The city never truly slept. Its neon veins pulsed late into the night, lights flickering in rhythm with the rain that slicked the pavements. Somewhere, horns blared; somewhere else, laughter rose and fell like smoke. But in the crime scene taped off on Harrow Street, only silence remained.
Detective Aria Veyne stood just inside the doorway of the apartment. The smell struck her first....copper, bile, and something sour, almost chemical. Her boots sank slightly into the soaked carpet, dark with blood that had dried to a sticky sheen.
The victim lay in the center of the room, arms outstretched as though crucified, but ropes tied to the radiator and table legs made the intent clear: he had been bound, displayed like prey. His chest cavity had been opened with a precision no frenzied killer would bother with. Where organs should have rested, there was only emptiness.
Aria's eyes tracked the trail. The missing pieces were not gone....they had been arranged.
On the dining table, intestines were coiled into spirals, the shape eerily similar to roses. The liver and kidneys had been placed opposite each other, like a pair of lovers in repose. The heart was nailed to the wall, pinned beneath words written in blood:
"Blood remembers. Tears forget."
Her partner, Detective Marcus Deylan, swallowed hard beside her. "Jesus Christ… He....he nailed the heart to the wall."
Aria said nothing. Her gaze caught something else. The victim's mouth had been crudely sewn shut with black thread, but his cheeks were streaked with dried tears, trails of salt on dead flesh. His eyelids had been cut away, forcing the eyes to stare forever at the macabre display.
"Detective," Officer Halloway muttered, pale and shaken, "there's… more."
He gestured toward the kitchenette. Aria stepped carefully through the blood, her stomach bracing for what she'd find. On a chipped dinner plate, set neatly on the counter like a meal, lay the victim's tongue. A fork and knife rested on either side, as if awaiting a diner who had simply not yet sat down.
Marcus swore again, turning away. "This isn't just murder. It's a goddamn performance."
Aria forced herself to keep looking. She couldn't afford disgust. The killer wasn't sloppy....this was calculated cruelty, a ritual designed to shock, to humiliate, to mean something.
"He's not killing them to hide what they are," she whispered, almost to herself. "He's killing them to show us."
The rain rattled harder against the windows, as though the city itself shuddered. Aria felt a cold realization settle deep in her chest. This wasn't just the work of a sadist.
This was someone writing a message.
And every line of his poem was written in blood and tear.