The studio lights bore down with ruthless intensity, transforming the air itself into something thick and suffocating. Aubrey Wynter felt the heat seep through her foundation, through her carefully applied mask of professionalism, straight into the raw nerves beneath. She blinked once, twice, her eyelashes fluttering like trapped moths against the glare as the teleprompter scrolled forward with mechanical indifference.
"…in local markets today, the Board of Energy has—"
The words died in her throat.
It happened without warning, that terrible moment when her mind simply... disconnected. The teleprompter blurred into an incomprehensible smear of light and shadow, letters swimming like drowning things across the screen. Her heart kicked violently against her ribs, a wild drumbeat that seemed to echo through her entire body until all she could hear was the thunderous rush of blood pounding in her ears.
Then came the tremor.
Her hands, resting against the polished surface of the news desk, began to shake. Subtle at first, barely noticeable, but growing more pronounced with each passing second. Her jaw locked tight, teeth grinding together as she fought for control.
The script. She'd lost the script.
"…the Board of…" The word fractured as it left her lips, splintering into awkward syllables that hung in the air like broken glass. Somewhere in the shadowed crew pit beyond the lights, she heard it—a sharp intake of breath, quickly stifled but loud enough to pierce through her crumbling focus.
Panic crashed over her in waves.
Without permission, without mercy, the images came flooding back. Her mother's face materialized behind her eyes—not the warm, smiling woman from birthday dinners and Sunday mornings, but the grotesque reconstruction she'd been forced to witness. That grainy CCTV footage the killer had made her watch. Her mother's mouth sealed with thick tape, eyes wide and glassy with terror, the final moments of her life reduced to pixelated horror.
The studio disappeared. For one vertiginous moment, Aubrey was no longer sitting at the news desk but trapped inside that footage, drowning in the suffocating darkness of her mother's last breath, unable to look away, unable to—
*No. Not here. Not now.*
Her fingernails carved into the script beneath the desk, seeking purchase, seeking anything solid and real. The paper tore with a faint sound that somehow anchored her, pulling her back from the abyss.
"…has approved a tentative new deal," she continued, her voice breathless but steadying. The words on the prompter swam back into focus, one letter at a time. "Analysts say this could… this could stabilize winter pricing for consumers across the region."
Muscle memory carried her through the rest of the segment. Her professional smile materialized like magic, perfectly calibrated, teeth gleaming with practiced ease. But it was a hollow thing, empty as a porcelain doll's expression, reaching nowhere near her eyes.
Beneath the desk, hidden from the cameras, her legs trembled violently.
When the red light above Camera One finally dimmed, she felt her chest collapse inward, ribs pressing against lungs that suddenly couldn't draw enough air. The studio erupted into motion around her—crew members shuffling between sets, papers rustling, headsets crackling with technical chatter.
She'd survived another broadcast.
Barely.
But the whispers had already begun.
---
The hallway outside Studio Two stretched long and sterile, fluorescent lights humming overhead like angry insects. Aubrey moved quickly past the break room, past the vending machine where interns clustered for their caffeine fixes, her heels clicking sharply against the polished linoleum.
That's when she heard them.
"She's completely falling apart," one voice murmured, deliberately hushed but still audible. "Did you see her lose the script? Completely unprofessional."
"Can you really blame her, though?" another responded, dripping with false sympathy. "I mean, after everything. Her mother, murdered right in front of her like that. It's just awful."
The words wrapped around Aubrey's chest like razor wire, each syllable cutting deeper. She quickened her pace, but the voices pursued her like hunting dogs on a scent.
"She shouldn't even be on-air this soon. It's irresponsible."
"Management should've forced her to take leave. She's a liability now."
"God, can you imagine being the producer trying to work with her? She's probably one bad broadcast away from a complete breakdown on live television."
Then came the voice that shattered everything else—Janet's voice.
Unlike the others, Janet didn't bother whispering at all. Her words projected down the hallway with crystalline clarity, each syllable dipped in venom and wrapped in silk. "You know what I think? Maybe the killer just couldn't stand looking at her anymore. That fake smile. That robotic delivery. Maybe he saw right through that perfect little screen persona, smelled the plastic underneath, and decided to... snuff it out at the source."
Cruel laughter rippled through the group, sharp and hungry.
Aubrey stopped walking.
The words detonated inside her skull like grenades, sending shrapnel through every carefully constructed defense she'd built over the past weeks. Heat flooded her body, rising from her chest to her face until her vision swam with it. Her hands clenched into fists, nails digging crescents deep into her palms.
Slowly, deliberately, she turned around.
Janet leaned casually against the wall near the water cooler, arms folded across her chest, a vicious smirk playing at the corners of her perfectly painted lips. Her hair fell in salon-perfect waves, her cream blouse pressed and pristine. She looked like the picture of collected composure—except for her eyes, which glittered with calculated malice.
When Aubrey's voice emerged, it came low and trembling but absolutely fierce. "Say that again."
The laughter died instantly. Conversations evaporated. Heads turned. Interns shifted uncomfortably, sensing the dangerous electricity crackling in the air.
Janet's smirk only deepened, as though savoring the trap she'd so carefully baited. "I said," she repeated slowly, enunciating each word with deliberate cruelty, "maybe the killer was just tired of the act. Maybe the rest of us are getting tired of it too."
The world contracted to a single point.
Aubrey saw nothing but Janet's face—that smug, satisfied expression—and something inside her snapped like an overstretched wire. Her hand moved before conscious thought could intervene, fingers tangling in Janet's perfectly styled hair and yanking her forward with violent force born from weeks of compressed agony.
Janet shrieked, her manicured nails immediately clawing back, catching Aubrey's scalp and raking across skin.
Papers exploded into the air. Coffee cups toppled. Someone shouted for security, but nobody moved fast enough to intervene.
The two women grappled with animalistic fury, all pretense of professionalism abandoned. Aubrey's breath came in ragged gasps, a scream trapped behind her clenched teeth, months of grief and rage finally finding physical expression. Janet cursed viciously, her nails dragging across Aubrey's cheek and leaving raw, stinging tracks in their wake.
Then—
"ENOUGH!"
The word cracked through the chaos like a whip.
Clara.
The newsroom's director materialized in the hallway like an avenging angel, her iron-gray hair pulled back severely, her face carved from stone. At fifty-something, she commanded respect through sheer force of presence. Her hands, surprisingly strong, seized both women by their arms and wrenched them apart with practiced efficiency.
"You will NOT disgrace this newsroom with a street brawl," Clara declared, her voice cutting through the stunned silence like a blade. Her dark eyes flicked between them with withering intensity. "Janet. Walk. Now. And if I hear one more word about this incident, you'll be anchoring obituaries in the three a.m. graveyard slot until your retirement party."
Janet sputtered indignantly, but something in Clara's expression made her think better of protesting. She stormed off with her hair disheveled and her pride visibly bleeding, leaving only uncomfortable murmurs in her wake.
The gathered crowd scattered like smoke, returning to their stations with deliberate focus. Only Aubrey remained, chest heaving, hair tangled, eyes bright with tears that refused to fall.
Clara's expression softened fractionally—barely perceptible, but real. Still, her tone remained firm as steel. "You. My office. Now."
---
Clara's office occupied a corner of the building with windows overlooking the city's glittering skyline. The walls displayed decades of framed accolades—journalism awards, commendations, photographs with presidents and celebrities. The air carried the comforting scent of strong coffee mingling with old paper and printer toner.
Aubrey sat rigidly in the chair facing Clara's imposing desk, hands twisted together in her lap. Her scalp still burned where Janet's nails had torn, but the pain felt distant, insignificant compared to the inferno raging in her chest.
Clara said nothing at first. She simply studied Aubrey with those penetrating eyes, reading her like text on a page. Finally, she leaned forward, folding her weathered hands atop the polished wood.
"You're drowning," Clara said quietly.
Those two words pierced deeper than any reprimand possibly could. Aubrey flinched as though physically struck, her throat constricting.
"I—" she started, but her voice cracked treacherously. She swallowed hard, forcing steadiness into her tone. "I can handle it. I can do this job."
Clara's eyebrows lifted slightly, her expression mixing faint amusement with genuine pity. "No, you can't. And that's not a character flaw. It's simply the truth you're refusing to acknowledge."
Aubrey's eyes burned, tears threatening to breach her carefully maintained defenses. "This job is all I have left. Don't you understand? If I lose this—if I walk away—then what's left of me? What do I even become?"
"You," Clara said with unexpected gentleness but absolute firmness. "What's left is you. Not the anchor. Not the polished persona you present to that camera. Just you. Aubrey. The actual human being underneath all that performance."
The words hung heavy in the air between them, weighted with undeniable truth. Aubrey's fists clenched tighter in her lap.
Clara's voice softened further, taking on an almost maternal quality. "Aubrey, I've been in this business long enough to recognize genuine talent when it sits in front of me. You were born for that desk. For that camera. That's precisely why I fought for you when the network executives doubted you were ready. But right now, you're not the anchor I hired. You're a grieving daughter trying desperately to pretend she's fine when she's anything but."
The tears spilled before Aubrey could stop them, silent tracks carving down her carefully made-up cheeks.
Clara leaned back, sighing deeply. "Take time. Step away from all this. Heal properly. Get therapy. Talk to someone who actually knows how to help process trauma. Whatever it takes. The newsroom will still be here when you're genuinely ready to return. I promise you that."
Gratitude flooded through the cracks in Aubrey's grief, overwhelming in its intensity. Clara had always believed in her talent, had always defended her potential even when others whispered she was too young, too inexperienced, too fragile for the anchor desk.
She managed to whisper, "Thank you."
Clara's stern expression melted into something briefly maternal, fleeting but achingly real. "Go home, Aubrey. And don't come back to that studio until you can look into that camera lens without your hands shaking."
---
The crime scene exhaled an atmosphere of violated luxury.
Malhotra Horology had once represented the pinnacle of exclusive retail—gleaming glass cases displaying rare timepieces worth small fortunes, marble floors polished to mirror-brightness, soft lighting designed to make everything sparkle with desirability. Now that carefully constructed elegance lay shattered, violated by yellow police tape, evidence markers, and the harsh glare of crime scene photography equipment.
Detective Caleb Saye stood just inside the secured perimeter, hands buried deep in his coat pockets, jaw clenched tight. His eyes moved systematically across every detail, cataloging, processing, searching for the pattern he knew existed somewhere in this orchestrated horror.
Detective Nia Halloway approached from the evidence tables, her tablet glowing in her hands. "Victim's confirmed as Karan Mehra. Owner of the establishment." She swiped the screen, rotating it toward Caleb.
The photograph materialized with brutal clarity—Karan's body, mouth sealed with thick tape, eyes covered, hands positioned deliberately with nails driven through the palms, pinning them together in a grotesque mockery of prayer.
Caleb's stomach twisted. Another one. The same signature. The same message.
Forensic specialist Owen Kessler worked near the taped outline where the body had been discovered, his gloved hands moving with meticulous precision. Everything about Owen suggested careful control—the way he crouched, the angle of his shoulders, the sharp focus of his gaze.
"There's something here," Owen muttered, his voice carrying that particular tone of discovery. His gloved fingers brushed across the marble, then paused. Slowly, with theatrical deliberation, he lifted a displaced floor panel.
Collective gasps rippled through the gathered investigators.
Beneath the panel, the exposed surface had been transformed into a canvas of madness—graphite and what appeared to be blood combining to create the now-familiar symbol.
The triangle came first, its edges jagged and trembling, carved with desperate force into the stone. Three eyes stared outward from its corners, each rendered lidless and bleeding, weeping dark streaks down the geometric lines.
At the triangle's center, the spiral descended inward, twisting tighter and tighter into a suffocating void that seemed to pull the eye down with it.
Encasing everything, the six-fingered handprint spread wide across the surface, its palm smeared with frantic energy, as though pressed down with overwhelming desperation.
And below it all, scratched in smaller letters that nonetheless commanded attention, the riddle:
One head barks for justice, the other two feast on gold.
The master of this hound thinks his hands are clean.
But the third head, it bites the hand that feeds it.
You will find the truth where the beast's chain is anchored.
The detectives clustered closer, murmuring theories. Camera flashes strobed across the symbol, documenting every detail for analysis.
Nia frowned deeply, her brow furrowing with concentration. "What the hell does any of that even mean? Three heads? A beast's chain?"
Caleb said nothing. His face had gone pale, color draining from his features as though someone had opened a valve. His jaw locked tight, muscles jumping beneath the skin.
Owen glanced up from his position near the symbol, and something flickered across his expression—not quite a smile, but something sharper, more calculated. His eyes found Caleb's face, reading the detective's reaction with unnerving accuracy, and the look lingered just a fraction too long to be coincidental.
A hint. A foreshadowing. A test.
Caleb turned away abruptly, his breath coming shallow and controlled.
He lifted one hand to his chin, fingers pressing against the stubble there as his mind spiraled backward, pulled by the riddle's gravitational force into memories he'd tried desperately to keep buried.
The crime scene began to fade around him, sounds growing distant and muffled...
---
THEN
The dining room glowed with warmth, golden light spilling from the overhead fixture onto the table where Caleb sat with his family. His wife laughed at something their older son Marcus had said, her hand reaching across to ruffle their daughter Sophie's hair. Sophie—barely seven years old, all bright eyes and missing front teeth—giggled around a mouthful of mashed potatoes.
It should have been perfect. It was perfect, for exactly three more seconds.
Then came the knocking.
Not urgent, not aggressive—just three measured knocks against the front door.*
"I'll get it!" Sophie announced, already sliding from her chair with the boundless energy of childhood.
"Sophie, wait for—" Caleb started, but she was already running, her small feet padding across the hardwood floor.*
Marcus pushed back from the table, following his sister. "Hey, squirt, what do you think you're doing?" He caught up to her just as she reached the door, pulling it open to reveal...
Nothing. No one.
Just a cardboard box sitting on the front porch, plain and unmarked.
"What do you have here?" Marcus asked, leaning down to kiss the top of Sophie's head as she stared at the box curiously.
Then the smell hit them both.
*Foul. Overwhelming. The unmistakable stench of decay.*
*Marcus immediately covered his nose, his other hand reaching out to pull Sophie back. "Jesus, what is that?"*
*But Sophie, driven by childish curiosity despite the smell, leaned forward, one hand pinching her nose shut while the other reached for the box flaps. Her face scrunched up adorably, nose wrinkled, eyes squeezed nearly shut as she pried open the cardboard.*
Inside lay a dead bird—a crow, its black feathers matted and dull, eyes filmed over with death.
*Sophie's scream pierced the evening air.*
*Marcus immediately pulled her against his chest, his hand cradling the back of her head. "It's okay, it's okay, I've got you," he murmured, even as his own face went pale.*
*Caleb was already moving, crossing the distance in seconds. He knelt beside the box, peering inside with his detective's eyes, forcing himself past the visceral revulsion.*
*The bird was definitely dead—had been for at least a day based on the condition. But underneath it, partially hidden beneath the decomposing body, was something else.*
*A note.*
Caleb's hands shook slightly as he extracted it, careful not to contaminate potential evidence even in his own home. The paper was cheap, the kind you could buy at any store. But the message...
The message was written in something dark and rust-colored that could only be blood.
A single line, scratched in crude letters:
The beast's chain begins in the shepherd's house.
---
NOW
Caleb blinked, the memory dissolving like smoke as the crime scene reassembled itself around him. But something was wrong. The world felt... unstable.
For a split second—barely perceptible but absolutely real—the surrounding environment seemed to warp. The walls rippled like water disturbed by a stone, the floor beneath his feet pulsing with an energy that shouldn't exist. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered and stretched, their beams bending at impossible angles before snapping back into normal geometry.
Caleb's heart hammered against his ribs. He glanced quickly at Nia and Owen—neither seemed to have noticed anything unusual. They continued their discussions, oblivious to the momentary distortion of reality itself.
Then he saw it.
Emerging from his own body, barely visible against the harsh crime scene lighting, came a spectrum of energy—translucent worry given visual form. It manifested as rippling bands of deep indigo and sickly yellow, anxiety made tangible, streaming outward from his chest like spectral ribbons caught in an invisible wind.
The energy twisted through the air, seeking, searching, before suddenly shooting off in a direction Caleb couldn't identify, disappearing through the walls of the jewelry store as though they didn't exist.
Caleb's breath caught. He watched the last traces of the manifestation vanish, leaving behind only the faint after-image burned into his retinas.
What the hell was that?
His face must have betrayed something, because Nia immediately noticed. She stepped closer, concern etching lines around her eyes. "Caleb? You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
He turned to face her, and his expression was something she'd never quite seen before—a mixture of profound fear and complete confusion, vulnerability bleeding through his usually controlled features.
"I..." Caleb started, then stopped, unsure how to explain what he'd just experienced. How do you tell your partner that reality had briefly warped around you? That your own anxiety had become visible, tangible, and then departed like a living thing?
The riddle mocked him from the floor, its words echoing the message that had arrived at his home years ago. The chain. The beast. The truth anchored somewhere he should have found long ago.
Caleb's hand remained pressed against his chin, trembling slightly now, as the weight of silent chains he'd tried to ignore for so long finally made themselves impossible to deny.
The killer wasn't just hunting victims.
He was hunting Caleb.
And somehow, impossibly, the universe itself seemed to be taking notice.