Chapter Seven: When the Past Becomes a Playground
"The worst part of memories…
is that they do not ask permission before returning." — Edgar Wilmore
Eliza published her new article after hours of hesitation.
She did not name anyone.
She did not accuse anyone.
But she did something far more dangerous.
She wrote about the killer as a living idea,
a mind that chooses its victims according to a warped moral logic.
And a single line in the middle of the article was enough:
"The killer does not hide because he fears,
he hides because he waits for a reader who understands him."
When she finished publishing,
she felt something like the ground trembling beneath her.
I opened the cage…
of my own will.
In his room,
Edgar read the article slowly.
He did not get angry.
He did not feel threatened.
He felt… acknowledged.
"Finally," he whispered.
It was the first time he felt that someone had not reduced him to a single word (killer).
He sat at his desk,
took out an old notebook, edges frayed.
On its cover, written years ago:
"Things no one understood."
He opened it.
And memory returned.
He was eight when he understood that silence could be harsher than a beating.
The orphanage was not filled with obvious violence,
but with neglect.
Children disappeared.
Names erased.
And questions… went unanswered.
There was a room at the end of the hallway.
Always locked.
One day, a man in a black coat opened it.
He took out a child.
The child never returned.
When Edgar asked the matron,
she said coldly:
"Some children…
cannot be fixed."
That night, he wrote his first sentence on the wall with charcoal:
"And who decides?"
It was not a crime of the knife.
It was a crime of silence.
When he saw the same man assault another child,
Edgar did not scream.
He did not run.
He closed the door…
turned the key.
He sat behind it,
listened to the blows,
then to the silence.
When they opened the door in the morning,
they said the man "died suddenly."
But Edgar knew:
I decided…
who cannot be fixed.
The day after Eliza's article,
a crime occurred.
A perfect match to the pattern she had written in her analytical paragraph.
Location.
Timing.
Type of victim.
All of it…
as if she had given instructions.
Eliza stared at the news.
No…
I did not write this to guide him.
Then she realized the terrifying truth:
He had read me as a map.
This time, he did not send a private note.
He left a message at the crime scene.
A scrap of paper read:
"Beautiful analysis.
But you forgot the element of regret.
Correct it in your next article."
The note was published in the papers.
For the first time,
London knew there was a dialogue.
Eliza sat that night,
in front of her next article.
She knew:
If I write… he will kill.
If I stay silent… he will also kill.
But this time,
she wrote something different.
She did not analyze the crime.
She analyzed the child within the killer.
"Every serial killer…
was once a child left too long with unanswered questions."
She closed the computer, her hands trembling.
He will know I understand.
Edgar read the article.
He paused.
That paragraph was not a game.
It was a direct strike.
He felt something rare:
Anger…
not at Eliza,
but at himself.
He saw the child.
The stone staircase.
The locked room.
And suddenly realized:
She is not just playing…
she is digging.
Days passed.
No crime.
For the first time in years.
The city grew uneasy.
The police confused.
And Eliza… afraid.
Has it stopped?
Or is he changing the rhythm?
On the fifth night, an envelope arrived.
Inside was written:
"When you read the child…
you broke the rule.
The game is now different."
And below:
"I will let you choose…
but remember:
every choice… is a chapter."