His instincts led him to a door in the living room, one that radiated a frightfully ominous aura, a red and blue butterfly perched at the knob.
And then he felt sothing behind him, watching, peering.
With a swift, audible swoosh of air, Mr. Valen turned back, his eyes narrowed to slits as he clenched his fist and threw a punch, but he paused, stopping at just the right mont.
Before him was not the person he expected, but a walking shadow, its eyes spinning like vortices, (his avatar).
’This thing... It’s going to take so getting used to,’ Mr. Valen thought to himself. He then turned back, focusing on the butterfly.
Slowly, he approached, reaching for it, his avatar peeking from his shoulder, watching him with a tilted head as he touched the little creature.
At that mont, Mr. Valen felt his head spin, and suddenly, the room flashed, and it was no longer day, but night.
He saw through another’s eyes, a form exiting the room upstairs.
«It is done,» he thought, feeling the weight of his (her) sex, still full of his victim’s bodily fluids.
Blood dripped from his claw, one that was not his, one which he sared on the doorknob as he opened it, revealing the truth of what he had done.
«If he survives, he must be under constant pressure,» he then thought, flicking the blood from his claw not only at the room but everywhere in the apartnt.
«Thus I shall-»
The vision was cut abruptly as Mr. Valen felt his world spin again, before stabilizing in the middle of the apartnt living room.
’What was that?’ Mr. Valen thought not used to what he felt just now, he then caught sothing from the corner of his eyes and looked towards it.
He saw his avatar, the shadowy humanoid, holding the red and blue butterfly by the wings, the thing struggling faintly, and in one smooth motion, it opened its mouth and then consud it, chewing contentedly.
"The fuck," Mr. Valen could not help but mutter despite his reserve, his face scrunched in disbelief. "Why... Did you eat it?"
If anyone else was in the room, they would express genuine confusion, as from an outside perspective, it appeared that Mr. Valen was speaking to thin air, or himself, both of which warranted confinent in an asylum.
The humanoid being, on the other hand, simply stared at him, peering quietly.
Both freaks stood there and engaged in a staring contest for a while before Mr. Valen redrew his gaze, the humanoid, on the other hand, dissipated into mist.
Opening the door, Mr. Valen was welcod by a horrific sight not portrayed in the vision: three corpses, one male, two female, left unattended.
The sll was putrid, a faint rot setting in, one that Mr. Valen found heavily unpleasant.
The bodies themselves appeared to be drained of blood, as there was little to none on the scene.
Turning to the male body, Mr. Valen found a middle-aged man, possibly in his fifties, with both his arms ripped off so cleanly that one could argue that he had not struggled at all, but the look of sheer horror on his lifeless face and the bruising on his neck spoke otherwise.
The woman was propped on the chair like so kind of doll, wearing a sundress, her neck split cleanly, but strangely enough, there was hardly any blood.
On the ground, was a younger girl, possibly the child of the man and woman, head bashed against the side table.
Now her plight was truly ssy, with the edge of the table lodged firmly in her skull, blood and brain matter still dripping out.
Looking more closely, Mr. Valen noted odd droplets of blood that were not from any of the bodies in the room, but from when Athyst had purposely sprinkled them.
So landed on the table, so on the wall; either way, all of these strongly tied him to the murder of these three people.
Massaging his temples, Mr. Valen let out a breath, walking into the room, he opened the closet and found rows of shirts and pants.
Scanning the closet, he found and wore a pair of pants, a shirt, and so feminine boots, his hands steady so as not to touch anything but what he tried to retrieve.
With this, he walked out of the room and to the kitchen, and opened the bottom drawer. There, he found rubber kitchen gloves, which he wore.
He then checked the rest of the kitchen cabinets and, other than fancy plates, cups, and other essentials, he found nothing of use, so he moved on.
With steady steps, his next target was the garage, which could be accessed by taking a door at the back.
This door led him to a short hall where he found three washing machines, above them was a cabinet containing cleaning supplies.
Upon opening it, he brought out a gallon of bleach and a toilet cleaner, nodding slightly in satisfaction before making his way back to the kitchen.
’What is that thing doing?’ Mr. Valen narrowed his eyes upon arriving and found his avatar peering out the kitchen windows, its deanor... Unsettling.
Walking up to it, chemicals in hand, Mr. Valen also peered out the window and saw that his avatar was staring at a bird, so he simply retrieved a big bowl and dumped the bleach into it, watching the liquid drain expressionlessly.
Just when he was about to dump in the toilet cleaner, his avatar suddenly snapped its head towards him, peering at him with such intensity that Mr. Valen felt it without even looking.
In that mont, a mory flashed in his head, and he rembered words that his mother, the Shadow Stalker, had said to him.
Though he could not rember her face, he faintly rembered that he was helping her clean up a cri scene when she spotted him about to make the sa mistake.
It was dark.
"Mixing Hydrochloric Acid and Sodium Hypochlorite isn’t the best idea," she said and like any other kid, he asked. "Why?"
And she answered. "The combination creates Chlorine Gas, and though it’s unharmful to , you’d probably die, also... We wouldn’t be able to use it anymore."
With that mory, Mr. Valen stopped his attempt to pour the toilet cleaner and rather picked up a sponge and the bowl.
He then began ticulously wiping every surface he rembered touching, every surface where Athyst had dropped his blood.
After almost an hour of working, Mr. Valen took in a breath, the heavy, chemical stench of bleach assaulting his nostrils.
Keeping his breath steady, he made his way back to the hallway where he had gotten the bleach from.
From there, he opened a glass section in the wall with lots of levers, controlling the water. He then turned off the water system and made his way to the garage.
Turning on the light, a single bulb wrestled to life casting a feverish yellow glow that died at the edges of the vast space.
They slled of oil, and more oil.
Tools hung from a pegboard like so kind of display, and the husk of a dead lawnmower could be seen under dust-covered tarps.
Like the rest of the house, the place was cold, the kind of cold that seeped up from the floor and into the bones of a naked man.
His avatar, standing at a darker corner of the room seed more sinister here, more evil, but he paid it no mind.
Rather, his attention stuck to a garden hose and he moved towards it, his gloves slling of bleach.
Quickly, he snatched the hose, his fingers testing its rigidity, ’This will do,’ he thought as his eyes swept the shelves, past paint cans and jars of nails, and landed on a red plastic jerrycan ant for gasoline.
He then grabbed it, shaking it to confirm it was empty, the slosh of a few residual drops making a sound in the quiet room.
He then brought his attention to the car, a hulking old sedan, which was parked near the garage door, hood open.
Thankfully, the fuel cap was a simple screw-on, so he unscrewed it and the sweet, pungent odor of gasoline blood into the air, prompting him to narrow his eyes.
The shadowy avarter watched quietly from the side, its eyes never blinking.
It watched as Mr. Valen fed one end of the hose deep into the car’s throat, listening for the soft plink as it breached the surface of the fuel within.
He then withdrew it from the tank and took the hose to a utility sink crusted with paint, its space filled with dirty water.
Quietly, he subrged the entire length of the hose in it with a sick plunge and watched as the air bubbles stopped, before capping both ends with his thumbs, trapping the water inside.
With hurried steps, he moved back to the car, and in one fluid motion, he thrust one end into the gas tank and dunked the other into the jerry can, releasing his thumbs.
For a terrifying second, nothing happened.
Then, a stream of clear water, followed by a shudder, and a gush of golden, shimring gasoline erupted from the hose, splashing noisily into the plastic container.
Quietly he watched, the fus making his head light.
When he was done with all this, he began, sprinkling splashes of gasoline everywhere, making a trail back to the living room.
And upstairs, and finally to the room where the three dead bodies of the family lay.
He made sure to properly soak each corpse, and then moved to the kitchen where he used up the last droplets.
At that mont, he noticed that they used a gas stove, so he turned on the cooker, letting the fus seep into the air.
He then walked up to the entrance of the building and sat, waiting for a while.
The human shadow watched Mr. Valen, who seed to be in deep thought, its head tilted slightly.
Soon it observed as Mr. Valen stood up, and seed a bit confused by this action. But when it saw him light a match, a visible smile spread across its face, exposing chilling, needle-like teeth that glead with an unnatural whiteness (a stark contrast to its shadowy form).
It then watched as Mr. Valen tossed the match on the ground, flas erupting along the trail of fuel he had created.
At that mont, he sensed sothing deep in the woods around him, sothing watching him and his avatar seed to sense it as well, both figures looking in the distance-
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