NOVEL NEXT Chapter 50: The Little Ripper
Zakar walked out of the refectory with his fists clenched, his steps heavy against the polished stone floor. The silence of the wide hallway pressed on him more than Melissa's voice had. Her words wouldn't leave his head they crawled through his mind like worms gnawing through a rotten fruit.
"Kill Justin, and you'll have your friends back."
The sound of her voice still lingered, feminine yet carrying a haunting finality. He didn't know if it was a threat, an order, or a twisted kind of contract. All he knew was that it was real.
"Tch…" He spat into the quiet air, his voice low and bitter. "Giving me such an inhuman task… to kill Justin? Fuck!" His words echoed faintly through the corridor, bouncing back at him.
His head ached, but not from fatigue. It was the weight of choice, the sick reminder of what he had once been. He let his hand brush the wall as he walked, the cold stone cooling his temper.
"This… kind of reminds me of my past life. Back when I was…" His jaw tightened. "The Little Ripper."
That cursed name. He could almost hear the whispers of it now. He had thought he'd buried that title when he came into this new world. But Melissa's words had dragged it back up from the grave, forcing him to remember the blood, the screams, the despair.
He reached the far end of the hall and stopped beneath a tall window. The faint light of dawn filtered through the glass, pale and gray, casting long shadows at his feet. He tilted his head back, staring at the sky as if it might hold answers.
"This is no different from a contract," he muttered. "The kind I used to get back then. Only difference now is that it's not money on the line…" His voice faltered, a rare thing for him. "…It's my friends. Their lives."
He pressed his hand against the glass, the cold biting into his skin.
"I can't afford to kill Justin," he said, his tone heavier now, as if cementing the words in his soul. "Even though he tried to kill me… I can't bring myself that low again." His eyes narrowed, memories tugging him backward. "I swore an oath… to someone dear to me. To never go back to what I was."
The silence around him deepened. But inside his mind, the silence broke.
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EARTH
YEAR :2020
The streets of the city had always smelled of damp concrete and stale smoke, but that morning, they smelled of fear.
A man stumbled through a narrow alley, his chest heaving, sweat pouring down his face in frantic rivers. He shoved past crates, scattered bottles, anything that slowed him down. His breathing came in harsh, shallow bursts the breath of prey running from a predator it knew it couldn't escape.
Behind him, the sound of footsteps echoed. Light, deliberate, unhurried.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The rhythm was cruel in its calmness. Each step belonged to someone who wasn't supposed to be here.
"Oh God… oh God, no…" The man's voice cracked, trembling. His eyes darted wildly, searching for a way out. But the alley was long, boxed in by high walls, the only exit straight ahead.
On the other side of the alley, several old men sat outside a cracked tavern, their hands wrapped around bottles of cheap gin. They looked up as the man sprinted past them, their aged eyes widening.
"What's with this now?" one muttered, shifting uneasily.
Before anyone could answer, a shadow spilled into the alley. A boy stepped out of the side path.
In his hands gleamed two blades, their steel edges glinting faintly beneath the morning sun. His hair was dark and ragged, his eyes sharp, gleaming with a predator's calm. His lips were curled in a faint smile, but it wasn't the smile of youth.
"Oh… it's him!" an old man gasped, his bottle slipping from his hand and shattering against the ground. His voice rose into a shrill cry. "It's the Little Ripper!"
The others froze, the blood draining from their wrinkled faces. A second later, chaos erupted.
"Better run!" another screamed. "Better run and pray you make it out alive!"
Chairs toppled. Bottles smashed. The narrow square became a flurry of limbs and desperate gasps as the old men scrambled to flee. Some tripped over one another, others simply bolted blindly into side streets, but none dared to look back.
Zakar Cimpen — the Little Ripper ignored them all. His gaze was fixed on the man before him, the target.
The man staggered, his legs trembling. He pulled a small penknife from his pocket, gripping it like a drowning man might grip a straw. "Stay back! Don't come near me!" His voice cracked.
Zakar's chuckle was soft, but it carried down the alley like a blade scraping bone.
"Look at you," he said, his tone almost mocking. "At the mercy of a kid like me. You're what, thirty? A full-grown man with a family? And yet here you are…"
His blades glimmered as he lifted them, tilting his head with predatory amusement. "…shaking at the feet of a thirteen-year-old."
"Sh-shut up!" the man yelled, his grip tightening on the penknife. But his voice betrayed him.
Zakar's smile widened. He stepped forward, the sound of his boots soft but deafening in the man's ears. In a single motion, he slashed down.
The penknife clattered to the ground, sliced neatly from the man's trembling grip.
"Now," Zakar said, his voice steady, clinical. "I just have a little work to do. I was sleeping before you made me get up. I don't like wasting time, so let's be quick."
His blade flicked. A line of crimson appeared across the man's throat. Blood welled, bubbling out in hot streams. The man clutched at his neck, his eyes bulging. A scream tore from his throat, shrill and broken.
Zakar tilted his head, frowning almost sympathetically. "Oopsy. Missed the voice box." He crouched, his eyes glinting. "Let's fix that."
The next slash silenced the man forever.
Blood sprayed against the wall, painting it in wide arcs. Zakar's expression remained calm, as he wiped his blade against the dead man's shirt. His eyes lingered on the body for a moment, then shifted skyward.
A faint smile touched his lips. "A good death, don't you think?"
Behind him, the alley was silent. Too silent. The old men who hadn't managed to flee had ended themselves with knives, broken bottles, anything they could use. To them, it was better to choose their own death than risk the terror of his blades.
And Zakar, the Little Ripper, simply walked away, his name already burning deeper into the fears of the city.
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Back in the present, Zakar dragged in a slow breath. His hand was still pressed against the glass, his reflection faint in the window's surface.
"I killed too many," he muttered. "I was taken to this forsaken place and I thought maybe I would get to hell. Maybe I deserved it. After all…" He exhaled sharply. "I was a killer before I was even a man."
The memory clawed at him, but he pushed it down.
"I was considered a curse," he said bitterly. "Anyone who saw me in person was considered a curse too. Fear followed me like a shadow, and I let it. I became a living curse."
He lowered his hand from the window and clenched it into a fist.
"But I swore…" His voice dropped to a whisper. "I swore to her that I wouldn't go back. That no matter what happened, I wouldn't let myself become the Little Ripper again."
Melissa's voice returned to his mind, mocking. "Kill Justin…"
His teeth ground together.
"No. I'll save my friends. Even if it means killing others, I'll do it—but not him. I won't cross that line again."
The oath weighed heavy, but it was his anchor. And with it, he turned from the window and began to walk.