The Young Psychopath

SCARED

Walking down a corridor, Tracy slowly placed one foot in front of the other while humming. As she approached a door, she heard voices coming from inside. Though she couldn't make out the words, the voices sounded familiar, reminding her of her childhood. Unable to resist, Tracy opened the door and rushed in, expecting to see her parents. Instead, she found herself surrounded by endless corridors. When she turned to return through the door, it had vanished, leaving her standing in the center of a cross corridor.

"Where am I?" Tracy asked herself, bewildered.

"What's that?" she wondered as she spotted a shadow moving in the corridor directly in front of her. "Hello!" she called out to the shadow. Its head turned, and from a distance, Tracy saw its movement, but in a blink, the shadow disappeared.

"Who was that?" Tracy pondered, glancing down another corridor behind her. There it was again, the shadow, this time walking toward her. Just as its face was about to be revealed, it stopped and vanished into a side corridor.

Fear gripped Tracy as she searched for a weapon but found none. Bracing herself, she clenched her fists and faced the corridor where the shadow had gone.

She stood defensively for about a minute, seeing nothing. Just when she relaxed her guard, she felt a presence behind her and spun around.

In that instant, she found herself staring at a knife protruding from her chest. Shocked, she looked down the corridor and saw the shadow fading away. Clutching the knife's handle, she sank to the floor, bleeding to death.

Suddenly, she woke up screaming, realizing she was in bed. "Was that a dream?" she asked herself, checking for any wounds on her chest.

As she finished her search, she noticed a shadow standing at her cell door. Panic surged through her, and she sat upright. Unlike before, this shadow didn't disappear. Tracy cautiously approached her cell door, getting close enough to see blood pooling inside. Her eyes widened in fear as she looked through the door and saw a girl wearing a wet dress stained with fresh blood. The blood dripped down the dress, pooling around her feet and soaking the floor. When Tracy looked up to the girl's face, she gasped in horror—it was her own face, but without eyeballs, bleeding from her eye sockets and ears.

"Arhhhhhhhhh!" Tracy screamed, realizing she was still in her bed.

She looked around her room, finding nothing.

"Was this all a dream?" she questioned, scanning for blood or shadows.

"Stop screaming. Last warning," a voice barked from a guard outside.

Filled with fear, Tracy sat upright, pulled her knees to her chest, and began humming her usual rhyme.

After a while, she stood up and moved to the little table in her cell. Sitting in front of it, she picked up a pencil and a piece of paper, starting to draw pictures of how she had killed her victims. After numerous drawings, she wrote the names "CHESS, RITA, and ROSE" on a paper, drew flames around the names, then repeatedly crossed them out, fear and anger etched across her face.

Outside the facility, Detective Mr. Roland Black sat in his office when a fellow detective approached him.

"So, aren't you ready for drinks? It's Friday night," the detective said, plopping onto Mr. Black's desk.

"I wouldn't miss guys' night for anything in the world," Mr. Black replied with an assuring smile. But as his smile faded, he added, "Something seems off. I feel like something really bad is about to happen."

The other detective stood, tapped Mr. Black's shoulder, and said, "Don't we all?" before walking away.

"I'm serious!" Mr. Black called after him.