The Relic Designer

Chapter 2 — The Guest in the Rain

Mud clung to the soles of his boots, leaving dirty tracks across the polished floor.The door slammed shut with a heavy metallic click.The man in the raincoat twisted the lock twice from the inside.

Under the thick fabric, his hands clenched hard enough for his nails to bite into his skin.His breathing was heavy, almost animalistic.

They called him the Rainy Night Butcher on the news.He liked that name.It sounded cruel. Mad. Terrifying.

“How should I thank him,” he murmured, “for letting me in?”

Behind his bloodshot eyes, thoughts coiled like serpents.He was watching Ethan’s back.He liked the good ones—the polite ones—the ones who thought the world was still gentle.He liked to crush that illusion, to see beauty shatter under his boots.

“A kind man like him must’ve had perfect parents,” he thought.“People who protected him from everything.Raised him in a greenhouse.He’s never seen what people really are.”

His face twisted beneath the hood as he imagined how to break that kindness.

From the kitchen came Ethan’s calm voice.“You must be starving.”

He carried out a plate of hot food and a glass of water.“Today’s my birthday. I made too much—why not have a slice of cake?”

The cake sat in the center of the table, white icing gleaming faintly under the light.The same cake his “parents” had brought.Good things should be shared, Ethan thought.

“No, thanks,” the man in the raincoat said. He didn’t touch anything.He was careful, deliberate—no fingerprints, no crumbs.

Then he tilted his head slightly.“There’s someone calling you from the bedroom,” he said casually.

Ethan paused. “My parents are home,” he replied with a faint smile.“They’re not feeling well. They can’t move much.”

The man’s grin widened.“They keep calling for you. Shouldn’t you go check on them?”In his mind, Ethan was already dead.He just hadn’t realized it yet.

Ethan sighed. “I’m not very good at talking to people,” he said softly. “I’m… shy, I guess.”He limped toward the hallway. “They need rest. Their illness is… strange.”

The raincoat man followed, step by step.The air grew colder as they neared the bedroom.The light seemed to bend, as if the walls themselves were warping.

Ethan’s hand tightened on the doorknob.He opened the door—then quietly stepped aside.

Curiosity gleamed in the killer’s eyes as he leaned forward to look inside.

Shadows receded like waves.Half the room was washed in pale, trembling light.The other half was thick, pulsing darkness.

And in the middle—Faces.Dozens of faces, human yet not, writhing and overlapping, their features melting together like wax.Bodies entangled, limbs twisting at impossible angles.

The fake father. The fake mother.The monsters that wore their faces.

When they saw Ethan, they went berserk—dragging each other, crashing toward the door.

The Rainy Night Butcher froze.He’d expected a sick old couple in bed.Not this.

He stumbled back, instinct screaming—But before he could move again, something heavy crashed into his skull.

Smash!

Shards of porcelain scattered across the floor.Blood trickled down his cheek.He barely saw Ethan standing over him, holding the broken vase.

The same man who had said he was “too shy to talk.”

Everything blurred.He felt his knees buckle, his body falling.Then—Ethan’s hand.A cup pressed to his lips.Water forced down his throat.

It wasn’t water.

The whole movement was smooth, practiced—like someone repeating a ritual he’d done many times before.

“You could’ve gone painless,” Ethan murmured, crouching beside him. “But you chose physical paralysis instead.”

His voice was calm. Detached.“Don’t worry. In a minute, you won’t feel anything.”

Terror surged in the killer’s eyes.He tried to move, but his limbs were already losing strength.His vision swam—the room stretched and twisted.

He could see them.All of them.

Bound figures lined the walls.Those same “parents,” dozens of them, breathing, twitching, watching.

And Ethan, kneeling before him, calm as a surgeon.

For the first time in his life, the Butcher knew real fear.He was staring at something worse than himself.

What kind of monster is this man?

He had the precision of a scientist, the cruelty of a sadist, the calm of a priest.A perfect hybrid of all the killers he’d ever studied—cold, intricate, and utterly wrong.

Ethan tilted his head.“Are you cursing me with your eyes?” he said softly, almost amused.

He grabbed the man’s hair, forcing his head up toward the bedroom.“Before the d**g kicks in, answer me something,” he whispered.“Can you see them?”

The Butcher’s pupils trembled.He couldn’t speak.Pain flared behind his eyes.The edges of the world blurred.He was halfway between life and death—caught between remembering and forgetting.

Ethan smiled faintly.“Your reaction says yes.”He bound the man’s wrists and ankles with methodical precision.

“So my mind isn’t broken after all,” he said.“The game really has become real.”

The shadows in the bedroom began to collapse inward.The “parents” screamed soundlessly as they dissolved into darkness, folding in on themselves.They didn’t belong in this world—only slipped through when two realities overlapped.

The air warmed again.Ethan could finally breathe.

“My game has become a bridge,” he realized.“A connection between reality and wherever those things came from.”“When the game ends, everything resets… but if I do nothing, the stories—the monsters—will spread until they’re indistinguishable from reality.”

Four-fifths of the room was now bathed in normal light.The last fragments of shadow twisted violently—And then, one of the “mothers” broke free.

Her eyes were full of sick, maternal love as she lunged forward, dragging every remaining shadow with her.

Ethan turned to run.

But the Rainy Night Butcher wasn’t so lucky.

The monster’s arms wrapped around him, pulling him into the darkness.A shriek tore through the house.Then silence.

When the clock struck 4:44 a.m., the bedroom was normal again.

Ethan mopped the floor calmly.No monsters.No parents.No cake.Nothing but a man lying motionless on the floor—eyes empty, face slack, a shell without a soul.

He crouched beside him.“Guess you met the real family,” he murmured.

Near where the mother had vanished, he found two old black-and-white photographs.They looked ancient, the edges warped and stained, as if they’d been developed decades ago.

“Is this… the game’s reward?” Ethan whispered.

The first photo showed him sitting at the dining table, eating cake.Behind him stood hundreds of identical “parents,” crowding together for a grotesque family portrait.Everything—cake, furniture, parents—was grayscale.Only Ethan was in color.

He turned it over.There were words scrawled in childish handwriting—uneven, shaky, smeared with something that looked like dried blood.

To my beloved child:

At eighteen, you are grown. From this day, you are the new Parent. You now hold the key to the House.

Our home exists between being and unbeing, hidden at the deepest corner of nightmares, brushing the edge of reality’s absurdity. It is far away, yet close to every dark corner of the human heart.

As Parent, you may choose to help your family—to give them love. Or use them. Or break them in ways beyond pain.

You have complete freedom. And in return, we ask only one thing: bring more players to the game that begins after nightfall. The energies they release… feed the things we serve.

Ethan’s brow furrowed.“Parent?” he muttered.

He picked up the second photograph.The Rainy Night Butcher’s face stared back at him—blank, terrified, frozen mid-scream.It looked like a death photo.

On the back, more writing:

The Family Album:

Only those obsessed with reality, dying, despairing, trapped in nightmares, mad, or sinful may find our home. For them, we offer a second choice—something other than death.

But most who come here… regret not choosing death instead.