ACT I — War Dogs and Blood Smoke
The bar was burning.
Flames licked the rafters, dancing against smoke and broken neon. The hiss of fire mingled with the metallic scream of gunfire. Bullets cracked through glass. Shells clattered across concrete like steel rain. The stench of blood, gunpowder, and oil soaked the air — thick enough to choke on.
Reaper moved like something conjured from shadow.
Silent. Controlled. Surgical.
His revolver sang with deadly rhythm.
One. Two. Three.
Each shot a signature. Each body a fallen line in a poem of violence. Masked operatives dropped like marionettes with their strings cut.
Then — one came too close.
This one didn't aim to kill. He lunged, fast and desperate, like a hunter under orders to capture. Not to eliminate.
Reaper dropped his revolver. In a blur, he reached into his coat and drew the pen — his second tongue, his second blade — and jammed it into the man's throat. The assassin choked. Blood bubbled past his lips. He spasmed, fell. Dead.
Behind him, a voice thundered like a storm.
"FUCK THAT! You think this is a fucking war zone?!"
Phantom.
He stood behind the bar — blood-splashed, wild-eyed behind his cracked helmet. His shotgun roared, turning another black-masked bastard's head into a smear of red mist and shattered bone.
Reload. Click. Aim. Fire.
The next attacker's ribcage exploded into ruin.
Another figure vaulted the bar. Phantom ducked low, grabbed a crowbar from beside his toolbench, and drove it through the man's chest with a sound like crushed fruit.
His leg gave a jolt — he was wounded, a bullet through the thigh — but the pain only fueled his fury.
"MY WORKSHOP, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!"
His voice cracked into a primal scream. Blood dripped down his leg, soaking into the oil-stained concrete. And yet he fought — not like a soldier, but like a berserker on borrowed time.
A chair flew across the room, colliding with two more intruders. Screams. Then silence. Phantom stood there, chest heaving, visor fractured just enough to reveal one piercing green eye, burning with wrath.
Reaper exhaled. Not from fear. From fatigue. A slow, heavy breath.
He walked toward the man he'd slain with the pen, pulled the weapon from his throat like a ritual, wiped it once on the dead man's collar. Then, calmly, he picked up his revolver again.
The room reeked of death.
Reaper sat on a half-broken barstool — a silhouette carved in blood and shadow, mask cracked and glistening with red, smoke trailing from his barrel like a whisper from Hell.
Phantom wasn't done.
He unslung the katana from his back — its steel catching the flicker of flame — and stepped into the carnage. He moved like a surgeon possessed, slashing down the last masked survivors with clean, precise strikes.
Limbs fell. Arteries burst. Bones split.
One figure crawled away. Barely alive. Mewling like an animal.
Phantom saw him.
He walked — limping, but relentless — toward the man, his blood-soaked blade dragging against the ground.
"Who said you get to crawl out of here? You fuck up my place... my tools... my peace... and think you get a second chance?"
He drove the katana through the man's back, pinning him to the concrete like a trophy insect. Then, slowly, Phantom rolled him over.
Paused.
His breath caught.
"…What the fuck?"
He pulled the mask off.
Etched into the man's face, crude and violent —
an X.
Carved deep.
Ritualistic.
Deliberate.
Reaper's eyes narrowed behind his mask.
He knew that symbol. Somewhere buried.
A flicker in the dark.
A scream from the past.
Familiar. Wrong. Dangerous.
Phantom stared at it a second too long. Then let the corpse drop.
He staggered toward the bar phone, dragging his blade behind him, hand trembling. He wiped the blood off the receiver and dialed.
"Cleanup crew. Rustyard. Bring the good shit."
Click.
He returned the katana to its sheath. Walked over to a scorched drawer under the bar. Pulled it open. Gold coins glimmered inside — stained with dust, oil, and blood.
He took one. Limped toward Reaper. Tossed it.
"For helping. Don't say I never pay you."
Reaper caught it in one hand without flinching.
The jukebox still hummed in the background — now playing something grim and pulsing.
"Enemy" by Imagine Dragons & JID.
A strange irony in the chaos.
Reaper pulled out his bloodied pen and notepad. Began writing in the middle of the ruins.
Phantom saw this and laughed — half-winded, half-insane.
"You still writing? Right now? After all this shit?"
Reaper turned the notepad and showed him.
"Your injury. You okay?"
The ink was streaked with red.
Phantom read it, snorted, winced.
"What, this?"
He pointed at his leg.
"It's a scratch. I've had worse. Don't cry for me, Dark Owl."
Reaper stood slowly.
He scribbled something else. Ripped the page off. Handed it over.
"The X. You recognized it?"
Phantom held the paper. Eyes lingered.
Then, he turned away.
"...Yeah."
He didn't say more.
Reaper stared at him for a moment longer.
Then turned and walked out.
Out through the shattered front door.
Through the smoke.
Into the bleeding night.
He didn't look back.
ACT II: "FORTRESS OF GHOSTS"
The rain didn't fall — it whispered.
A soft static, like a dying television channel bleeding into the world.
It hissed across the windshield, soft and ceaseless, as Reaper drove through the carcass of Grayhaven.
The city stretched around him like a corpse too stubborn to rot.
Rust-stained factories. Neon graffiti on walls that had forgotten color.
Streetlamps blinked in and out — flickering like neurons misfiring in a dying brain.
Each one caught Reaper in frozen slices: his silhouette in motion, blood drying on leather gloves, the black coat draped across him like a shroud.
He was silent behind the wheel.
No radio. No hum. No heartbeat.
Just the breath of a man sewn together by scars and silence.
And something was wrong.
That X.
Carved into flesh. Deep. Deliberate.
It wasn't just brutality.
It was a message.
And it wasn't the first.
First the wolf.
Now the X.
Symbols. Patterns. Warnings.
Or invitations?
He didn't know what haunted him more — the image carved into that dead man's face…
Or the fact that it felt familiar.
Like déjà vu with teeth.
EDGEVIEW HEIGHTS
10:09 P.M.
The car slithered into the suburbs, moving like a ghost too exhausted to haunt.
Edgeview Heights greeted him with artificial calm — white fences, manicured lawns, and windows that watched without blinking.
Everything felt wrong.
Too clean.
Too still.
Reaper turned onto his street. Each house looked like the next — cloned from the same dream. Or the same lie.
He parked. Killed the engine.
The house waited for him in shadow — a silhouette with hollow eyes.
Old bones. Stale air. No warmth.
He stepped out. Keys in hand.
Didn't remove his gloves. Didn't remove his mask.
His boots echoed on the wet pavement.
Inside, silence swallowed him whole.
No alerts. No red lights. No phone calls.
But the temperature was off.
The walls breathed cold.
And something in the air told him he was no longer the only one who had touched this place.
Reaper walked into the living room and sat down. The couch sighed beneath him.
His revolver stayed holstered.
His mask stayed on.
His eyes swept the shadows.
Something's coming.
And now it knows where to find me.
He reached into his coat. Pulled out the blood-caked notepad and pen — the same ones he'd used to end a man in a mechanic's workshop hours ago.
He scrawled:
What is the X?
Ritual? Warning?
Am I next?
The last question came too fast.
Too easily.
That bothered him.
PREPARATION
He stared at the paper, then rose.
And the house began to change.
It didn't creak.
It shifted.
The coat closet peeled back into a small arsenal. Behind the drywall: knives, suppressors, submachine guns, maps with circled names and blacked-out regions.
In the kitchen, he pried up a tile. Underneath, his gold coin cache glittered in the dim light — each one a currency of death, favors, freedom.
Tripwires lined the windows. Thin and silent. Unseen.
Bowls of broken glass rested beneath doorframes.
If someone entered, they'd bleed before they even saw him.
In the back room, he unscrewed a vent. Slid in a pistol from the silver case, three morphine ampoules, and a burner phone wrapped in cloth.
In the bathroom, he taped a blade behind the mirror — surgical, sharp, personal.
By noon, the suburban dream had turned into a war bunker with curtains.
Not comfort.
Survival.
MIRROR SCENE
Hours passed.
Sometime around 3 a.m., Reaper wandered into the bathroom.
He didn't know why.
Just that something had pulled him — as if the mirror had been watching him the entire time.
He flicked on the light. Cold fluorescence buzzed overhead.
He stood before the glass.
Blood-smeared mask still clinging to his face like dried skin.
He peeled it off.
Dropped it into the sink.
Removed his gloves. Turned on the tap.
Water hissed and bled through his fingers, soaking into the old red stains.
He washed his hands.
His face.
Scrubbed until his knuckles burned.
Until he didn't know if the water was still red or if it was memory staining the porcelain.
Then he looked up.
The mirror didn't show him.
Not really.
What stared back was a man built from shadows and half-remembered screams.
A face sculpted by loss.
Eyes that didn't blink anymore.
He reached out and touched the mirror.
No cracks.
No warmth.
But he felt it. Behind the reflection — something alive.
Something waiting.
Watching.
He picked the mask out of the sink. Held it like it was something holy.
Then turned away.
THE BEDROOM
He didn't change. Didn't shower.
Just dropped the mask on the bed and lay down beside it — fully clothed, revolver holstered and close.
The ceiling above was still. Pale.
Like a morgue sheet stretched tight.
His eyes stayed open.
His mind didn't.
The X.
Phantom's voice.
That flicker of fear — real, or just another performance?
The questions spun until they blurred.
Sleep came like a velvet noose.
Not comfort.
Not peace.
Just a silence full of teeth.
CODA
And somewhere…
in an alley drowned in steam and neon…
…someone else carved another X.
A new face. A new warning.
Reaper slept without knowing.
And maybe next time,
that X
would be for him.
ACT III — "The Messenger"
9:45 A.M.
Four knocks.
Sharp. Rhythmic. Too precise to be casual.
Like someone measuring intent with the back of their knuckles.
Reaper's eyes opened — no dream this time. No haunted cries clawing from memory, no spectral whispers reaching across the veil. Only silence. Real. Heavy. Present.
He was already dressed — black fatigues clinging like a second skin, the scent of dried blood and cordite still soaked into the seams. Last night never really ended. His revolver rested beside him, sleeping like a loyal dog at the foot of a killer's bed.
He sat up. Reached for the owl mask. Slid it on. Ritual. Armor. Not to conceal — but to become.
He moved like a ghost through the house. No creaks. No hesitation. Just breath and instinct.
The knock came again.
He paused at the edge of the window — watched the world through glass warped by years and secrets.
A car waited at the curb. Midnight black. Engine low, idling like a caged animal. Two men sat inside, silhouettes behind tinted glass, motionless in matching sunglasses. Secret service or silent threat — maybe both.
At the doorstep stood a man who didn't belong.
Dark-skinned. Tall. Sharp jawline. Black trench coat tailored like a blade. Black fedora casting his face in shade. Hands gloved. A black suitcase gripped in one like a coffin's handle.
He looked like he walked out of time.
Too polished to be street muscle. Too calm to be nervous.
Reaper opened the door halfway.
Revolver still holstered. But close. Always close.
The man didn't blink.
"I'm called the Messenger," he said, voice deep and surgical — velvet folded over razors. "Or you can rename me. Makes no difference."
No smile. No greeting. Just a presence that bent the air.
He stepped inside like he'd been here before. No hesitation. No request. Just quiet ownership.
His eyes swept across the living room — landed on the bloodstained notepad on the coffee table. Reaper snatched it without pause.
The Messenger smirked.
"I've read worse," he murmured. "Hell, I've written worse."
He sat down slowly, like a judge preparing to pass sentence, and placed the suitcase at his side. No wasted movement.
"I came to deliver your next directive," he said, leaning back, folding one leg over the other. "Tomorrow night, you and Phantom are greenlit for execution protocol. Target: one man. Goes by the name NightJaw."
He clicked open the suitcase. A folder slid out like it had been waiting to be seen. Photographs. Diagrams. A single name scratched in red pen.
"Club Vanta. Downtown. VIP access only. Vile to its bones. You'll fit right in."
Reaper stood across from him. Silent. Watching. A predator listening.
The Messenger went on.
"NightJaw's a collector of sin. Drugs. Trafficking. Blackmail. But that's not why we want him dead.
He's selling names. Our names."
Reaper lifted the notepad.
Why now? Why him? Why us?
The Messenger nodded.
"Because you're silent. Disposable. Phantom's unpredictable. Together, you're useful and expendable. Exactly the kind of chaos we need to breach Vanta's walls."
Reaper wrote again:
Does Phantom know?
"He was briefed two hours ago. You'll meet for tactical alignment tomorrow. Expect heavy resistance. Vanta Guard's armed to the teeth — masks, blood contracts, cyber mod freaks. It's not a club. It's a warzone dipped in neon."
He stood. Reached for the suitcase.
"Oh — and good work last night," he added, tone dry. "I heard about the workshop incident. Clean job. Messy aftermath. But efficient."
He turned toward the door, then paused — a deliberate beat.
"You've met Vincent, haven't you?"
Reaper tilted his head slightly.
"Gun shop's a front," the Messenger continued. "On the surface? Just a quiet little watch shop. Ticks, straps, and polite nods. But beneath it? A market. Private. Illegal. Glorious. Might be worth a visit before Vanta. The Organization's toys will get you far — but NightJaw bites back."
He took a step toward the exit, then stopped again.
This time, his voice softened — not warm, but sharper somehow.
"And one more thing…"
"Learn sign language. Silence works — until it doesn't."
Reaper didn't move. Didn't nod.
But the room felt heavier, like something had just shifted.
The door closed behind the Messenger with the weight of punctuation — not a goodbye, but an ellipsis leading into blood.
Reaper stood alone. The world fell still.
Then, his eyes dropped to the table.
The folder sat there, left like a loaded gun.
Matte-black cover. No title. Only a single symbol pressed into the surface:
A broken jaw, surrounded by a crown of thorns.
NIGHTJAW.
He opened it.
Blueprints. Entry points. Rotating staff schedules.
Names. Faces. Thermal signatures.
It wasn't a briefing.
It was a kill list dressed in paperwork.
Reaper picked up his pen. Flipped the next page of his notebook.
The city would bleed again tomorrow.
And this time, he would be ready.