The Game Begins
876 Words
The factory was still as dead when Aaron Cole stirred.
Jessie watched from the shadows, arms folded, eyes locked on his face as he groaned and lifted his head. His pupils adjusted sluggishly to the glow of the single overhead lantern. Sweat slicked his brow. A trickle of blood crusted near his temple where he’d hit the floor before she’d dragged him into the chair again.
His voice rasped like sandpaper. “Water.”
Jessie stepped forward, heels echoing like gunshots on the concrete. She didn’t offer water.
She offered silence.
Aaron blinked, trying to focus. The moment he saw her, something flickered behind his eyes—recognition, calculation… and something darker.
“You,” he muttered. “Of course.”
Jessie raised an eyebrow. “You sound disappointed.”
“I was hoping for a detective.” He coughed. “Not a lab rat.”
She smirked. “Careful. I’m the one holding the scalpel.”
Aaron shifted in his restraints, testing the knots. Still tight. Still trapped.
Jessie pulled a chair from the shadows and placed it directly across from him. She sat down slowly, legs crossed, gaze razor sharp.
“We’re going to talk,” she said.
Aaron’s lip curled. “Is that what this is? A conversation?”
“No. This is an interrogation.”
His smile faded.
Jessie leaned forward. “You’ve been very busy, Mr. Cole. Six murders. All staged. All stitched. All mirroring crimes that were never released to the public in detail. That’s impressive.”
Aaron said nothing.
“Who taught you to sew like that?”
Still nothing.
“You knew how to copy the exact stitch pattern. The thread. The depth of insertion. Where’d you learn that?”
He exhaled. “I studied. I always study.”
Jessie tilted her head. “Studied who?”
No answer.
She narrowed her eyes. “Why those victims? You didn’t choose them at random.”
“I followed a pattern,” he said finally. “Justice unserved. Sins unpunished. You know the type.”
“Did you choose the thread colour deliberately?”
Aaron gave a small nod. “Black is clean. Black is the absence of colour. It’s final.”
She nodded slowly, as if analysing his words. “So you believe in what you're doing?”
He met her gaze, something fevered and hungry burning in his eyes. “I believe in them being gone.”
Jessie sat back, letting the silence stretch before launching the real test.
“Then tell me,” she said casually. “Who was the first?”
Aaron frowned. “The first?”
“The first Black Thread murder. The original. The one that started it all.” Her tone was calm, but her fingers tapped a slow rhythm against her thigh. “Who was it?”
Aaron hesitated.
He wasn’t expecting that.
“I… don’t think that case was ever identified.”
Jessie smiled thinly. “But you just said you studied everything. That you followed a pattern. So surely you’d know who began this… movement you’re so obsessed with.”
His mouth opened slightly, then closed again. A twitch at the corner of his jaw betrayed his frustration.
Jessie kept going. Her voice was soft now, almost sympathetic. “You’re copying someone. But you don’t even know who. That’s the difference between you and the original. Whoever they are, they chose each target personally. They left no evidence. No inconsistency. Just a signature stitched in flesh.”
She leaned in, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “You’re not them. You’re just the echo.”
That cut deeper than any scalpel.
Aaron’s expression twisted, the first flash of anger breaking through his calm exterior. “You think I don’t know the real Black Thread Killer exists?”
Jessie didn’t flinch. “Do you?”
“I’ve read the old files. Cross-referenced missing cases. I know someone was out there long before me—long before the press ever coined the name. And I’m getting closer to figuring out who.”
She masked the flicker of adrenaline that spiked in her chest.
“Then why haven’t you found them yet?”
Aaron’s eyes locked onto hers. “Because they’re a ghost. But even ghosts leave shadows.”
Jessie met his stare evenly. “Maybe some things should stay buried.”
He chuckled, low and bitter. “Is that a threat?”
“No,” she said. “It’s advice.”
Aaron shifted in his seat, the old steel groaning beneath him. “You’re smart. Smarter than the rest of them. You see the cracks.”
She stood, her shadow stretching across the floor like a blade. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“I told you—I don’t know who the original was. Yet.”
Jessie studied him a moment longer, then turned away.
Behind her, Aaron called out. “Why do you care? Unless…”
He paused, his voice darkening. “Unless you already know who they are.”
Jessie didn’t stop walking.
She simply said over her shoulder, “If I did, you’d be the last person I’d tell.”
Then she disappeared into the dark, leaving Aaron bound, seething, and more intrigued than ever.
- Writer
