far back as we can. Look for groupings. Clusters."
"Yes," I agreed. "If we can predict the next spiral, maybe we can catch him before he finishes the sixth cycle."
Alex got to work. I returned to Erica's notes.
One phrase kept jumping out at me.
THE SMILE IS THE GATE.
What the hell did that mean?
Gate to what?
Was it symbolic? Or was the killer obsessed with some kind of mythical "truth"? Something he believed could be "opened" through pain and pattern?
Or worse… did he believe the spiral gave him control?
I walked to the board and looked at the smile ball sketches again.
Each was slightly different. Wider grins. Thinner lines. Changing colors.
Almost like stages.
Each one leading closer to something.
I drew a quick mockup of the spiral we'd seen in Warehouse 11. Then I layered the five known locations over it — Marjorie, Victor, Jacob, Unknown Girl, Erica.
They formed a perfect spiral arc, pointing directly toward the city's center: Old District Zero.
The ruins of the first settlement before the modern city was built. Long-abandoned. Closed off after the great fire twenty years ago.
We'd found the center.
"This is it," I said to Alex. "He's guiding us there. Always has been."
Alex looked up. "District Zero? That place is sealed."
"Exactly," I said. "No one goes in… which makes it the perfect stage for the sixth cycle."
His face was unreadable for a moment. Then he nodded. "Then that's where we go."
It was getting dark. Rain tapped against the precinct windows like fingers.
The spiral wasn't finished.
And something was waiting at the center.