Bound by the Missing Hours

Chapter 4: A River's Counsel

The police station was a concrete sarcophagus, and escaping it felt like bursting through the surface of deep water. I didn't stop to look back. I didn't acknowledge the flood of relief washing over me. I just walked. The cool, damp air of the late November night was a brutal shock after the sterile, recycled hostility of the precinct, hitting my face like a welcome slap.

Ote’s voice, though left miles behind, was still a hot, poisonous knot tightening in my skull. His promise—"I will be watching you... I will get you this time"—was not merely a threat; it was a psychological tether, ensuring that every shadow and every parked car on the route home would feel like his surveillance.

My body was bone-tired and aching from the cramped hours in the interrogation room, but my mind was a shrieking siren, cycling through the impossibilities: the dead cafe customers, the impossible no-blood scenario, and the chilling realisation that the killer was back.

I couldn't go straight home. Home was the vortex of all my loneliness. My feet found a rhythm on the pavement, guiding me toward the city's river. For years, following the trauma of the first murder, the only thing that had offered me a semblance of sanity was the indifferent, ceaseless movement of water. It was a natural constant, a force that flowed regardless of human betrayal or supernatural interference.

I navigated the deserted streets, keeping to the shadows, a fugitive hurrying through the city’s underbelly. I passed closed shops and darkened office towers; the silence was broken only by the sharp, repetitive crunch of my boots on the gravel. Every glint of chrome, every sudden flicker of an awning light, made me flinch, expecting to see Ote’s cruiser idling nearby. The fear wasn't rational, but after two years of being framed, logic was secondary to survival.

Finally, after what felt like an hour of tense, hurried transit, I reached the local river. Its presence was a dark, serpentine line running through the city's heart.

The riverbank was silent, the concrete banks swallowed by shadow and the low, persistent swoosh of the current. I found a low, isolated concrete ledge, wet with dew, and sank onto it, pulling the woollen jacket tighter. The cold seeped up through the stone, chilling my bones, but I ignored it. Finally, I allowed my shoulders to slump, releasing the agonising tension I’d held in my muscles for twelve harrowing, caged hours.

There is a profound, almost spiritual comfort in watching water. It is ceaseless, relentless, yet completely uncaring of the chaos on the shore. The smooth, dark surface absorbed the faint, distant city lights, fracturing them into long, trembling silver spears that trailed into the distance. For a few minutes, I focused only on the sound, letting the rhythmic pulse of the current wash over the screaming static in my head. I didn't think about the ripped chests, the missing heart, the furious, unforgiving face of Detective Ote, or the impossible return of my nightmare. I just listened.

Rush. Flow. Fade.

As my heart rate finally slowed its frantic sprint, the questions began to emerge, rising from the sudden, illusory calm like bubbles from the riverbed, sharp and undeniable. I sat there, methodically cross-referencing my memories, trying to make sense of the brutal facts from two years ago against the fresh horror of today.

The two crimes were two years apart, separated by different counties, yet the method was identical: the missing heart, the surgical precision, the terrifying, impossible absence of blood.

If it was the same killer, they were a figure of impossible patience, meticulousness, and capability, operating with seamless stealth in both an isolated hotel room and a crowded urban café. They weren't just a killer; they were a vanishing act, almost as if they were not even human. The thought itself was absurd, yet the evidence demanded it. I let out a small, hollow laugh that was instantly swallowed by the current. How is that possible? Of course, they are human, I told myself, clutching desperately to logic, even as logic failed. The lack of blood remained the biggest, most impossible contradiction.

The sheer mathematical improbability of my being the one to find the café was crushing. If I hadn't been there, Ote wouldn't be involved, and the terrifying, definitive connection to Alex's murder might have taken days, weeks, or years to surface. Was it a random, horrible stroke of fate, or was the killer leaving a trail, knowing exactly who would follow? Was I being guided? Used as a witness, or perhaps, as a lure?

I ran a hand over the stubble on my jaw, my skin rough with exhaustion. I was a freelance photographer, a documenter of reality, not a police investigator. But after the relentless suffering Ote had inflicted—and was clearly intending to inflict again—I couldn't afford to be passive. I had to find the link, the key to the killer's movement, before Ote fabricated one to fit his warped narrative and lock me away forever. My survival depended on finding the truth that Ote actively ignored.

My gaze fell on the jacket I was wearing, a heavy, dark garment that smelled faintly herbal, like dried cedar. It wasn't mine. It was too soft, too high-quality, and certainly not police-issue or tainted by the stench of the interrogation room.

Who left this? The question was a low, insistent hum in my ear, a small piece of external evidence that didn't fit the pattern of malice.

Ote would sooner leave me naked in the hallway than offer a blanket. It had to be Officer Net, the one detective who had seemed genuinely disturbed by the brutality of the crime and the undisguised bias of his superior. The thought offered a small, flickering wick of hope—a single, fragile ally in this sudden, terrifying resurgence of darkness. He had intervened on my behalf, risking his career. He was a good cop, trapped in a corrupt system.

But that kindness felt intensely dangerous. If Ote found out Net had shown me empathy, or worse, had subtly protected me from Ote's immediate fury, he'd destroy the young officer's career with surgical precision. I couldn't risk revealing the garment, and I certainly couldn't call him for help. The lone island of humanity had to remain isolated for its own safety.

I sigh and look up at the sky. There is only one thing for it- I must investigate this case myself. Only then might the killer be caught, but I am on my own, and I am going to have to do my investigation silently and quickly.

After all, if the killer is not caught, then the one being fingered for the crime is going to be yours truly.