The mop squeaked softly against the cold stone floor, echoing in the vast, empty chamber. The boy's hands trembled as he wrung out the dirty rag into the bucket, watching ripples form and vanish under the flickering glow of the torch lamps mounted along the church's walls. It was evening, and the heavy wooden doors were locked for the night, shutting the world outside in silence. The church, old yet preserved, stood as a relic amidst the restless city, its gothic arches swallowing sound and shadow alike.
He moved the mop back and forth across the floor, humming faintly under his breath to steady himself. The boy was small for his age, hardly more than sixteen, with sharp cheekbones and tired eyes. His mother had once dreamed of him wearing the collar of a priest. She used to whisper it to him every night before bed, even as sickness wasted her away. He whispered it now, almost like a prayer, almost like a plea.
"One day… I'll be a priest… just like you wanted."
The words hung in the still air, fragile and uncertain. He bit his lip, pressing the mop harder, as though he could scrub away not just dirt but the memory of her pale hands gripping his.
His gaze wandered upward, toward the altar. That was where people usually gathered—kneeling, praying, confessing, hoping their sins might dissolve in the golden light streaming through stained glass windows. But tonight, the stained glass was nothing but shards of black against the night sky. The only illumination came from the dim torches and the faint halo of the altar candles. Shadows clung thickly to the corners like cobwebs.
He carried the bucket forward, each step clinking faintly, the sound loud in the cavernous silence. He wanted to finish quickly. The church at night made his skin crawl. There was always a sense of being watched, of something breathing in the spaces where light did not touch.
When he reached the altar, he stopped. His mop slid from his hands, clattering across the floor. The bucket tilted, spilling water that crawled along the cracks of the stone like veins.
His breath hitched. His heart hammered in his ears.
The crucifix loomed above him—the familiar figure of Christ nailed to the cross, head bowed in eternal sorrow. But tonight, Christ wasn't alone.
Another body hung there.
A man. Naked, covered in blood, suspended upside down from the arms of the crucifix. His head dangled toward the altar floor, strands of matted hair dripping crimson that pooled beneath him. His flesh was a pale canvas carved with letters, deep grooves etched by a merciless hand. The boy's eyes stung as he read them, whispering in a broken voice that cracked on every syllable:
"U… E… V… X… U… K… O… V… P… Y… U… E… H… S… A… J…"
The letters were meaningless, yet they burned into his mind, filling him with a dread that words could not contain. They looked alive, twitching in the shadows, writhing across the man's body like worms.
He stumbled back, his foot sliding in the spilled water. His throat constricted, gasping for breath. Every nerve in his body screamed to run, but his legs felt heavy, chained to the ground by terror.
The man's eyes snapped open.
White, empty. Staring straight into him.
The boy's scream lodged in his chest, strangled, as his body shook violently. The mop lay forgotten, the wooden handle clattering against the altar steps. His hands twitched as if paralyzed, unable to shield his gaze from the grotesque sight before him.
Then, the carved letters began to gleam faintly, as though lit from within. A sickly glow spread across the corpse's skin, illuminating the church in an otherworldly pulse. Shadows stretched and twisted on the walls. The boy could hear whispers now—low, guttural voices speaking in tongues he could not understand, but their meaning pressed into his skull like nails.
"Chosen… witness… burden…"
He stumbled backward again, knocking into a pew. The impact jolted him enough that he dropped the bucket with a crash, water splashing onto his legs. The cold shock sent him into a fit of trembling breaths.
"No… no… no—"
The whispers grew louder. He clutched his head, his knuckles white, eyes wide with animal panic. His chest heaved, lungs burning, heart threatening to split his ribs open.
Finally, it broke out of him.
A scream. Raw, piercing, echoing through the dark cathedral like a soul being torn apart.
The torches guttered. The shadows seemed to lurch closer.
And in that instant, as his scream filled the church, the boy knew one thing with a clarity that chilled him deeper than the sight of the corpse
.....
The wail of sirens drowned the air. Red and blue lights flickered against the stone walls of the church, casting the cross at the entrance in unnatural colors. Police cars lined the street, blocking off the narrow road, their headlights slicing through the mist of the late evening. A crowd had gathered in the neighborhood just outside the church gate nuns clutched their rosaries, whispering frantic prayers, while the parish priest stood pale, speaking in a broken voice to an officer. Curious neighbors stretched their necks, exchanging half-whispered rumors about what horror could force armed men to storm a house of God.
A sleek, black car rolled up the curb, quiet and deliberate amid the chaos. Its door opened, and out stepped a man in his early thirties. He was dressed plainly in a black polo shirt and trousers, the kind of clothing that didn't draw attention yet carried authority. His face was calm, unreadable, framed by dark hair combed neatly to the side. He walked with the heavy steps of someone who had seen scenes like this too many times before.
He flashed his identification card to the officer guarding the entrance.
"Marcus Dross. Special Investigations Unit."
The officer nodded quickly, almost with relief, and handed him a pair of gloves. Marcus slipped them on, his eyes already moving past the man, drawn to the faint metallic scent of blood seeping from inside the church. He stepped forward, pushing through the heavy doors.
The sanctuary was bathed in a cold, artificial glow. Portable floodlights had been set up by the forensics team, their white beams bouncing off the stained-glass windows and swallowing the shadows that once made the church feel holy. Instead, the altar now looked like a stage one set for blasphemy.
There, in front of the crucifix, hung a man.
Naked. Bloodied. Upside down.
His body dangled from ropes tied cruelly to his ankles, his head nearly touching the floor. His skin had been peeled in grotesque strips, carved into a pattern that stretched across his torso like a second language written in flesh. Blood ran in sluggish trails down his arms and pooled onto the marble floor. Where his manhood should have been, there was only absence an obscene mutilation that made several officers avert their eyes.
The crime scene photographers worked silently, their cameras clicking like insects, capturing every morbid detail.
Marcus stopped a few feet away, his gaze steady but his jaw tightening.
"How long has he been here?" he asked, his voice low but carrying.
A uniformed officer glanced up from his notes. "When we arrived, he was still alive. Barely. He died seconds after. Blood loss. The… the skinning was what killed him."
Marcus's eyes narrowed. "Torture, then. Slow. Deliberate."
The officer swallowed hard. "Yes, sir. And… the killer even took his dignity in death."
Marcus didn't flinch. He had trained himself not to. Instead, he stepped closer, his shoes echoing softly on the cold marble. The victim's eyes were still wide open, frozen in an expression that hovered between pain and horror, as though his final moments had been spent staring at his own suffering.
Marcus leaned forward slightly, studying the letters carved across the man's chest and abdomen.
"UEVXU KO VPYUEHSAJ," he whispered under his breath. His tone wasn't casual; it was the kind of voice a man used when staring at a problem that wasn't meant to be solved easily.
"Looks like random letters," said the officer, trying to sound helpful.
"No," Marcus muttered. "This isn't random. This is a message. A puzzle."
A voice echoed behind him, deep and weathered.
"Marcus," it said.
Marcus turned slightly to see an older man approaching. He was dressed in a suit, his gray hair combed neatly, his presence commanding but calm. His eyes studied Marcus with the familiarity of a mentor.
"Well, Detective," the old man said, his lips tugging at a faint smile, "what do you think?"
Marcus exhaled through his nose, almost amused but not quite. His gaze flicked back to the victim before he answered.
"Well, sir," Marcus said dryly, "it just destroyed my morning."
The old man chuckled under his breath, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Do you think it's a psychopath?"
Marcus straightened and peeled his gloves tighter against his fingers. He stared at the mutilated corpse, the letters carved deep into the man's skin.
"Who else would be capable of this?"
"True." The old man's tone was thoughtful, almost grim. "But what do you make of it?"
Marcus stepped closer again, scanning every curve of the bloody message. "Psychopaths hide their victims. They kill in silence, cover their tracks, make ghosts out of flesh. But this…" He gestured toward the hanging body. "This isn't hidden. This is displayed. It's a show. Someone wanted this to be seen. To be remembered."
He paused, the letters catching his eyes once more.
"And those symbols it's not just art. It's communication. He wants us to read it."
The old man's expression darkened. He nodded slowly. "We're working on deciphering it. For now, it's nothing but gibberish."
Marcus smirked faintly, though there was no humor in it. "Then it's not just a murder. It's an invitation."
The old man placed a hand on his shoulder. His voice dropped to something heavier. "If this is the work of a psychopath, Marcus… this will be a hard case. Harder than anything we've seen."
Marcus didn't look at him. His eyes stayed locked on the victim's carved flesh, the strange letters screaming silently from the body.
And for the first time that day, Marcus felt something stir in him not fear, not disgust, but a quiet, gnawing curiosity.
As though the killer hadn't just left a body.
He had left a message.
And Marcus Dross had just become the audience.