No one heard the girl scream.
Not because the walls were thick — they weren’t.
But because the city doesn’t listen anymore.

Her body was found seated upright in her apartment, hands folded like she was praying, her face sliced into a perfect grin. Red thread stitched the corners of her mouth to her cheeks. A single note pinned to her chest:

“Smile. Society’s watching.”

Detective Mara Vex stared down at the corpse without blinking. She was used to blood. Used to faces that looked surprised when life ended too early. But this one — this was different.

This was staged. Precise.
This was message, not murder.

It was the third body in three weeks.

No fingerprints. No DNA. No forced entry.
Just a woman who worked in child protective services, now permanently smiling in death — and a public that had no idea they were being watched, played, judged.

The media named him The Smile Architect.

He didn’t just kill. He performed.
And Mara knew — performances always had an audience.

What the cameras didn’t show was what was inside the girl’s mouth: a photograph, rolled and tied with hair. Mara unwrapped it carefully.

It was a group photo.
A teenage boy among a sea of adults in white coats.
The back read: “Institution #8 – Summer Program – 2011.”

She felt something twist in her gut.
She’d heard of that place.
And she’d spent three months there when she was seventeen — after the incident.

But that program was shut down.
Sealed records. Buried lawsuits.
No one was supposed to remember it.
So why was he sending her this?

Across the city, in a room hidden from eyes and judgment, he watched the news.

There she was — Mara Vex.
All grown up. Cold eyes. Sharp suit.
The perfect product of a broken system.

He smiled to himself, soft and slow. Not like the corpses — those were mockeries. His smile was real. Warm. Earned.
Because he knew her. Knew what they’d done to her. Knew what they’d done to him.
They buried him alive in a place meant to heal. They fed him pills until he forgot his name, his dreams, his pain.
Then, when he started screaming, they punished him for not smiling.

So now he smiles.
He makes them all smile.
The way they made him.

Mara would remember.
She just didn’t know it yet.

And somewhere, the next victim was already smiling — still alive, but not for long.
Because this was only the beginning.
The real art hadn’t even started.

And by the end, they would all be laughing.
Blood in their teeth.
Stitches in their skin.
And terror in their eyes.

Because he wasn’t the monster.

They were.

And monsters don’t get justice.
They get architecture.

Nothing official. Just words. Carefully chosen, quietly published.No one knew who wrote it. But the timing was perfect.Hours after Camille's body was found, an anonymous article surfaced:


"Detective Mara Vex: The Forgotten Patient of Institution #8."


Why does the lead investigator in the Smile Architect case have a sealed psychiatric record?


And why has the public been kept in the dark?


Mara stared at the screen in silence. Her coffee went cold in her hands.She hadn't told anyone. Not even Internal Affairs knew the full story.But now… the door was cracked. And the killer had slipped a whisper through.


Chief Halvorsen called her into his office by noon.


"Tell me it's bullshit," he said, not looking up from the printout. "Tell me this is just some clickbait trash."


"It was ten years ago," she said, voice flat. "I was seventeen. After… everything with my mother. I was placed there temporarily. I didn't kill anyone. I didn't hurt anyone."


"And now that place is ground zero for a goddamn artist of death," he snapped. "Do you see the optics here? You're front-page bait now. People are going to wonder if you're chasing him—"He hesitated.


Across the city, he sat back in his chair and watched the ripple start to spread.The suspicion. The discomfort.He didn't need to frame her.He only needed to make them ask one question:


"What if she's not solving the puzzle? What if she's part of it?"


And then let their imagination do the rest.


He added a new note to his wall, written in ink like blood:


"Make them fear her. That's how I make her see herself."


That night, Mara walked home with her hood up.


A reporter waited outside her building. He didn't say anything. Just held up his phone, recording.She passed without looking, but she knew what the headline would be.


Detective Vex refuses to answer questions about mental institution ties.Smile Architect case now 'compromised.'


It didn't matter what she said anymore.He was setting the stage.And somehow, she was the centerpiece.


Inside her apartment, a new envelope was waiting.


Inside: a photo.The therapy group from Institution #8. Ten kids. One therapist. All smiling.


But this time, Mara's face was circled in red.And scrawled underneath, in handwriting she now knew better than her own:


"They can find I used you. That's what makes it beautiful."


He wasn't hiding anymore.He wasn't just killing.He was rewriting the story.


And she was his proof that monsters are made… not born.


Chapter 5 - SYMPTOMS OF A HERO.