Nolan stepped from the specialized shop, the cold precision of the surgical tools a grim weight in his pocket. The morning sun, now a brazen glare, spilled over the grimy industrial street, making the shadows writhe. His mind, a barren landscape of exhaustion and phantom screams, longed for the impossible silence of true rest, a brief reprieve before the dreadful, necessary acts he planned.
His gaze, however, snagged on a sudden, ugly cacophony. A young man, barely more than a boy, dressed in clothes that shrieked of unearned wealth, delivered a sharp, disdainful kick to a figure huddled on the cracked pavement. Two burly, indifferent men stood by, their gazes as vacant as stone.
"Justice! I want justice! You killed my daughter! This is unfair! You are a son of a millionaire, you bastard! Confess your crimes!" The old man's voice, raw and tearing, clawed at the humid air, choked by a grief that resonated with a distant, familiar ache in Nolan's own chest. He clutched a tattered photograph, his body frail beneath the teenager's casual brutality.
The young man's sneer, a twisted caricature of contempt, tightened. He swung his leg again, delivering another vicious kick. "Shut up, you fuckin' old shit! Bodyguards, knock him out!"
The words, stripped of any empathy, sliced through the low, constant hum of malice in Nolan's skull. Bastards. The thought was his own, yet it melded seamlessly with the curse's dormant hunger. The morning's blood price had been paid with the kidnappers, but the curse was a vast, watchful beast, always receptive to new opportunities, new transgressions. This was not a demand from the entity, but a grim alignment of purpose.
He moved toward a bystander, a man whose face was pale with shock and helplessness. "Can I use your phone?" Nolan's voice was a flat, toneless murmur.
Startled, the man fumbled, handing over the device without question. Nolan's eyes, devoid of mercy, remained fixed on the scene. He raised the phone, snapped a swift, silent image of the young man's contemptuous face, then navigated to an unsaved number, one etched into his very being, and sent the picture.
The phone vibrated, then rang. A voice, smooth and laced with an expensive amusement, purred, "Ohh, former champion, what's wrong? Did you run out of money from your career? No worries, I can give you a few millions!"
"No," Nolan cut through the pleasantry, his voice a low, raw rasp. "Check the image I sent you. Did he and his parents commit a lot of crimes?"
A rustle of papers, the rapid, distant click of a keyboard, then a sharp, almost choked intake of breath. "Oh, wait up."
Nolan stood. Motionless. Time stretched, filled with the old man's pained whimpers and the teenager's silent, sneering triumph. The curse, a quiet tremor moments before, surged, a tightening vise around his skull. Three lives today, a new whisper, cold and precise, resonated directly in his mind. The old man's tormented face flickered, transforming into Lily's, screaming, distorted in agony, a chilling hallucination conjured by the curse, before snapping back. Nolan's jaw muscles jumped, a testament to the agony of the vision.
"Yeah, Nolan," his friend's voice returned, stripped of all prior levity, replaced by a grim, measured tone. "That young boy caused the death of a young girl. He paid some kidnappers money and they raped her too, simply because she was annoying to him and—"
"More than enough," Nolan interrupted, his eyes, fixed on the arrogant teenager, hardened into shards of ice. "And his parents?"
"Absolutely. Of course. The father is a millionaire. He did some—"
"No need to say more. And I need a suit or whatever that is bloodproof and a mask." The curse hummed, a deep, satisfied thrum, the whisper of "Three lives today" echoing with a terrible, resonant finality. The phantom image of Lily, bloodied and broken, flashed again, igniting a cold, pure rage within Nolan.
"Woahh! Big guy, alright, fine, this is cool! It's gonna arrive in no time," the billionaire's voice returned, now tinged with a predatory excitement.
"By night?" Nolan's voice was a promise, a question, a terrible certainty.
"I'm a billionaire! Don't underestimate me, bro! It's gonna arrive soon."
Nolan ended the call. He returned the phone to the bewildered man with a terse nod, then turned. The surgical tools in his pocket now felt lighter, secondary to the weight of the grim resolve settling in his bones. Three lives. Tonight. The whisper resonated, confirming the path he had chosen, a path where his own twisted justice merged with the curse's insatiable hunger. The visions of Lily's anguish, a constant torment, now fueled his terrifying purpose. He vanished into the burgeoning morning, a hunter with a new target, and a horrifying delivery on the way.
Nolan walked the surgical instruments a cold, metallic promise against his thigh, a grim weight for the agony to come. The morning sun, now a brazen, indifferent eye, glared down on the grimy concrete, making the shadows writhe like unseen things. Home. He was going home, not for rest, but to prepare for the night's dark sacrament.
As he neared the small apartment building, a fragile thread of sound unspooled from an open window, weaving its way through the urban clamor. Marcus's voice, raw with forced cheerfulness and underlying fatigue, reached him first.
"Be ready for school, Lily, 9 am, alright?"
Then, Lily's voice, small and delicate, pierced him with the clarity of a child's innocent confusion. "Uncle... why... why Father keeps screaming and his clothes keeps changing? And some little blood or something?"
Marcus's laugh, a harsh, brittle sound, tried to smother her words. "Haha, blood is impossible, okay? Your father is a good man. About the screaming, we don't know yet, even the doctors were unsure. Well, I'll just call it seizures, but I know Nolan is tough, very tough, mentally."
Nolan froze on the steps, the cool concrete rough against his worn clothes. The curse, a cold, vigilant presence, settled in his mind, and Marcus's lie – the desperate, fragile shield for Lily – was a fresh twist of the knife in Nolan's already shattered self. He knew the screaming. He knew the blood. He knew the monstrous truth that was slowly, inevitably, seeping into Lily's innocent perception.
Marcus's voice continued, a new note of baffled exasperation threading through his worry. "Honestly, I don't understand why your father stopped eating, though. I can't even force him. He also stopped washing himself in our apartment, though. Was he washing himself outside?"
The words landed like physical blows. Nolan's shoulders slumped further, the weariness in his bones suddenly an unbearable weight. He hadn't eaten in days, the curse twisting his very core, rendering sustenance into ash. And washing... impossible. The wounds, raw and weeping beneath his scavenged clothes, a constellation of festering agony he could only ignore, would flare under water, leaving crimson trails, undeniable proof. He cleaned himself in the rain, in the shadowed puddles of forgotten alleys, anywhere he wouldn't leave a tell-tale stain on their meager life. He was a cancer treating a tumor, a desperate, self-consuming sacrifice, and the infection was no longer contained. They were seeing. They were watching the man unravel, even as he fought, with every fiber of his being, to hold the monstrous pieces together for their sake.
With a deep, weary sigh, Nolan retreated, melting back into the shadows of the alleyway across the street. He found a recessed doorway, deep enough to hide him from casual view, and settled in, his body pressed against the cold, damp concrete. He drew his knees to his chest, burying his face in his arms, waiting. The sounds of Lily's innocent questions, Marcus's forced reassurances, echoed in the hollow space behind his eyes. He remained there, motionless, a gaunt, ragged silhouette, until the muffled sound of a car door closing broke the silence.
A few minutes later, Marcus's familiar sedan, a perfectly ordinary vehicle, pulled away from the curb. Lily's small face, framed by the passenger window, was a fleeting, innocent blur. Nolan watched them go, the image of her laughter, untainted by the nightmare of his existence, searing itself into his memory. The car vanished around the corner, and Nolan was left alone again, the silence pressing in, broken only by the relentless hum of the curse, waiting with him for the fall of night.
Nolan moved then, not towards the apartment, but deeper into the labyrinth of the industrial district. He found a derelict, abandoned warehouse, its rusted facade offering both concealment and decay. He stepped inside, the air thick with dust and the scent of forgotten things. The surgical tools were carefully placed on a grimy workbench, out of sight for now. They were for another battle, a more personal one, after tonight's hunt was done.
He positioned himself near a broken window, the urban landscape sprawling beneath the midday sun. Time was a slow, agonizing crawl. He needed the darkness. He needed the suit. His attention was drawn by the faint whine of an approaching vehicle. A sleek, black sedan, far too luxurious for this forgotten corner of the city, glided to a silent halt outside the warehouse entrance. A figure emerged from the back seat, moving with an almost unnatural swiftness, carrying a large, nondescript bag. The man handed Nolan a phone.
"Yo, buddy, you know the location, yes it's in," the voice on the other end crackled, sharp and businesslike, "the west district, an old industrial park. Building 7. The main power grid runs below it, so no external power."
Nolan took the phone, his gaze already distant, his mind calculating. He ended the call and opened the bag. Inside, nestled in a bed of black velvet, was the suit. Sleek, black, and utterly functional, it seemed to absorb the light, a second skin of shadows. He recognized the subtle weave, the reinforced seams. Bloodproof. And the mask, a menacing, angular thing, seemed to promise anonymity and fear in equal measure.
The suit felt cool against his skin, a strange comfort in the oppressive heat of the warehouse. He moved with a new purpose, a silent, deadly grace. The curse hummed, a deep, satisfied thrum, anticipating the night. Three lives. Soon.
Nolan waited, the hours crawling by with agonizing slowness. The warehouse, once a sanctuary, became a cage, the setting sun painting the grimy walls in hues of blood orange and bruised purple. As darkness finally consumed the city, a new energy, cold and focused, surged through him. He left the surgical tools behind, a promise of later suffering, and moved with a silent, terrifying grace.
He found the industrial park in the west district, a sprawling labyrinth of decaying buildings and shadowed alleys. Building 7 loomed before him, a black monolith against the night sky. The air hung thick with the stench of decay and the faint, metallic tang of anticipation. The only sound was the low hum of the distant city, a muted heartbeat, oblivious to the predator that had entered its veins.
Nolan moved with impossible speed, a blur that would have been invisible to any security camera, a phantom weaving through the industrial park's skeletal remains. He scaled walls, traversed rooftops, his bloodproof suit a second skin of shadows, the menacing mask obscuring his face, transforming him into something less than human, more than death. The curse, now a low, insistent thrum, guided his movements, urging him closer to his targets. Three lives. Tonight.
Inside Building 7, the echoes of a distant party filtered through thin walls, a mockery of normal life. Nolan found him in a private section, a hastily converted lounge area, the young bastard sprawled on a plush couch, oblivious. He was laughing, a phone to his ear, his voice still laced with that same casual cruelty Nolan had heard that morning. The same contempt. The same entitlement.
Nolan moved like an apparition, the low hum of the curse rising to a hungry roar in his mind. The rich boy, startled, dropped his phone as Nolan materialized before him. His eyes, wide with sudden, animal fear, registered Nolan's masked face, the terrifying, silent presence. He tried to scramble backward, a pathetic whimper catching in his throat.
There was no wasted motion, no effort. Nolan's foot lashed out, not a kick, but a precise, controlled strike that snapped the young man's leg outwards at an impossible angle. A sickening crunch echoed in the confined space, followed by a raw, guttural shriek that was instantly cut short. Before the sound could fully escape his throat, Nolan's other foot slammed down, a mirror image of the first strike, twisting the boy's second leg with the same effortless, horrifying precision. Two more wet, tearing sounds. The young man collapsed, a mangled heap on the expensive rug, his cries reduced to desperate, bubbling gasps.
Nolan stood over him, a dark silhouette. The curse vibrated with a deep, consuming satisfaction. This was not a forced kill, but a chosen vengeance, delivered with the monstrous efficiency of his power. The boy, his face contorted in a mask of pure, abject terror and pain, tried to lift his head, his eyes pleading.
Nolan reached down, his gloved hand clamping around the young man's head. There was no hesitation, no flicker of doubt. With a terrifyingly casual exertion of force, Nolan twisted. The sound was wet, visceral, a sickening crack and a rapid squelch as the neck didn't just break, but rotated with impossible violence, tearing sinew and bone. The body went instantly limp, a broken doll. The eyes, wide and unseeing, stared blankly at the ceiling.
The curse surged, then settled, a low, satisfied hum in Nolan's skull. One down. Two to go. The air in the room, thick with the scent of fear and fresh blood, held a profound, expanding emptiness for Nolan, tainted only by the persistent, burning image of Lily's tormented face, still haunting his vision. Justice, perhaps. But at a price that bled his soul further.
Navigating the labyrinthine building with his impossible speed, Nolan located the master bedroom. The door was slightly ajar, a soft glow spilling into the dimly lit hallway. Inside, a couple lay entwined in each other's arms, naked and kissing, lost in their private world, utterly unaware of the silent death that was about to descend upon them.
Nolan did not hesitate. The curse pulsed, a cold, demanding hunger. He moved with a speed that defied human perception, a black lightning strike in the confined space. There was no sound, no warning. One moment the couple was locked in an embrace, the next, two swift, precise movements, too fast to track, too brutal to survive.
The man's head snapped back with a sickening crack, his body convulsing once before going still. The woman barely had time to register the shift in weight, the sudden absence of warmth, before Nolan's hand found her throat, the pressure instantaneous and absolute, crushing the life from her with clinical efficiency. Two more lives extinguished, as easily as snuffing out a candle.
The curse settled, a deep, sated sigh within Nolan's mind. Three lives taken. The demand fulfilled. He stood for a moment in the blood-tinged silence, the air heavy with the scent of death, the images of Lily's suffering still flickering behind his eyelids. The justice he sought, the curse he obeyed – they left him only with an echoing emptiness, a deeper stain on his already fractured soul.