The rain hadn't stopped in three days. It hissed against the windows of the black sedan parked outside the decrepit hotel like static from a dying television, relentless and cold. Inside the car, Orphne sat unmoving, gloved hands resting lightly on the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the entrance to the building. His breath fogged the windshield in small, controlled exhales. The air reeked faintly of gun oil and silence.
He hadn't blinked in six minutes.
Room 302. That was the mark's nest.
Venor Ross. Political rat, data thief, whistleblower — depending on who you asked. Orphne didn't ask. He wasn't paid to ask. He was paid to erase.
But this one felt different than all the other jobs. It wasn't the job, it was the feeling. Something curled in Orphne's gut the moment he read the file. A name scrawled in thin ink across a photo. An average-looking man with one of those faces that was hard to remember, mid-forties, thin face, eyes like he hadn't slept well in years. But something about the eye made Orphne feel some type of way.
He checked his watch. 2:47 a.m.
Time to work.
The hotel's hallway smelled like mold and old paint. The wallpaper was peeled in strips, like something inside the walls had been trying to claw its way out. Silas moved like a shadow — silent, methodical, no wasted motion. Every step was calculated, soft-soled boots muffling the creaks of warped floorboards.
Floor four was dead quiet.
Too quiet.
Room 302 waited at the end of the hall, door slightly ajar. That was the first mistake. The second was the faint red glow leaking from the inside, like the pulsing of a wound that wouldn't close.
Orphne froze. Instinct snarled at him from the back of his brain.
Don't move.
But he moved anyway.
He pushed the door open with the barrel of his pistol, slow and deliberate. The hinges let out a breathy whine and the door creaked inward.
The room was dark. Red light spilled from a desk lamp with no shade, bathing everything in the color of meat. The walls were covered in black-and-white photographs. Dozens. Hundreds. All pinned with rusted tacks. All of him.
There were photos of Orphne eating, sleeping and standing over bodies.
There were even shots from his childhood, ones he didn't even know existed. Him and Sarah. The last photo of her before—
He blinked.
No one was in the room.
No Venor Ross.
Just his history, dissected and pinned like butterflies on corkboard.
Orphne stepped inside, the pistol rising in his hand.
The door slammed shut behind him.
He spun, fast, but there was nothing there. Just the red lamp flickering, buzzing like a dying fly. His heart rate hadn't spiked, but his mind was racing. This wasn't a mark.
This was a message.
And then the voice came.
From inside the room, it was low and smooth but with no body to attach to it.
"You're later than I expected," it said. "But I suppose ghosts don't keep good time."
Orphne turned again, eyes sweeping every corner. His finger hovered over the trigger.
"Ross," he said.
"I had a dream about you, ," the voice continued. "You were buried alive. Screaming. Not from pain — from knowing. Knowing what you are. Knowing that no one will mourn you when you vanish."
Something moved in the shadows — just out of reach. A flicker. A shape.
Orphne fired once. The sound was deafening in the tiny room. Drywall shattered, dust flew everywhere but nothing else.
"I know about Sarah," the voice said, closer now. Whispering. "I know who really took her."
He fired again. Another miss.
The photographs on the wall rippled, as if breathing. Orphne stared. In one of them, his own eyes had turned to black ink. In another, Sarah's smile had been scratched out.
"You should've stayed in the dark," the voice hissed.
Then—
The red light suddenly gave way drowning the room in total darkness.
Orphne didn't move, he didn't breathe. Only the faint sound of the rain hitting the window of the room broke the silence.
When the emergency hallway lights kicked back on, Room 302 was empty.
No photos.
No voice.
No Ross.
Only a single envelope lying in the center of the room, stark white against the dust.
Orphne picked it up, hands steady. Inside was a flash drive. Unmarked and cold to the touch. There was also a note, written in sharp, neat handwriting.
"Let's see who you really are."
Orphne walked out without another glance, his heart hammering inside his ribcage. The hit had become a hunt. But he wasn't sure if he was the hunter anymore — or the prey.
Either way blood would follow.
As it always did.