Nolan continued his walk, the cool night air biting at the exposed skin around his mask, but the cold outside was nothing compared to the icy realization settling in his core. The hum of the curse, once a low thrum of satisfaction, now felt like a predatory purr, a silent, mocking witness to his unraveling.
He had just left behind eighteen broken men, their screams still echoing in the chambers of his mind. He replayed the blur of motion, the sickening snaps of bone, the helpless cries. He hadn't known if they were complicit, if they were good men simply doing a job, or if they were truly deserving of such agony. He had simply acted, driven by a raw, unthinking impulse that had nothing to do with justice and everything to do with the curse's growing hunger. And the two who had fallen first, their lives brutally extinguished – those were his own, a chilling addition to the night's tally, born of a rage that transcended the curse's demands.
He knew what he was becoming. The terrifying visions in the shower, the desire to slaughter thousands, the indiscriminate brutality towards the bodyguards. He was no longer just the instrument of vengeance; he was a machine of violence, a predator on the loose, and the very lines he had drawn were blurring, bleeding into a horrifying abyss. He was losing control.
He walked deeper into the labyrinth of industrial alleys, his masked gaze sweeping the shadows, his mind desperately searching for a method, any method, to control these surging violent intentions, to claw back some semblance of his former self. He needed to find a way to contain the monster, to direct it only where true evil lay, not at every perceived slight or convenient target.
His focus, however, was violently wrenched back to the present. From a narrow, trash-strewn recess between two crumbling brick buildings, he heard the sharp, sickening thud of a kick. He turned.
Two young men, dressed in designer clothes, stood over a huddled, frail figure on the ground. It was an old man, thin and ragged, a dirty blanket clutched around him—clearly homeless. One of the young men held a phone, its screen glowing in the dim light, unmistakably livestreaming. The other, a sneering brute with cruel eyes, delivered another hard kick to the old man's ribs.
"Look at this pathetic old beggar!" the one kicking sneered, his voice loud and amplified by the phone's microphone. "Still alive? I thought I told you to get out of our spot! Talking shit about us, huh? I'll burn down that little cardboard house of yours, old man! You think you're tough?!" He punctuated his words with a contemptuous slap to the old man's face, the sound sharp and brutal in the night. The old man whimpered, trying to curl tighter, his only possession, a small, makeshift shelter barely large enough for one person, visible just behind him.
Nolan's blood went immediately cold, a familiar precursor to the surging rage that usually drove him forward. But this time, a new, desperate fight ignited within him, a desperate resistance against the tide of instinct. The humiliation of the old man, the casual cruelty of the young bullies, should have been the trigger, yet Nolan forced himself to remain still, hidden in the deeper shadows of the alley.
No. Not like before. The thought was a raw, defiant whisper in his mind, battling against the curse's low, insistent hum. He had just vowed to himself to control the monster, to prevent the indiscriminate violence that had marred his last actions. Breaking the legs of eighteen men who may or may not have been directly culpable, shattering lives out of a generalized rage – that was the line he was desperate not to cross again. He had just witnessed what he was becoming, a creature of pure, unthinking brutality.
He clenched his gloved fists, his knuckles white against the dark fabric. The visions of Lily, screaming, broken, flickered behind his eyes, a phantom pain that usually fueled his rage. But now, they mingled with the recent memory of his own uncontrolled savagery, twisting his gut with self-loathing. He was the problem now, too. He couldn't just lash out. He couldn't.
So he watched. He forced himself to watch, his masked gaze fixed on the scene. The bully with the phone chuckled, adjusting the camera angle, his face alight with the callous joy of their online performance. "Look at him, guys! Still crying like a baby! Should we give him another kick for the camera?"
The old man whimpered, a sound like a wounded animal, trying to shield his head with frail, trembling arms. He coughed, a thin, rattling sound. The other bully, emboldened by his friend's performance and the likely comments flashing on the livestream, took a slow, deliberate step back.
"Nah, I've got a better idea," he said, a malicious grin spreading across his face. He pulled a small, silver lighter from his pocket, flicking it open. The tiny flame danced, casting flickering orange light on his cruel features. His eyes, glinting with amusement, shifted from the old man to the flimsy, single-person shanty, a pitiful structure of cardboard and scavenged wood. "Let's see if this old piece of trash can find a new house tonight, huh?"
Nolan's breath hitched. The demand to burn down the old man's only refuge, coupled with the gleeful, performative sadism of the livestream, was a deliberate, calculated act of annihilation against someone utterly defenseless. It was the same cold, entitled evil he had just confronted, the same casual disregard for human suffering that had defined the parents and their son.
The fight within Nolan faltered. The curse surged, not just a hum, but a roar, echoing Lily's distant screams. The desire to control, to resist, was crumbling under the weight of righteous fury.
The flicker of the lighter, the sadistic glint in the bully's eyes as he threatened the old man's only refuge—that was the breaking point. The desperate fight within Nolan shattered. The roar of the curse became his own, and the visions of Lily's anguish were no longer just torment, but a furious, burning justification.
He moved with impossible speed, a blur of shadow that materialized between the two young men and their cowering victim. Neither of them registered his arrival until it was too late.
The bully holding the lighter, still grinning, suddenly found his arm twisted at an unnatural angle. Before he could scream, Nolan's gloved hand clamped around his head, fingers digging into his temple. With a savage, singular exertion of force, Nolan twisted. The sound was a wet, horrific crunch as the young man's neck snapped, his body collapsing instantly, a broken puppet. His useless lighter clattered to the ground, the tiny flame extinguishing.
The other bully, phone still broadcasting, froze mid-kick, his eyes widening in primal terror at the sudden, silent death of his friend. He tried to pivot, to run, to even scream, but Nolan was already there. A precise, brutal strike to the man's knee shattered it inwards, sending him tumbling. As he fell, Nolan's other hand gripped the phone, ripping it from his grasp and crushing it in his fist. Then, with the same merciless efficiency, Nolan twisted the man's head, severing it from his spine in a sickening, swift motion. The body hit the pavement with a dull thud, joining the crumpled form of his accomplice.
Two more lives extinguished.
Nolan stood over them, his mask unreadable, the only sound the ragged breathing of the terrified old man and the distant hum of the city. His bloodproof suit remained pristine, not a single speck of crimson marring its dark surface. The curse hummed, a deep, satisfied thrum, its demands met, its hunger sated for now. But the violence he had unleashed, the speed and brutality with which he had acted, left no doubt of the monster stirring within him.
Nolan stood for only a moment, the silence broken by the old man's gasping breaths. He didn't linger, didn't check on the victim. His purpose, now unrestrained, drove him forward. He left fast, a blur of dark motion disappearing from the alley, leaving the crumpled bodies of the bullies and the trembling old man behind. The curse, sated but still humming with a deep, content thrum, propelled him through the labyrinthine streets, his masked gaze already searching, instinctively seeking out the next transgression.
He moved through the urban decay, a silent predator in the shadows. The previous internal battle, the desperate attempt to resist the curse, had evaporated in the face of blatant evil. Now, there was a chilling clarity, an absence of hesitation. The lines had not just blurred; they had dissolved. He was no longer fighting the monster; he was becoming its perfect extension.
His preternatural senses, sharpened by the curse, immediately detected a disturbance from a nearby, dimly lit construction site. The screech of tortured metal, a muffled cry, and the guttural roar of a man's voice. Nolan didn't think; he simply flowed towards it.
He found him there: a burly, scarred man, his face contorted in a sneer, standing over a broken industrial crane arm. Chained to the massive metal arm, struggling hopelessly, was a lone, terrified dog, its eyes wide with fear as the man prepared to activate the crane. This man was a known animal trafficker, torturing creatures for gruesome, illegal fights, and the crane was his latest, most agonizing tool. The man cackled, reaching for the control panel, intending to hoist the dog high before letting it plummet.
Nolan's blood didn't run cold; it simply ignited with a pure, white-hot fury. There was no hesitation, no internal debate. This was an unpardonable act of cruelty. He was on the man in an instant, a dark, unstoppable force.
The man had barely touched the control panel when Nolan's gloved hand clamped around his chest. With a terrifying surge of strength, Nolan lifted him. Not just off the ground, but with impossible speed, he hurled the man into the night sky. The trafficker shot upwards like a stone from a slingshot, a rapidly diminishing silhouette against the dark, cloudy expanse. His cry was a thin, high-pitched shriek that was swallowed by the immense speed and rapidly increasing distance.
He went up, and up, a fleeting speck, until he became invisible. Then, a sickening, wet impact was heard, a sound that resonated from an impossible height, as the man reached the apex of his trajectory and began his plummet back down. But he didn't plummet far. The sheer force of Nolan's throw, combined with the sudden, violent deceleration at the peak, had brutally torn his body apart in the air. He was already dead, his existence obliterated by the sheer physics of Nolan's power, long before the mangled remains of his body would eventually splatter against the distant concrete.