Chapter 13: The Echo of the Butcher’s Heart

Four Days Before the Massacre

The waves didn't sound like music today; they sounded like a warning. On a desolate stretch of beach, far from the prying eyes of the city, two sets of footprints marked the sand. One delicate, one heavy.

Karthi stood over Priya, his face twisted into a mask of possessive rage. He pointed a trembling finger at her.

"I let you go shopping with your friends, didn't I?" his voice was a low snarl. "I waited for you. You never showed. You chose them over me again. From now on, that's over. No more friends. No more family. If you want to speak, you speak to me. If you want to breathe, you ask me first. I am your world now, Priya. Do you understand?"

Priya felt the air leave her lungs. The space around her felt like it was shrinking, the horizon closing in. "I... I can't breathe, Karthi. Give me space."

She tried to turn away, but he snatched her wrist, his fingers digging into her skin like iron talons. "What did you call me? Call me with love, you bitch!"

"Karthi... Bujji... please, you’re hurting me!"

"Hurting you?" Karthi laughed, a jagged, ugly sound. "You hurt me every time you smile at someone else! You only learn when I use my hands, don't you?"

Slap.

The force of the blow sent Priya spiraling into the sand. As she looked up at him, the terror in her eyes began to shift. A strange, cold sensation washed over her. It was a feeling she had felt before—months ago, in the rain.

The Ghost in the Machine

Priya remembered the night of the accident. She remembered the "wank" of the baseball bat hitting her skull. She remembered the Jeep tumbling into the ravine.

But mostly, she remembered the end.

In the wreckage of the Jeep, pinned beneath the dashboard, Priya had looked into the eyes of her kidnapper—the original Killer. He was dying, his blood dripping from his brow directly into her open eyes. It was a baptism of gore.

As his life ebbed away, something had passed between them. A spark of pure, unadulterated malice. In that final moment, as their blood mingled, the Killer’s fractured, evil consciousness hadn't vanished. It had found a new vessel.

When Priya "woke up" in the hospital, her family saw their daughter. But deep inside her brain, a dormant nerve had been rewired. The Killer’s shadow was sleeping in her mind, waiting for a trigger.

Back on the beach, four days before the massacre, Karthi’s second slap was that trigger.