Chapter 370

The streets of Aden were barren, with only the smell of dust and decay hanging in the air. The sun beat down, scorching the cracked asphalt and turning the sky a bruised orange. A lone figure walked down the side of the road, his boots crunching the dirt beneath him. His name was Major Ibrahim Al-Salim, a man feared by many. But to most, he was just a cop. A figure of authority.

He hadn't always been this way. Once, Ibrahim had been a man of pride, someone who believed in justice. He had followed the law like a sacred oath.

But that was before the bloodshed. Before the bodies piled up and the darkness settled inside of him like a thick fog, suffocating everything. The years in the police force had twisted him. Made him something he never thought he'd become.

At first, it had been simple. He'd taken money, small bribes from smugglers, the kind of things most cops did. He didn't think much of it, told himself it was to survive, to get by. But then the murder came. The first one.

A local thug, someone who had wronged Ibrahim, had crossed him one too many times. Ibrahim had waited until the dead of night, then he'd followed him into the alley. He'd crushed his skull with a crowbar. It felt good. So good, in fact, that it didn't stop there.

Each kill fed something in Ibrahim. The way the blood spurted, the way the life drained from their eyes—it gave him power. He felt more alive with every drop spilled, and the feeling, the rush, became more addictive than any drug.

The others came after that, victims who had wronged him or those who had nothing to do with him at all. He didn't care. The killings were just part of his life now. A way of life. A necessity.

The cops had their suspicions, but they'd never catch him. Ibrahim was too careful, too calculated. He made sure the bodies were never found, and if they were, he made sure the investigation went nowhere.

He knew how to cover his tracks. How to erase the evidence. He was the law, after all. Who could question him?

But that night, something changed. The darkness seemed to press harder against his chest, choking him, pulling him deeper into the void. He wasn't just a cop anymore. He was something else. Something worse. He couldn't turn it off. It had become him.

Ibrahim walked towards the old, rundown building on the outskirts of the city. It was an abandoned warehouse, once a hub for smugglers, but now, it was his secret place. His sanctuary. He had brought her here.

Her name was Layla, a young woman with hauntingly beautiful eyes. He had found her on the street corner a few days ago, her beauty an irresistible lure. She was a prostitute, but Ibrahim didn't care. She was just another body to add to his collection. She was helpless. Alone. Perfect.

He had told her she was safe. Told her that he wouldn't hurt her. He lied, of course.

As Ibrahim stepped inside the dark building, the faint sounds of scurrying rats echoed through the empty hall. The warehouse smelled of mildew and decay. There was a single light overhead, flickering intermittently, casting long, jagged shadows along the walls. The air was thick with dust, so dense that it seemed to stifle his breath.

Layla was tied to a chair in the center of the room. Her eyes were wide with fear, her body trembling. Ibrahim walked closer, savoring the sound of her shallow breaths. She begged him, pleaded with him to let her go, but he only smiled.

He didn't want to hear her pleas anymore. He had heard them too many times before.

He pulled out the knife from his belt, the blade gleaming in the dim light. Layla's eyes widened, her voice cracking as she screamed. But Ibrahim didn't listen. His focus was only on her fear, her pain. It was all that mattered now.

He approached her, knife raised, and as he stood over her, something inside of him snapped. For a moment, just a moment, he hesitated. He saw her face, her tears, and he remembered something—his old self, the man he used to be. The man who had once sworn to protect the innocent. The man who had felt guilt.

But the hesitation was brief. Too brief.

The blade sank into her skin with a sickening crunch. She screamed. Blood poured from the wound, staining her dress, staining the floor beneath her. Ibrahim stood there, watching her struggle, watching her fight for life. It was beautiful. It was tragic. It was everything he had ever wanted.

He didn't stop until she was still. When the room was silent, when the only sound was the echo of his own heavy breathing, he wiped the blade clean. He looked down at her, her lifeless body slumped in the chair.

But as he stared at her, something shifted again. A feeling of emptiness, of loss. He had killed so many before, but this one felt different. It felt… wrong.

His head spun. He staggered backward, crashing into one of the walls. The blood on his hands felt colder now, colder than it ever had before. He wiped his hands against his pants, but it didn't help. It didn't make it go away.

The walls seemed to close in around him. His breath came in ragged gasps, his chest tight. His hands were shaking, and for the first time in years, he felt a sense of dread. A sense of being hunted. He wasn't the predator anymore. He was the prey.

Ibrahim turned and bolted out of the warehouse, his legs carrying him faster than he had ever run before. He didn't stop until he reached his apartment, a small, dingy place on the edge of the city. His heart hammered in his chest. His mind raced.

He stared at the door, listening for something, anything. But the silence only pressed against him, suffocating him. He tried to calm his breath, but it was no use. The feeling of being watched wouldn't go away. He was being followed. He knew it.

That night, he didn't sleep. He paced, his mind constantly running, his eyes darting around the room. Every creak of the floorboards, every shift of the air, made him jump. He was paranoid. He was losing control.

As dawn broke, Ibrahim finally collapsed onto the couch, exhaustion taking over. His eyes were bloodshot, his body drained. But even in his tired state, he couldn't escape the nagging sense that something was wrong. Something was coming for him.

Two days passed before they found him. The body was left at the same warehouse where he had killed Layla. His name was written on the wall in blood, his own blood. A symbol, a message.

The authorities would never figure it out, but Ibrahim knew. He knew that it was a warning. Someone had seen what he had done. Someone knew who he was.

They came for him that night, too.

There were no footsteps, no sounds. It was just the cold presence of something close, something he couldn't escape. Ibrahim tried to run again, but this time, it was too late. The darkness had already claimed him.

The last thing Ibrahim saw before the world went black was a face. Layla's face. Her eyes, wide with terror, staring at him from the corner of the room. She wasn't alone. She was surrounded by all the others. The victims he had left behind. They were waiting.

The darkness swallowed him whole. But this time, it wasn't the kind of darkness that took him to peace. It was the kind that dragged him down into the depths, into an endless abyss of his own making. He would never escape. He would never be free.

And as the blood trickled from his body, Ibrahim realized with horror that he would never be the one to hold the power again.