This place, long known for smugglers, loan sharks, and leech-hearted lords, felt like a cage built from crumbling brick and the groans of the poor.

People moved quickly through the narrow streets, heads bowed. Their eyes were hollow, dulled by hunger and routine cruelty. Children played in silence—no laughter, only hollow gazes thrown toward food stalls that dangled goods like dreams forever out of reach.

At the far end of the alley, a man stood tall in a dark green velvet coat and a high hat. A wide, toothy smile stretched across his face, polished like his boots. Behind him, a large cart brimmed with sacks of rice, dried meat, sugar, and other necessities.

He barked with cheer:

“Come, come! Pure sugar from the Far East! Only four times the usual price—rare stock! First come, first served!”

But no one approached.

A young mother clutched her infant tighter and hurried away.

An old man stared, his face twisted with quiet rage—but he, too, kept walking.

No one dared to speak out.

Lord Braxton was untouchable—a wealthy noble who had bought out local supplies and resold them at suffocating prices. A man who profited from famine. Who fattened himself on suffering.

And from the shadows... someone was watching.

A tall figure stood beneath the awning of a decaying building. A wide-brimmed hat hid half his face, but the eyes glinted—sharp, unnatural. A smile curled beneath the darkness.

Jack.

He stepped forward slowly, boots clicking against the cracked pavement.

As he walked, he hummed gently:

“London Bridge is falling down… falling down… falling down…”

The sound slithered through the alley like a warning. A few who heard it froze, instinctively clutching the nearest wall, as though bracing for a storm.

Lord Braxton turned, sensing something.

His gaze locked with Jack’s.

And in that moment, his smirk collapsed.

Those eyes—Jack’s eyes—were not human. They were empty, hollow sockets filled with delightless hunger. Not rage. Not madness. Just purpose.

Braxton's face turned pale. He stumbled backward, knocking over one of his own rice sacks.

“Guards!” he shouted, voice cracking. “Help! Someone stop him! There’s a lunatic loose!”

But no one came.

No guards.

Not a soul stirred.

The people stood still, like statues holding their breath. Some watched from behind curtains. Some through cracked shutters. Not one lifted a hand to save the nobleman.

And Jack…

Jack didn’t rush.

He merely slipped a thin throwing knife from inside his coat—its surface glimmering faintly in the fog.

He spun once. Gracefully. Like tossing a rose on stage.

Thwack.

The blade sank deep into Braxton’s leg. Right through the soft meat behind the knee.

The nobleman screamed, crumpling to the ground. His fancy trousers darkened with blood as he tried to crawl, dragging himself across the mud-slick alley.

He collided with an elderly woman watering her flowers from a rusted tin hose.

CRASH.

The pot shattered. Soil spilled. The hose dropped to the ground, spraying water in a lazy arc.

Braxton, groaning, tried to crawl again. His hands slipped in mud and manure. He gasped, his mouth filling with dirt. His pride now caked in the same filth he once fed to others.

Jack arrived.

His steps were slow. Measured.

He stopped just in front of the wounded man and crouched.

For a moment, he simply stared.

Then, with the gentle touch of a lover, Jack brushed Braxton’s muddy hair from his face. He wiped a smear of soil from his cheek.

And whispered, with eerie tenderness:

“Are you thirsty, my lord?”

Braxton choked on his own saliva, trembling.

“I—I’ll pay! I can pay anything! You want gold? Influence? I have—”

Jack’s voice sliced through the plea like glass.

“Ah. So you are thirsty.”

He turned his gaze to the old woman who still stood frozen, the hose in her hand.

“Would you be a dear and increase the pressure?”

His tone was soft, polite—even sweet.

The woman didn’t move.

Jack tilted his head, smiling just a little.

“Let’s not keep him waiting.”

The woman flinched. With trembling fingers, she turned the nozzle. The spray strengthened.

Jack took the hose. Without warning, he shoved it into Braxton’s mouth.

The nobleman thrashed violently, but Jack pinned his head down with both hands.

Water surged down his throat.

Braxton gurgled, his eyes wide with primal fear. He tried to cough, but the water came too fast. Too hard. His stomach ballooned grotesquely as the liquid filled every corner of his insides.

He clawed at Jack’s coat, then his own throat, then the ground—anything to escape.

But Jack did not move.

He only watched.

Watched as Braxton’s eyes rolled back. As his face turned blue. As foam gathered at the edges of his mouth. As his bloated stomach began to tremble—

Then—

POP.

A wet, sickening rupture from within.

The nobleman's abdomen burst, spraying water, blood, and viscera across the alley in an arc of horror. Bits of liver, intestine, and bile splattered Jack’s boots.

Gasps and muffled cries rang out behind shuttered windows.

But Jack stood up slowly, soaked from knee to waist in warm death.

He removed the hose from Braxton’s mouth and let it fall to the ground, still hissing.

With a casual flick, he wiped his face with a silk cloth—one stolen from Braxton’s own cart. He looked up at the watching windows, and for a moment, offered a slight bow.

Like an actor acknowledging applause.

He turned to leave.

His steps were light, almost joyful. As if he had just finished dancing a waltz under the fog.

Children watched him from behind barrels.

Mothers clutched their children closer.

Old men muttered prayers beneath their breath.

And Jack, ever calm, began to hum again:

“London Bridge is falling down… falling down…”

No one joined.

No one dared.

Only Jack.

And his shadow.

Leaving behind the smell of death and the silence of a city too broken to scream.

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