Page 12 of The Madness Within

Victor woke, choking on the smell of rot in the very room he killed his wife in.

His screams came shortly after.

The first thing he saw were the spikes, four rusted iron nails driven through his wrists and ankles into the steel table. Magic writhed beneath the surface, ancient and living, devouring him cell by cell.

“Dorian?” His voice cracked as he thrashed. “Wh—what is this? What the fuck is this?!”

I stepped from the shadows. My coat dragged behind me like a second skin, soaked in smoke and silence.

“This,” I said, “is the truth. Something the courts couldn’t stomach.”

His breathing quickened. “I—I thought you were on my side!”

“I was,” I crouched, trailing a finger along the edge of the blood-caked table. “Long enough to make sure you’d die my way.”

He struggled. The living iron chains tightened, teeth gnawing deeper, drinking his fear like wine.

“I paid you!”

“And now,” I said, straightening, “you’re paying again.”

Shadows unfurled from my hands like ink bleeding across water, only thicker, hungrier. They crawled up his legs, slit beneath skin like eager scalpels.

They whispered. In the language of monsters.

Victor whimpered. “W-what are they saying?”

“They’re asking your bones where your wife sleeps now,” I said softly. “They’re wondering what the screams sounded likeinside that suitcase.”

He screamed.

It was delicious.

The shadows peeled his skin like fruit, strip by strip, slow and patient. His body arched off the table, his mouth stretched wide, but the only sound was wet sobbing and chains groaning with joy.

I circled him, dragging a curved ceremonial blade across his chest.

“You know what the worst part was?” I whispered near his ear, my breath icy with hate. “She stilllovedyou.”

“I didn’t mean to—” he tried.

My hand plunged into his chest. Not physical, not at first.

Magic tore through flesh and memory. I pulled his sins to the surface. Made himfeelthem again.

The screams. The tape. The zipper closing. His wife’s lungs collapsing. His son’s shaking hands on the phone with 911.

“You’re going to die rememberingevery second, Victor.” I wrapped my fist around his heart. “Say her name.”

He sobbed. “Miranda... oh God, Miranda...”

“Too late.”

The room stilled. But not in peace. It was something colder. Something sacred.

Because justice didn’t ask for forgiveness.

It took.

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