Face in the Shadows

"Face in the Shadows"

The rain trickled down the glass window like time bleeding into silence. Inside a dimly lit room, criminal profiler Dr. Ryan Thomas sat still, staring at the fourth murder in as many weeks.

Another police officer.

Same method.

Eyes gouged out. Hands tied. A zipped mouth.

The killer wasn’t just a murderer — he was a messenger. Every kill was a coded symbol, every corpse a protest. The police force was unraveling, and so was the city’s illusion of order.

Ryan was a clinical psychologist, trained in criminal profiling and behavioral analysis. He had solved some of the most twisted cases. But this one… this one stared back.

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The Pattern

Each victim was a police officer from a different department. No direct link, no shared precinct. But Ryan discovered one chilling connection: all of them had been involved in the "Vikrant Case" — a case buried under official silence.

Vikrant, a mentally unstable suspect, was accused of abducting and killing children. But before a trial could begin, he was killed in a staged police encounter. No proof, no trial — just death.

Now, someone was digging up the past — with a scalpel.

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Fifth Victim

This time, it wasn’t an officer. It was a child.

The eight-year-old daughter of one of the officers, abducted on her way to school, found hanging from a swing — dressed as a doll.

A note pinned to her chest:

> "You buried innocence… now innocence will smile as it dies."

Ryan felt the chill settle into his bones. The killer wasn’t just retaliating. He was executing justice — on his own terms.

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The Signature

Every crime scene had one consistent detail: a chalk symbol on the wall, scrawled in a childlike hand — one word:

> "Azad" (meaning “Free”)

Was the killer freeing himself? Or others? Or maybe just his memories?

Ryan dug deeper and found a ghost — Arvind, a hospital nurse who had signed off Vikrant’s death record. He vanished shortly after. No trace, no report.

But Ryan remembered something… at one of the crime scenes, he’d spoken to a janitor — tall, quiet, forgettable. The man had smelled of antiseptic and rust.

It was Arvind.

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The Final Run

Ryan followed the trail to an abandoned orphanage. Inside, the air was heavy — with dust, with memory, with screams that never got out. On the walls were photographs of children — all with red crosses on their faces.

In the basement, Ryan found a mirror. Scribbled across its surface:

> "Your turn, Doctor."

The door slammed shut. Lights flickered and died. A voice echoed, soft, taunting:

> "You think reading minds makes you powerful? I don't hide in minds, doctor. I hide in shadows... in reflections you ignore."

Ryan spun, panic rising.

On the walls now were pictures of every victim — and in the center, a new photo: Ryan himself.

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The Twist

The killer’s final plan wasn’t to kill Ryan — it was to break him. To make him doubt everything. Was Ryan a profiler… or a participant?

When the police found him unconscious in the basement, he was clutching a child’s drawing.

No sign of Arvind.

No body. No prints.

Only one sentence written on the mirror:

> “You didn’t see me… because you are me.”

Ryan now sits in a psychiatric ward. He confesses to the murders. But not as himself. As someone else.

> “I’m not the killer,” he whispers, eyes wide,

“I’m just the face… that lives in the mirror when the lights go out.”