The Key Killer

Chapter 1

Supposed to be a normal Monday evening, Zoe does what she always does after a nerve-straining day at work.

She paints.

The sun disappears behind the trees, just as she finishes washing out her brushes and returns to observe the unfinished portrait in the dim candlelight thoughtfully.

The dreams accompanying her restless sleep have become more vivid over the passing weeks. So has the dissatisfaction with herself for the choices she made. Guilt gnaws sadistically on her spine. At any hour of the day. 

Not wasting another depressing thought about it, her dull eyes skim over the bookshelf without interest. Choosing a rather heavy lecture, she crosses the room and sits on the creaky chair by the table. The monotonic movements of her pained body feel heavy and somehow pointless to the young woman.

Lately, it proves increasingly difficult to look past the self-loathe and continue on as if everything is still the same.

But nothing is anymore. 

A deep sigh escapes her, before she places her failed attempt at entertainment on the rustic wood, next to the self-made candle.

Sooner or later she will have to face her fears.
But not tonight, her alarm will ring in a few hours. Each day she comes up with new, lousy excuses, one more desperate than the last, in an effort to avoid the clawing demons buried inside.

Just as she attempts to lift herself out of the chair, her attention catches by a large shadow in the corner of her eye. A shadow that has not been there before.

Like a deer in headlights, her body freezes mid-air.

A manly figure stands in the frame. The small kitchen light behind only illuminating the outline of its disguise. Her dreams have warned her. And she has ignored them in spite, knowing fully well they have never misled her before.

The neighbour's property is far away. So is any attentive ear that could catch the cries for help which beg eagerly to be released. The woman doesn't even bother with the consideration of it.

That's what you get for choosing isolation, Zoe.  

She will have to get through this by herself. Just like everything else.

With a newfound acceptance for the predicament she is in, her thin body falls back onto the chair with a squeak, feeling surprisingly empty.

The tall figure moves without a sound. Stalking out of the shadows, it oozes of danger. The light reflects within the metallic mask, blinding her momentarily before she faces away in defeat.

Who wants to live forever, anyway? 

Her lidded eyes take on the colour of the moon as they gaze absent-mindedly into the hot flame beside her. When they shift back to the stilled human form they are nothing but two glowing lumps of coal, burning meaningfully with the fire carried within.


She is not afraid of death.
Neither is she afraid of him.
Her fears go deeper than that.

Hidden from view, a smirk appears behind the raven metal. Yet, the only reaction visible to her is the controlled curling of the glove by his side, capturing the air between.

It is her who ends the appropriate silence.

"Who are you?"

There's no need to ask, she knows that. 

"I'm sure, you know who I am."

Distrust evident in her fallen face, she listens to the mechanical words reaching through the distorter inside his mask. The alien sound seems to fit right into the unfamiliar scene playing out around her.

For all she knows, she might as well be talking to an entirely different species.

Any detail which could identify this man is concealed. Every inch of skin and hair has been carefully covered in the shades of the night. Nobody before has lived to tell what the Key Killer is like.