The town’s clinic was working overtime tending to the wounded during this night of onslaught. Their wounds weren’t lethal, but they had received a serious beating that’d put them on leave for a little while. Whoever attacked them hit pretty hard.


    They also received some survivors of the massacres that spree killer was performing all around town through the Emergency Room. The nurses and surgeons did the best they could, but most of these people were already too far gone, fatally wounded, and so they could only ease their pain as they passed away.


    Some of the hospital’s staff felt overwhelmed by the cruelty that they were witnessing that night. They simply couldn’t believe there was someone out there so strong, so lethal and so depraved that they actually sought to kill as many people as possible in whatever way he could, a couple of them had the feeling that they were drafted into a movie and the entire script was based on improvisation, and if that was the case, they expected to receive a hefty payment for being put through all of this.


    One of the nurses, a woman named Lisa, walked out of the Emergency Room, her uniform covered in the blood of a man whose innards had been twisted and mangled somehow. She couldn’t believe what she had seen, and she preferred to pretend that it was all a nightmare and that none of this was happening, so when she finished her shift she would go back home, sleep and get up in the morning expecting to find the beds clean, the morgue empty and every single police officer with a broken bone out in the streets doing their patrols since, of course, all of that was a dream.


    She walked out to the streets and was suddenly snapped back to reality by the sound of a baby crying.


    Lisa looked down to the ground and saw a box right in front of her, inside was a newborn. Her instincts kicked in immediately and she took the baby out of the box and into her arms. There was a piece of paper on the baby’s chest with something written on it, it said: “Give this baby a life worth living.” Right under these words there was an address, and next to it there was written “Cult massacre” written in the most dispassionate way possible.


    Lisa had no doubts that whoever wrote this letter was that mass murderer that was ravaging their town. She felt happy to know that, at the very least, this killer drew the line at killing babies, she’d seen too many in true crime documentaries that weren’t so kind.


    She took the baby into the hospital and made sure he’d receive a good care, and of course, inform the policemen keeping watch over their wounded comrades about the massacre at the location specified in that address, maybe they could do something about it.


    Carl hadn’t moved from his position at the top of the tower overlooking the suburbs, and wouldn’t want to do it now that he had his target on his sight.


    He wouldn’t have made his career as a sniper if he didn’t have the patience to wait for his prey to make a single mistake and then take the killing shot, so he was willing to wait for her to come out or peek out a window.


    It wasn’t hard to notice Alicia down at the ground level, her scars glow in an intense red that gives up her position, he had never seen anything like it, but he wasn’t being paid to witness a paranormal phenomenon and call it a day, so he was getting ready to take the shot, but then she changed her course and broke into a house, seems it was premeditated, at least from the position he was in.


    From what he could appreciate while being there, there was a family of four in the house; a father, a mother and two children, both girls. The girls didn’t look quite alright, as if they’d prefer to be somewhere else than there. He figured that their parents were scum, probably prostituted them to some depraved fuckers around the block, he had done a job like that a couple of years back, blowing the brains out of a man that allowed his son to be raped in exchange for cash; he sniped him right in front of the courtroom the moment he was declared innocent, so he still felt quite alright with himself for having delivered justice, something he seldom got to do in this line of work.


    He knew that the people inside that house were like that, and maybe Butcher knew too, and that’s why she was there.


    Luis told him that Igor had been defeated by someone that they believed was one of her allies. Now, she had to be very big and strong to defeat Igor, or she had to be a freak just like Butcher; Personally, Carl was betting on the latter scenario.


    With a simple look he knew that whatever Butcher was, a human she was not. Suddenly he saw himself changing professions from an assassin to a monster hunter, but he didn’t oppose the idea at all.


    And to debut in the world of monster hunting, he’d kill Butcher at all cost, and if somehow she managed to resist a bullet to the chest or even her head, he’d do the only thing he knew: he’d keep shooting until the target stopped moving.


    He and Luis were the last ones left who could fight, and he’d damn his own guts if he wasn’t the one to take the kill.


    Meanwhile, inside the house, Butcher had already claimed a victim.


    Right after breaking into the house through the kitchen’s window, a man with a goatee walked in to search for something in the fridge.


    He smelled like a BBQ burger, so Alicia’s decision on what to do with him was already made. By the time he noticed her glowing red eyes in the dark it was already too late. The next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground with a crater in his chest.


    There were more people at the dinner table, they asked the man if he was ok. Alicia recognized them almost instantly because of their smell, they were the couple that was being all lovey-dovey at the shooting range.


    Right before stepping out of the shadows to make her acquaintance with them, Alicia was assaulted by a vision. She saw what this couple did for a living, together with the man she had just killed.


    In the basement of the house they had a collection of videos they had made filming men abusing children for over a decade all across America, and some of those videos were of themselves as they did similar stuff to their own children; One of them had already died because of this, the only boy that was born in the family, and only the two girls remained, but there was no way to know how much humanity was still left inside those girls’ hearts.


    Alicia would’ve been angry at this point, but she realized she wasn’t; yet another sign of the change she was experiencing by staying in this state. She had already prolonged it enough, this is the closest she was of losing her identity, the closest she ever was to oblivion. But even then, she didn’t care, she was starting to like this state and the power it offered her.


    She wanted to keep this up for at least half an hour, that’s all she needed to torment the monsters that inhabited that house.


    Alicia stepped out of the shadows and the woman drowned a scream in her throat. The man stared her down and looked in awe at her bloodstained self.


    “Who the fuck are you!?” – He said. – “What are you doing in our…!?”


    He fell mute as a vision passed through his mind, a vision of his own death as this strange girl tore up his chest and devoured his organs raw with big, strong bites.


    A cold sweat ran down his spine as he sat back down. He looked down to his feet to try and avert his gaze from the eminence that had just made her way into his sinful home.


    Alicia looked at the table, they were having some fried chicken that night. There were three dishes on the table, the one in the middle was for the corpse in the kitchen; in that condition, it was very unlikely he’d want to eat it now.


    In that order of ideas, she sat down and took raw bites from the portions of chicken on the plate, savoring its flavor, it was some of the best fried chicken she had ever eaten in her life, though in that state of euphoria she could say the same thing just about anything that was eatable.


    The parents looked at their host in silence, knowing unconsciously that if they made a single move, for any reason, they’d die on the spot.


    Alicia kept chewing and chewing until the piece of chicken in her hand was reduced to bare bone, then she dropped it back on the plate. She gasped surprised when she noticed that she still had two more pieces left.


    The chicken was tasty and all, but it did little to distract her from what was going through her mind at that moment.


    She sighed and rubbed her temple as frustration bubbled back up to the surface again.


    “You people are probably thinking…why is this happening? Did we mess up? Didn’t we cover our tracks well enough? Yeah, you did…you did perfectly even, I’m sure the cops don’t know you people exist…” – She said, her own essence and Crimson’s had already become one and the same. – “…You just had bad luck.”


    “We don’t know what you are talking about!” – Said the woman.


    “Relax, Karen.” – Said Alicia, shocking the woman. How did she know her name? – “You know exactly what I mean…” – She looked at the man. – “Clancy…are the girls asleep yet?”


    “How do you…?” – He asked, but a force pushed his words back down his throat.


    “I’ll assume they are.” – She pulled out a pistol, the two of them panicked in their seats, they didn’t dare move any further. – “You are shocked alright; I was surprised myself. I didn’t know anything about you two until I stepped into this house, it all suddenly came to me…before that…I could just smell you, and let me tell you, you people smell incredible.”


    “What the fuck are you saying!?” – Said the woman.


    “You’ll see what I mean soon.” – She raised up the gun. – “Now…keep eating.” – She aimed at Clancy. – “Come on, eat your dinner before it gets cold.”


    The couple hesitated at first, but then they felt as if a dozen hands were crawling up their legs, intending to pull them down to hell, that’s when they decided to obey and kept eating with trembling hands.


    “w-w-w-w-w-w-What the fuck are you…?” – Asked Clancy.


    “I wish I knew.”- Said Alicia. – “But it seems that my purpose is pretty clear.” – She looked down to the plate in front of her. – “Ever since I can remember, I’ve been doing the same thing, over and over again. After the first kill, it all became a matter of routine. Whether I like it or not, I can’t get enough of this, even when I think that I’ve had my fill, a moment of quietness is all that’s needed to make me put the boots back on, load up my guns and go out and kill the first piece of meat I stumble upon…and now it’s worst, I can literally smell you… For the longest time I wondered why I had such an abhorrent and strange itch, why do I have this…hunger, thirst; it’s both thirst and hunger. Now I’ve realized that it’s because of many things, but the most important of all, is that this is the way I nourish myself.”


    As she kept speaking, Alicia’s frustration kept rising. – “Ah, I wish things were different, I wish I was different… I wish I could just be someone that can go her merry way while ignoring the depravity of this world… but I can’t help myself, I can’t help being this way.” – Clancy and Helena watched as tears slid down her face. – “As long as monsters like you keep breathing…I’ll keep forcing myself to do all of this again…”


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Through Alicia’s mind rushed the images of some of her most brutal murders, like the time she grabbed a jihadist and pressed his eyes into his sockets with her thumbs, relishing in his anguished screams as Allah was powerless to stop her, or the time she gutted an imam and strangled him with his own intestines.


    She yearned to return to the desert to finish what she started. For some reason Crimson wished to end all life in the middle east, and now Alicia was willing to correspond to its wishes, even if that meant that she’d take the final step to lose herself and her identity while giving up control to a supernatural monster.


    “I can’t just leave this world behind…” – She said. – “I must see the end of this war. I must fulfill my promises.”


    She stood up and looked at Helena. – “Now that I think about it, there’s another reason why I do this.”


    “P-p-p-Please don’t hurt us! We’ll turn ourselves in to the police! We’ll pay for what we’ve done! But please, don’t kill us!”


    “Helena…” – Whispered Alicia after walking up to her and placing a hand over her shoulder. – “Even if you were sent to a max security prison, I’d still find my way inside, and do all of this all over again.”


    Alicia aimed at Clancy’s throat and pulled the trigger, then a 9mm bullet punched a hole into his throat.


    Clancy collapsed to the ground holding onto his neck, trying to keep all the blood inside in vain. Helena panicked and screamed, trying to get up from her seat and go and help the love of her life, but this monster in the room was keeping her there effortlessly by pressing on her shoulder.


    “Clancy! NO! Clancy! Let me go you fucking whore! He’s dying!”


    “Have you ever felt this before, Helena?” – Asked Alicia as both of them watched Clancy on the ground, dying slowly. – “This is a gut-wrenching feeling that’ll stay with you, believe me. The feeling you get when you watch a loved one die…I’m sure that even a parasite like you can feel it and understand its meaning.” – Alicia gritted her teeth and gripped at her shoulder harder, making her scream as she wailed because of the pain. – “Your daughters know this feeling all too well…I’m sure your dead son did too. This is the other reason why I do this, to teach everyone like you, and this entire world, what true pain is.”


    After a few seconds, Clancy finally drowned in his own blood, Helena cried harder, getting lost in desperation and grief. However, even if she was suffering a lot by then, Alicia wasn’t done just yet.


    She placed the pistol above her head. – “Do you want to go after him?”


    “Yes! Yes I do!” – Said Helena.


    “I’m glad to hear that.” – Alicia smiled right before splattering her blood all over the table.


    Finally, after what felt like an eternal night, there were no more scents in the air, and her belly felt full. Alicia finally felt satisfied after painting the town red with her relentless massacre.


    She finally allowed herself to feel the power cruising through every fiber of her being. It was imposing, intoxicating and massive, completely out of this world. She felt like she could stay in this state forever, but she knew this was a delusion, it was time to wake up.


    Alicia held onto a chair and focused. – “Let me go…” – She said out loud. – “The job is done…let me go, now…”


    Crimson refused to leave this state, it was very close to achieve what it sought to do, but Alicia kept pushing it back, forcing it to comply.


    “Let us go, you stupid bastard…” – She demanded. – “Let me go or I’ll exterminate you. I own this body; you won’t take it from me.”


    In that instant she was assaulted by the memories of everything she did that night, all the people she slashed and gunned down like dogs, the rivers of blood she had created, the destruction she left at her wake. She could see all of them, damned souls, reach from the depths of hell to drag her down with them, and even then, her predatorial nature still yearned for more.


    But that part of Alicia that was still human was simply tired and wanted to rest no matter what.


    She turned her left hand into a fist. – “Let me go!”


    Alicia punched her forehead. Her scars stopped glowing red, her eyes recovered their natural color, her muscles relaxed and adopted their normal volume. Slowly but surely, Alicia felt like herself again.


    The numbness settled over her shoulders; she had strained her body to its absolute limits. However, that mattered little, because she finally felt satisfied with her work. Alicia couldn’t believe there was so much rot to be found in that little town that seemed so peaceful on the surface.


    She took a moment to rest and sat back down and continued eating the chicken, ignoring the two corpses in the room with her, she didn’t mind the gore and the smell in the slightest, her nose had lost those sensibilities.


    Ten didn’t take long to wake up.


    “*Yawn, damn…that was a nice nap! Inexistence sure is relaxing. So, how did it-” – She noticed the two corpses in the room. – “You don’t waste time at all, do you Ali?”


    “(These two are merely the end of it.)” – She said. – “(I did a lot tonight.)”


    “Hmph…it’s sad I can’t stay awake for it; I’d have liked to take pictures you know? Anyway, now that you are done and all, you think we can leave now?”


    Alicia finished her chicken, now it didn’t seem as impressive as it was before, but at the very least it was still tasty. – “(Yeah…let’s.)”


    Now came the most annoying part of coming out of the full sync mode, and that was the overbearing feeling of melancholy that washed over her after settling down. Her emotions were amplified to an all-time high while in that state, so it was natural that they would fall straight to the bottom upon calming down. It would summon a shadow of doubt in her mind, questioning if it was worth it to keep moving at all, why not die and just leave all the bullshit behind? Why not end it all so she didn’t have to deal with this anymore?


    This sudden depression told her she didn’t do this out of enjoyment of it, she did it purely out of hatred, hatred for the entire world around her, and if she was completely honest with herself, hatred wasn’t a good enough reason to keep waking up every morning.


    But she knew this was the sadness talking, she tried her best to not pay attention to it.


    There was a mirror nearby, Alicia looked at her reflection. She had spilled some blood over her shirt and brand-new jacket, which was a shame, but it was par for the course, the same could be said about her face. She was also surprised to see that her scars hadn’t burst open like they usually did while working. She took a long look at her eyes to see if they were of a normal color, and indeed they were, so now she was sure that she was completely off synchronization.


    But the truth is that something in her had already changed.


    “Have you come to save us?” – Said a little girl’s voice right behind her.


    Alicia turned around to meet Lily and Violet, the two little daughters and slaves of the couple that lied dead in that room.


    “Are you…an angel?” – Asked Lily, glaring at her with eyes full of reborn hope. By being in Alicia’s presence, both of them had recovered that innocence and hope that their parents had robbed them, or maybe it was because by killing them those things returned to them naturally.


    Before she was able to respond, another child appeared right behind them, a little boy, but this one was different to them, his throat was open but no blood was coming out. Then another child appeared, he too had a fatal wound, then another, and then another.


    Suddenly, Alicia was surrounded by the victims of that wretched couple, at least those that had already died. This was the change that would stay with her, now her soul was in touch with the world the dead inhabit.


    Ten was speechless, assimilating the fact that a bunch of ghost children had appeared before Alicia.


    “…I really don’t know.” – She said, and upon turning around towards the window she discovered that she was surrounded by hundreds of these ghosts, gathering there to show their gratitude to their avenger.


    Alicia walked up to the window to see them. Men, women and children, of all the roles and occupations to be found in that town, they all had perished at the hands of the evil that lurked there, and maybe far beyond it, and where the police had failed to put a stop to the darkness, in a single night, she had come and butchered it.


    Thankful wouldn’t even begin to describe the feeling these people felt for her, and she knew it. Alicia, on the other hand, felt overwhelmed, she didn’t think she was worthy of praise, not even from the dead. She couldn’t grasp what was it that she did that was so good.


    “…Am I really?” – She asked, hoping someone would respond, but it wasn’t up to them to give her that answer.


    Carl heard the sound of a pistol firing off inside the house and knew that was his cue to prepare.


    He supported his rifle over the safety bars and looked down at the house where Butcher was. With any luck, she’d peek her head out from one of the windows and God would bless him with a lucky shot.


    He was sure that his AWM would be able to destroy her head like a watermelon, and even if that shot wasn’t certain, he just needed to aim to the center of mass, there was not a single creature in this world that could tough out a .300 magnum bullet punching a hole into its body, and he was sure this one wouldn’t be an exception.


    Carl took aim and focused, waiting for the right moment. He had done this for so long that staying put, completely still and waiting for the right moment against the elements and circumstances themselves became a second nature to him. He was certain to be one of the few real elite snipers out there, and he wanted to live up to this standard and go down a legend in history, and killing the infamous Butcher would be one of the best chapters in his biography, of that he was certain.


    He looked through the scope and saw the target walking up to a window, she looked dumbfounded for some reason, she was looking at something that Carl couldn’t see from that position, if there was anything there at all.


    But he wasn’t the kind of person to stop everything he was doing and ask questions; he was determined to take her down right there and then.


    He took a deep breath, stabilized his grip, aimed straight at her head; from that distance, wind and gravity were no problem at all.


    Carl took the safety off and placed his index over the trigger. At times like this he wished that sniping wasn’t a job that required so much precision and patience, he would’ve killed her a long time ago if he was at ground level and within pistol range.


    The time was right, but before he could pull the trigger, he felt the weight of a gun above his head.


    “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” – Said a voice right behind him.


    “(How!?)” – Carl was startled. –“(How the hell did he get up here!? I didn’t hear him come up the stairs! Hell, I didn’t even feel him!)”


    “No one’s gonna take Butcher down, except me.” – Said the man.


    “Who the fuck are you!?” – Asked Carl, looking back to see a middle-aged man pointing at him with a Glock.


    “I’m Butcher’s handler.” – He said.


    “Handler!?” – Carl laughed. – “So you are the handler of that fucking fiend down there, really!? I can’t see you being able to control that monster…”


    “You are right…she has certainly slipped out of my hands.” – Said Kirsten. – “But I intend to fix that. Now, drop your weapon.”


    Carl accepted that this was how it was gonna go and dropped the rifle, throwing it out of the tower.


    “So what now, you gonna kill me?” – He asked.


    “Not yet, I’ve got a few questions for you.” – Said Kirsten. – “Who hired you for this job.”


    “Like I fucking care.” – Said Carl. – “Our source passes the files and contract specifics to us, we don’t hear nor read any names. Your girl has made a lot of important folks angry and we took the job, it’s nothing personal. The report said that she was stranded and wounded in this side of the US so we thought it would be an easy job, turns out it was our unmaking.”


    It had to be Lionel who called the hit, he knew the details about the crash. Though, even if it wasn’t him who hired them, it mattered little, Kirsten’s goal was still the same.


    “I assume it was you who took down Igor.” – Said Carl. – “You don’t look strong enough to take on a big man such as him.”


    “It wasn’t me.” – Said Kirsten, to which Carl laughed in response.


    “Well, damn…this has to be the weirdest job I’ve ever taken.” – Carl leaned over the safety bars. – “That thing down there is not human, and I’m sure you know it. That bitch has spent the last six hours running around and killing whatever prick she came across. No matter how you look at it, you can’t control someone like that. Once a person becomes a mass murderer there’s little they’ll respond to, so I hope that what you mean with fixing it, you mean killing her.”


    “…I haven’t decided yet.” – He responded.


    Carl chuckled. – “You better decide real quick man, otherwise she’s gonna slip out of your grasp, and then who knows what’s gonna happen to the places she goes to.”


    “Whatever, just turn around.” – Ordered Kirsten, and Carl didn’t see any other option but to obey.


    “This was supposed to be my biggest hit, you know?” – Said Carl. – “Killing a monster like that earns you fame, reputation, and heaven!”


    Fed up, Kirsten smacked him in the back of the head with his pistol, knocking him up.


    Just to make sure he wouldn’t try anything funny; Kirsten tied him up by the hands to the tower’s safety bar and left him there.


    Once down on the ground, he picked up the rifle that had fallen nearby and used his phone to give an anonymous tip to the police about a suspicious man up a radio tower in the suburbs and hung up before the agent could ask any questions.


    With that done, he looked back at the house and realized that Alicia was already out and walking down the street.


    Walking by the house Kirsten noticed two little girls sitting on the porch, eating chicken. They looked bad to say the least, but they also seemed like all their worries had been washed away. There was a phone next to them, he could only assume that they had just called the cops.


    Finally, Kirsten was close enough to Butcher, and better yet, it seemed like she hadn’t noticed his presence yet.


    He thought about using the rifle to shoot at her, he also considered rushing at her with the pistol and mag dump on her. He kept doubting himself as she walked away with confidence. After a few seconds, Kirsten decided to follow her and see where she would end up.


    She walked down the street enjoying the sound of the distant sirens and helicopters, validating her opinions on the law and order, or rather, the inexistence of these. Kirsten noticed that as she walked down the sidewalk, she left a trace of bloody footsteps.


    Kirsten just accepted that this is the way things usually went with her; Wherever she went, carnage awaited, and it was just a matter of time before insanity finally got a grip of her, and then she’d be the problem of the entire world.


    He was still on time to make sure that doesn’t happen.; It would be like putting down a rabid dog, or at least that’s what he wanted to think.


    Kirsten would never know this, but right next to them as they walked by the sidewalk, there was a line of spirits watching them, wondering what Kirsten would do to their avenger.