Fear made flesh
“Punishment”
A naked man stood amidst the autumnal, pre-dawn forest, as if in a trance. At regular intervals, he scattered damp earth over his bare footprints, retreating… from the body. From the crucified, flayed, and blood-drained body, nailed to an inverted wooden cross. Around the corpse, organs extracted from it were laid out in a perfectly symmetrical circle. This was a ritual — one known only to him and, in his mind, entirely righteous.
He finally stepped onto fallen leaves that concealed his bare footprints, raised his head, and seemed to admire the ‘masterpiece’ he had created — an ideal performance comprehensible only to him. Slowly, the man turned and walked straight ahead, neither veering onto a trodden path nor glancing to either side. Straight ahead. He still needed to drop by work.
***
An older man entered — or rather, slid like a shark — into the meeting room, where his drowsy colleagues, groggy from the early wake-up, had been waiting for him for several minutes. In one hand, he carried a thin blue folder so insubstantial it seemed empty; in the other, a cup of strong coffee, his lifeline for staying alert.
His face and physique reflected the toll of chronic illness: a gaunt frame, dark purplish bags under his fatigued, sleep-deprived eyes, and sunken cheeks from stress and malnourishment. Completing his disheveled image were a rumpled, once-white shirt, now gray with age, a hastily knotted tie, and ill-fitting black trousers. Together, they defined Inspector Ashford, the chief investigator in the ‘Flayer’ case.
He stopped at the center of the room, placing the folder delicately on the table, then sipped his coffee. Behind him, a large wall clock displayed 4:15 AM.
Inspector Ashford scanned the faces in the room, lingering slightly on me — the new recruit in the ranks of law and order. From my very first day here, he’d disliked me. He spoke to me as if I were trash, judged everything I did with a look of disdain, and no matter how much I tried to connect with him, it was futile. Unlike my colleagues, I could never find common ground with him. He considered me unworthy of being here, among them.
Отредактировано: 21.01.2025
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