The nurses said he was lucky to be alive.
The surgeons called it a miracle.
But as Caleb lay beneath the humming fluorescent lights of Room 214 for another seven days, feeding tubes replaced by flavorless broth and plastic utensils, he couldn't remember what it felt like to want to live.
He healed.
In silence.
He said almost nothing.
The only sounds in his world were the distant screech of wheel locks on polished linoleum floors, the drip of his IV bag, and the flutter of black feathers scratching against his dreams.
Each night brought more visions.
More people he didn't know. More horrors he couldn't stop.
A man shot while closing his shop.
A child struck crossing the street.
A woman—a woman in a long camel coat—slaughtered on her apartment steps.
Always, the same timeline
Always, exactly 24-hours between dream and nightmare.
When they discharged him, no one was waiting.
Not that he expected anyone.
He was given some clothes from the donation bin, his real clothes too blood-soaked to salvage. The city was colder than he remembered. The streets louder. More crowded. But it all felt distant—muted—like he was moving through a film with the sound turned off.
He rode the subway with dead eyes, his body upright but vacant.
When he stepped off at Coxwell Station, he walked aimlessly at first, hoping the rhythm of motion might distract the tremors in his gut. But it didn't.
Because she was going to die tonight.
He remembered every detail from his most recent dream, if it can be called that, more of a horrifying omen.
The cracked sidewalk. The red brick.
A dented recycling bin toppled over beside the steps.
The woman's-tired gait, the way she pulled out her keys without looking up.
The two men who came from the alley.
And the scream.
The sound of the way she screamed...
Caleb found the building before nightfall.
It was exactly as he'd seen. More than déjà vu—this was inevitability.
He crouched behind a fence across the street, shadows clinging to his hunched frame. His breath steamed in short, anxious bursts. He clutched a length of metal pipe beneath his coat, his palm blistered from gripping it too hard for too long.
Cars passed. A dog barked in the alley. A streetlight flickered, then died.
Then she came.
Same woman. Same coat. Same messenger bag.
Her pace was brisk, her head down. Probably exhausted from work. Probably thinking about dinner. She didn't see the danger coiling in the shadows ahead.
Caleb's heart thundered. His mouth tasted of stale, dry air, he started moving the moment she stepped off the curb.
Two figures slipped from the alley like smoke.
One held a knife.
The other hung back, blocking escape.
Caleb shouted—hoarse, cracked, desperate.
"HEY!"
The woman turned, startled.
The man lunged.
The man was too fast.
The blade buried deep into her stomach before she even screamed.
Once—twice—twisted.
She hit the steps hard, gasping like the wind had been stolen from her lungs.
Caleb tackled the attacker mid-stride.
They tumbled into the dirt.
Caleb brought the pipe down—hard—onto the man's shoulder, again and again.
The man shrieked and scrambled away, bleeding, fleeing into the night.
Caleb had no choice but to let him go.
He dropped beside the woman, scooping her up in shaking arms.
"Stay with me. Just breathe. I've got you—I've got you now..."
Her mouth opened. No sound came.
Blood poured from her side, soaking into his hoodie.
Then he saw it—a second wound. A stab into her liver. Deep. Clean.
The second man. Silent. Efficient. Gone.
She blinked once, staring into Calebs eyes, unable to make a sound, her own eyes pleading for help, pleading for Caleb to save her.
Then nothing.
Caleb froze.
The light in her eyes faded. Her limbs sagged like marionette strings cut loose.
Gone.
Just like Issac, just like his family, and every soul he is forced to watch perish night after night.
He sat there for what felt like hours, rocking her gently, hands sticky with blood that wouldn't stop coming.
Then he heard it—soft, rhythmic, familiar.
Wings.
He looked up.
The Raven perched on the fire escape just above him, body cloaked in shadow, spiral glowing faintly.
Its eyes met his.
And Caleb broke.
He stood slowly, trembling, eyes wet and bloodshot.
"What's the point?" he whispered. "Why show me if I can't stop it?"
The Raven didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Just watched.
Sirens rose in the distance, crawling toward the scene.
Caleb didn't run. Didn't hide.
He just turned and walked away, his steps slow, his breath visible in the cold.
He left the blood behind—but carried the weight with him.
Next time.... I'll save them.... I'll save them all...
Caleb hobbled home, injuries still screaming and writhing in pain from healing,
Nine days out of the hospital and Caleb still bled if he moved too fast. A knife wound doesn't stop hurting just because the stitches come out. The scar tissue pulls, tight and angry. It reminds you what happened. What you lost. What you're capable of.
He lived in a humble home just east of Greenwood. The kind of place that smelled like mildew, rotting baseboards, and lonely people.
Tonight, it was silent.
No TV. No music. Just the soft click of a radiator warming dead air.
He stood in the kitchen in a threadbare hoodie, cleaning the blood off his jacket. The jacket from the alley. The woman's blood had dried a deep brown. It flaked like rust.
He scrubbed harder.
He was in the middle of rinsing his rag when the window exploded.
The sound wasn't a pop or crash. It was a violent rip—glass tearing apart under force. A boot followed. A heavy one. It scraped over the broken sill and thudded onto the kitchen floor.
Caleb spun. His instincts fired a second too late.
A man climbed through the window. Heavily built. Breathing loud. His face was torn and swollen, the side caved in like rotted fruit. His cheek was stitched with dried blood, skin stretched around it like pulled leather.
Caleb recognized him.
The pipe.
The alley.
"You think you can just walk away?" the man growled, his voice thick with fluid. "You think you can leave me like this?"
He raised a knife. Not a switchblade. A kitchen knife—long, serrated, stained.
He lunged.
Caleb barely dodged the first slash. The knife tore across the wall behind him, peeling wallpaper and splinters. He grabbed the only thing within reach—a metal frying pan—and swung.
It hit the man's temple with a sharp crack. He stumbled but didn't fall. Just snarled, wiped his mouth, and came again.
Caleb wasn't fast enough. The knife caught him across the ribs. A shallow but jagged slice. Heat and cold rushed into the wound like a switch had been flipped.
They crashed into the kitchen table. Wood snapped under them. Caleb hit the floor hard, and the air left his lungs in a grunt.
The man was on top of him in seconds, pinning him down. The knife drove toward his chest.
Caleb grabbed the man's wrist with both hands. They shook against each other, the blade inching closer.
"Should've finished me," the man spat, blood dripping from his lips. "Now I get to carve your fuckin' eyes out."
Caleb's vision tunneled. His arms burned. The knife came closer. He let go with one hand, reached for anything—and found it.
A splintered table leg.
He brought it up and jammed it under the man's chin, shoving with everything he had.
The man choked. Gagged. Dropped the knife. He rolled off, coughing blood, trying to speak—but couldn't.
Caleb got to his knees. The broken table leg still in his hand.
He didn't think.
He just drove it into the man's throat.
The wood punched through flesh and cartilage with a dull, cracking noise. The man's body jerked once, twice, then stopped.
Blood pooled under his head.
It smelled like metal, bile, and something worse—something final.
Caleb backed up until his spine hit the fridge.
He sat down hard, legs shaking, vision blurring.
His hands were slick.
His chest heaved, mouth hanging open. No words came.
He stared at the body.
He didn't feel victorious. He didn't feel anything at all—just a slow, sinking realization.
He'd killed someone.
And this time, it wasn't revenge. It wasn't justice.
It was just survival.
He sat in silence for what felt like hours.
Eventually, from the shattered kitchen window, there came a soft rustle of wings.
The Raven landed on the fire escape.
It looked at him.
It didn't move. Didn't blink. Just stared with those empty, watching eyes. The spiral on its shoulder glowed faintly, like a scar made of light.
Caleb looked back.
"Why are you following me?" he whispered.
The Raven said nothing.
It tilted its head.
And then it flew away.
Caleb finally looked back at the man, the body had stopped twitching ten minutes ago.
Caleb hadn't moved.
He sat there, shirt torn and soaked with blood, arms heavy with dried sweat and marrow. The only sound in the room was the faint ticking of the wall clock, each second a hammer-blow against his skull.
His ribs ached. His side throbbed. The knife wound oozed through the towel he'd pressed into it. But he didn't look at that.
He looked at the man lying dead in his kitchen.
The eyes were still open.
Caleb stared back.
Then, slowly, he started to talk.
"One. Then two. Now this."
His voice cracked, dry from exertion and too much silence.
"I didn't want this."
He leaned back, fingers trembling, jaw clenched.
"I just wanted to stop it. To stop them. That's all. Just… keep someone else from feeling what I felt."
He blinked. His eyes were rimmed red. Swollen. Dry.
The tears hadn't come in days.
"But it's not enough."
He stood now, swaying. Looking down at the blood-slick floor, at the trail of violence behind him. At his cracked knuckles. At the chair leg stained dark with death.
"Stopping them?"
A scoff.
"What does that even mean? Stop them for a day? A week? What happens when they get back up? When they come again with more knives and more names and more mothers and sons to bury?"
He picked up the knife. The one the man brought.
He held it in his hand like it belonged there.
"It's not enough to stop them."
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"I have to erase them."
He walked to the bathroom.
His face in the mirror didn't look human. Blood crusted at the corners of his mouth. His eyes were sunken, cheeks hollow, skin yellowed and sick.
But he didn't look away.
He held the blade in front of him. Pressed it lightly to his palm. Not deep. Just enough to feel it.
The Raven flew into the bathroom and perched onto the shower rod.
The bird blinked. Still. Silent.
"You've been showing me what's coming… so I can try to stop it."
He stepped forward.
"But stopping them doesn't change anything. They'll always crawl back, unless someone puts them down."
He lowered his voice.
"You're not warning me."
He looked the Raven dead in the eye.
"You're guiding me."
And with that, Caleb sat down next to the body,
"I've spent enough time running from it. Pretending like I'm still the man I used to be. But he died in that car, didn't he?"
His voice was calm now. Focused. Cold.
"He bled out with his family. All that's left is… me. And I don't save people anymore."
He turned from the mirror.
"I end monsters."
End of chapter 3.