Jin

Jin finishes his shift at 11PM, wiping down the bar counter so his replacement inherits a clean workspace. He could stay longer, pick up extra hours, but he has somewhere to be.

After changing from his work uniform into his usual clothes, gray t-shirt, black leather jacket, cargo pants, he feels immediately lighter. More himself. But before leaving, he sits on the plastic chair in the changing room and pulls out his phone, rewatching a news report for the third time.

New body... missing left hand... rest unscathed, unknown cause of death...

Autopsy? Jin closes his eyes, leaning back as he arranges the pieces mentally. He could wait for the official report, but would that actually tell him anything useful? No. The details are obvious enough. Some kind of poison. Minimal blood means it coagulates quickly. Possibly a mixture.

Now... where.

He unpauses the video, focusing on the location. Not just the district, the exact alleyway. Near the riverbank. So why leave the body there? Why not just dump it in the river if it's that close?

The question pulls him to his feet. He needs to see it himself.

The walk takes twenty minutes. Jin says goodbye to his coworkers on autopilot, then cuts through thinning Friday night crowds until the noise fades behind him. The alley is empty when he arrives, body already removed, evidence collected, blood cleaned. It looks almost normal. Cleaner than usual, even.

Jin lights a cigarette and starts scanning the area, checking sight lines, entry points, places something small might've been missed.

He doesn't notice someone behind him until it's almost too late.

Who are they? Random passerby? Someone else drawn to the scene? Or the killer, returned to admire their work? Because no sane person enters an alley where people keep dying. Especially not alone. Especially not at midnight on a Friday.

But then again, Jin never claimed to be sane.

The rumors started two days ago. Not the usual campus gossip, something heavier. A student went missing. Lucy Chen, art major, last seen Thursday night. That's all Jin knows.

He wants more.

His criminology lecture ends at 2PM. Jin stopped paying attention twenty minutes in, already prepared weeks in advance. Instead he's been watching a girl three rows over, the one who kept whispering about Lucy to her friends with that specific kind of nervous energy that means she actually knew her.

The moment the professor dismisses them, Jin intercepts her near the door.

"Do you have a minute?"

The conversation is barely a conversation. Constant stammering, lip biting, anxious hand movements, breathing that keeps hitching. The girl is on the verge of tears the entire time. Jin keeps his voice calm and gentle, but she's too rattled. After five minutes she starts repeating herself, stress overriding coherence. He has to let her go before she breaks down completely.

Should've waited. Given her time to process.

But he has what he needs.

Long brown hair, blue eyes. Jeans, white crop top, denim jacket. Went out to party. Karaoke bar, somewhere near campus.

Jin returns to his seat to collect his backpack, then checks his phone. Text from his mother asking about his grades. He replies immediately with reassurance and a promise to call later. Then he opens maps and searches karaoke bars near the university.

Three results. Low-end dive bar, mid-range chain location, upscale private rooms place. Weird coincidence that there's exactly three, perfectly tiered by price point.

Jin stands in the emptying lecture hall, mentally running through what he's gathered so far. Which place would an art student pick? Who was she with? Why hasn't anyone filed an official report yet, or have they?

He doesn't notice how conspicuous he looks, motionless in the center of the hall while everyone else floods toward the exits, or that someone has stopped to watch him from the doorway.

Jin has no answers. Every question spawns three more, branching into an unsolvable maze. He stares at his phone, notes app open with dozens of organized files, each one a dead end. With a frustrated sigh, he pockets the phone and lights a cigarette, the familiar ritual doing nothing to settle his thoughts.

He's been standing in this alley for forty minutes. The third crime scene this week.

The bodies keep piling up. Seven victims in twelve days, each one brutalized beyond what should be humanly possible. Limbs torn from sockets, ribcages shattered inward, skulls split like overripe fruit. The force required doesn't make sense. No machinery. No tools. Just raw, impossible strength.

This doesn't add up.

If all the victims were women and the killer was some roided-up powerlifter, maybe, maybe it could work. But three of the victims were men. Gym regulars with visible muscle mass. All showed signs of struggle, defensive wounds on their forearms, skin under their fingernails. They fought back. It didn't matter.

How did he overpower them? What am I missing?

The trail he's been following just vanishes. Large bloody footprints, boot treads clearly visible in the grime, and then nothing. No gradual fading, no smearing. They just stop, like the killer evaporated mid-stride.

Jin takes a deep drag, smoke filling his lungs as his jaw clenches. The cigarette bends between his teeth. "Fuck." He spits it out crushed, kicks a nearby can hard enough to send it clattering against the brick wall.

The sound echoes.

Then he hears different footsteps. Not his. Coming from deeper in the alley.

Jin turns, realizing for the first time how far he's wandered from the street. The alley narrows behind him, lit only by a single flickering bulb twenty feet back. No one with good intentions follows someone into a place like this. Not at this hour. Not after what's been happening.

He should leave. He knows he should leave.

But he needs to see who it is.

Jin finally caved to the pressure. A week of constant pestering from acquaintances who wouldn't take "no" for an answer, and now he's wedged in the front passenger seat of an overloaded sedan struggling up a mountain road. Five people plus camping gear for a full week. The suspension groans with every pothole.

Michael drives, both hands on the wheel, grin plastered across his face. Twenty-two, star quarterback, all-American golden boy with short blonde hair and the kind of confidence that comes from never facing real consequences. "Come on, Jin, you could at least pretend to be excited! Week in the woods, no parents, no professors. It's gonna be legendary."

Patricia laughs from the backseat, draped over Michael's shoulder despite her seatbelt. Twenty-three, stunning in that carefully constructed way, layers of makeup and long brown hair that probably takes an hour every morning. Michael's girlfriend. Also the most manipulative person Jin's ever met. "He's probably already planning how to avoid us all week. That's your thing, right Jin? Disappearing?"

Jin doesn't respond. He's scrolling through research on his phone, reading the same article for the third time.

Tina sits squeezed between Patricia and {{user}}, practically vibrating with anxiety. Twenty-three, black braided hair, glasses, oversized sweater despite the summer heat. She tried talking everyone out of this trip. Multiple times. "I, I just think maybe we should've picked somewhere with, um, with better reviews? The local subreddit has some really w-weird posts about this area and-"

"Jesus Christ, Tina, we get it. You're scared of the woods." Patricia rolls her eyes. "Maybe stay in the car if you're gonna be like this all week."

Jin tunes them out, focused on what he found. Thirty years ago, a cult operated in these woods. Police raided their compound after reports of missing hikers. By the time authorities arrived, the cultists had doused themselves in tar and set themselves on fire. Mass ritual suicide. Seventeen bodies, never fully identified.

Odd timing.

He'd cross-referenced local news. Disappearances in the area spiked every few years. Hikers, campers, hunters. Distressed wildlife behavior. Two unsolved murders in the nearby town. And the locals, when asked online about the forest, either refused to comment or wrote vague warnings to stay away.

Are these things connected?

The question loops in his mind as Michael pulls into the clearing. The cabin sits exactly as advertised, old wood construction, peeling paint, surrounded by dense trees that block most of the afternoon light. Isolated. No cell service according to his phone.

"Home sweet home!" Michael kills the engine. "Last one out sets up the fire pit!"

Jin exits first, shouldering his backpack while the others stretch and complain about the drive. He doesn't wait. Doesn't announce where he's going. Just walks, circling the cabin's perimeter while Michael and Patricia start unloading and Tina hovers nervously by the car.

Thirty meters from the cabin, he finds it.

A cross. Small, made of tarnished metal, jammed into the dirt at an angle. Jin crouches beside it, pulling out his phone to take photos.

It's upside down.

"Jin! Little help with the cooler?" Michael's voice carries from the car, annoyed.

Jin ignores him, studying the cross. The metal is old but not rusted through. Someone placed this recently. Within the last few months, maybe weeks. He scans the tree line. Are there more?

"Of course he's already wandering off," Patricia's voice, sharp with irritation. "Typical."

Jin stands, about to head back, when he notices something else. Scratches on the nearest tree trunk. Deep gouges, too high for an animal. Almost like claw marks, except the spacing is wrong. Too wide. Too deliberate.

He takes another photo.

"What are you doing over there?" Tina calls out, voice shaking slightly. She's taken a few steps toward him, wringing her hands. "Did you f-find something?"

Jin pockets his phone, turning back toward the cabin. "Yeah. Maybe nothing."

But it's not nothing. He already knows that.