Chapter One - The Marked One
Chapter One - The Marked One
The desert night was silent except for the hum of power lines stretching over the forgotten edge of the city. A red moon hung low, bleeding across the rooftops. Somewhere between the shadows and the streetlights, he moved - calm, deliberate, carrying the weight of a prophecy he never asked for.
He remembered the voice from his childhood, the one that carved itself into his bones:
"You are marked. You will never be free."
Every step he took now was a sermon to that memory. He didn't kill for pleasure. He killed to prove the voice right - or maybe to silence it. Each victim was a reflection, a mirror of the curse he carried. And when the ritual was done, he left his mark - 666, etched not as a number, but as a declaration: I am not alone in this damnation.
Detective Mara Vance stood over the first body, the hum of fluorescent lights flickering above her. The mark glistened faintly under the blood. She whispered to herself, "He's not just killing. He's preaching."
Outside, the wind carried the sound of a tattoo gun - faint, rhythmic, like a heartbeat echoing through the alleys.
The Marked One had begun his sermon.
