The rain hammered down on Bangkok like a grudge that wouldn't die. Neon lights blurred behind rivulets running down Dr. Anurak Thanawan’s windshield as his car idled in the hospital parking lot. He stared out at the darkness, knuckles white on the steering wheel, heartbeat just a little too fast for a man who claimed to feel nothing.

He was always calm. Always calculated. But tonight, something was off.

In the passenger seat lay a leather folder—inside it, the file of his most recent patient: Preecha Donsakul, 62, stage four pancreatic cancer. Unbearable pain. No hope. No family. And now… dead.

Anurak had been the last one in the room. Again.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, listening to the rhythm of the rain and the distant thrum of life pulsing through the city. His voice recorder was still in his coat pocket. The conversation with Preecha had been recorded. Consent had been given. The cocktail had been administered. Legal gray areas danced between the shadows, but he had always been careful.

Until now.

His phone buzzed.

UNKNOWN NUMBER

He frowned, hesitated, then answered.

“Doctor Thanawan,” said a voice—distorted, genderless, as cold as a morgue drawer. “How many more must you kill before someone stops you?”

The call cut off.

Anurak stared at the phone, his breath caught in his chest like a confession.

---

Across the city, in a dimly lit office above a steaming street of hawker stalls and motorbike chaos, Detective Kamon Suriyapornchai leaned over a corkboard littered with names, photos, and red strings. He rubbed his temples with nicotine-stained fingers, the ash from his third cigarette falling on his shirt. The air was thick with humidity and frustration.

Seven deaths. All within six months. All terminal patients. All under the same palliative care team.

Kam's eyes settled on a black-and-white photo of Dr. Anurak Thanawan.

"Too clean," he muttered. "Too fucking clean."

A knock on the glass door interrupted his thoughts.

It was his rookie partner, Mali, her expression tight. “Sir, a journalist’s here. Says he got a call you’ll want to hear.”

---

Phupha Rojanaphruk sat in the station’s stale waiting area, scrolling through his voice memo app. The 28-year-old wore a denim jacket with a rainbow flag patch and black nail polish chipped at the edges. His eyes were bright but restless—like a man who danced too close to flames for a living.

Kamon sat opposite him, eyes narrowed. “You're the activist who live-streamed that protest outside the Ministry of Health last month.”

“You watched?” Phupha smiled, sharp and easy. “Flattered.”

“Don't be. What do you have?”

Phupha clicked play. The voice was the same—distorted, mechanical.

“You want a story? Try this: A doctor is killing people and calling it mercy. One of them was never dying. Find him before I do.”

Kamon sat back, jaw tight.

“You recognize the voice?” Phupha asked.

“No. But I recognize a challenge when I hear one.”

Phupha leaned forward. “So do I.”

---

Two nights later, Anurak stood on the edge of a rooftop garden—his sanctuary atop a luxury apartment building in Thonglor. The city lights below blinked like dying stars. A cigarette burned between his fingers, forgotten. He hadn't smoked in years, but something about the call cracked open an old craving.

His doorbell rang. He frowned. No one visited unannounced.

He opened the door to a tall man in a wrinkled shirt and cynical eyes. Kamon flashed his badge.

“Dr. Anurak Thanawan?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Detective Kamon Suriyapornchai. I’d like to ask you a few questions. About your patients.”

“I have many.”

Kamon stepped inside without waiting. “I’m interested in the dead ones.”

---

The interview was formal, but the tension was not. Kamon asked about ethics, consent, paperwork. Anurak answered with the calm precision of a scalpel. But beneath it all, Kamon saw something in his eyes—pain, maybe. Or guilt.

“You think I killed them,” Anurak said finally.

“I think something doesn’t add up.”

Silence.

Then Anurak said, “Do you believe in mercy, Detective?”

“I believe in justice.”

“They’re not always the same thing.”

Kamon looked at him for a long moment. “Tell that to the family of Supat Wongchai.”

Anurak froze.

“Supat?” he said quietly.

“He was your patient. Supposedly dying. But the autopsy says otherwise.”

A beat passed.

Anurak whispered, “That’s not possible.”

Kamon’s phone buzzed. Another anonymous tip.

The voice again:

“Tick tock. One of you is lying. One of you is next.”

---

Later that night, Phupha stood outside a bar in Silom, watching the rain trace lines across his camera lens. He was filming something—anything—to distract from the dread crawling up his spine.

His phone rang. Same blocked number.

“Curiosity is a dangerous thing,” the voice said.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the one cleaning up what people like Anurak start. Want to see real mercy? I’ll show you.”

Click.

The camera slipped from his hand.

Across the city, a nurse was found dead in her apartment. Her body staged, a photo in her hand.

It was of Dr. Anurak.

With the words “He lets them die. I make sure they do.” scrawled across her chest in red lipstick.

---

TO BE CONTINUED...

The morgue was cold, but Kamon had grown used to the chill. He stood over the nurse’s body, jaw clenched as the forensic pathologist peeled back the sheet.

“Cause of death?” Kamon asked.

“Lethal injection,” Dr. Tida replied. “Midazolam and morphine. Same cocktail used in palliative care. But there are no signs she self-administered. Someone did it for her. Or to her.”

Kamon’s mouth went dry. “And the lipstick?”

“Lab says it’s a match to one brand. Same as found in Supat Wongchai’s bathroom. It could mean nothing. Or everything.”

He stared at the message scrawled across the nurse’s chest again:

“He lets them die. I make sure they do.”

A signature? A statement? A provocation?

This wasn’t just murder.

This was a message.

Across town, Anurak stood barefoot in his living room, trembling slightly. His recorder played back the last conversation with the nurse—Kanlaya, 29, bright, idealistic, troubled by what she called "silent suffering."

> “Do you ever wonder if we’re gods or monsters?” she had asked.

“We’re neither,” Anurak had replied. “We’re shadows. We just help them walk into the dark with dignity.”

She’d cried after that. He remembered the way her hands had shaken when she signed the latest consent forms. And now she was dead.

He should have known.

The guilt clung to him like sweat. He picked up his phone, dialed Kamon’s number.

No answer.

He scrolled through to a contact he hadn’t used in over a year.

Sakon (ex)

He hovered his thumb over it—then closed the screen.

Instead, he walked into his bathroom, filled the tub, stripped, and slid in. The water muffled the city outside. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what peace felt like.

The phone rang again.

Same distorted voice:

“You were wrong about Kanlaya. She believed in mercy. But you left the door open. I stepped through.”

He hurled the phone across the room.

Kamon watched the sun rise over the Chao Phraya River, cigarette between his lips, eyes burning from lack of sleep. Phupha stood beside him, arms crossed, no longer just a journalist—now part of the storm.

“They’re framing him,” Phupha said. “Or he’s slipping.”

Kamon looked at him. “You seem invested.”

Phupha met his gaze without flinching. “I know what it’s like to be accused of things just for being who you are. People like Anurak… they live in the cracks of what society allows. That makes them dangerous. Or vulnerable.”

“You think he’s innocent?”

“I think he’s too precise to be this sloppy. If he wanted her dead, she’d disappear. Not become a billboard.”

Kamon sighed. “Or he’s losing control.”

Phupha hesitated. “I want to talk to him.”

Kamon raised an eyebrow. “That’s not safe.”

“Neither is being gay in this city. We do it anyway.”

Anurak opened the door to find Phupha standing there, soaked from the rain, camera bag over one shoulder.

“I brought food,” Phupha said with a small grin.

“You brought questions,” Anurak corrected, but stepped aside.

They sat on the couch, silence settling like fog. Phupha handed him sticky rice and grilled pork. “You need to eat. You look like a ghost.”

“I feel like one.”

A pause.

“Why do you do it?” Phupha asked. “The euthanasia work?”

Anurak stared into the shadows. “Because I believe people should choose how they end. Not beg for it.”

Phupha nodded. “And you never cross the line?”

“I thought I hadn’t.”

Silence again. Then Phupha leaned in, voice low. “Someone is trying to turn you into a monster.”

Anurak met his eyes—and for a moment, there was something electric. Something dangerous.

“Then let’s find them before they do.”

That night, Kamon returned home to his apartment above a noodle shop. The moment he stepped inside, he knew something was off.

The lights were off. The air was still. A faint scent of lavender.

He drew his gun.

Moved slowly down the hall.

Into his bedroom.

The message was waiting on the wall, written in blood-red paint:

“Detective. If you don’t stop looking, you’ll see too much.”

His bedsheets had been neatly turned down.

And on his pillow—

—a photo of him and Anurak from the hospital’s security feed.

Side by side. Smiling faintly.

As if it had already begun.

TO BE CONTINUED...

The message on Kamon's wall wouldn’t wash off.

He’d tried everything detergent, bleach, even a paint scraper. Still, the ghost of the red words clung stubbornly to the wall like a curse.

He stared at it again, arms crossed, shirtless in the dim kitchen light.

"Detective. If you don’t stop looking, you’ll see too much."

He didn’t know what pissed him off more that someone had invaded his home, or that they'd made it personal.

His phone vibrated on the counter.

Phupha: "He’s spiraling. Meet us. 10PM. Rooftop bar, Soi 11. Trust me."

Kamon rubbed a hand over his face. Trust was hard to give especially to men like Phupha, who wielded charm like a weapon. But something about that message... and the way the stalker operated... told him the trap was already closing.

If they didn’t bait it soon, they’d all be the ones bleeding.

---

The rooftop bar pulsed with low music and the haze of incense. Phupha leaned against the railing with a drink, eyes on the skyline. Anurak stood near him, still and silent, dressed in black, looking like he belonged more at a funeral than a cocktail lounge.

Kamon joined them, nodding to both. “You sure this isn’t a date?”

“Only if you're jealous,” Phupha teased.

Kamon ignored the jab. “What's the plan?”

Phupha handed him a flash drive. “Someone accessed Kanlaya’s hospital terminal hours before her death. I had a friend in IT trace the login. It came from inside the hospital but not her department. Palliative records. Falsified charts. One of them is Supat Wongchai.”

Anurak's jaw clenched. “I never touched that record.”

“Exactly,” Phupha said. “So who did?”

Kamon looked at the drive, then at Anurak. “Someone's setting you up from inside.”

Anurak’s gaze darkened. “Then I want to know who. And why.”

Phupha finished his drink. “We go in tonight. Quiet. I have a pass.”

Kamon raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to break into a government hospital?”

Phupha smirked. “Only a little.”

---

The hospital at 2:17 a.m. was a different creature dim corridors, flickering lights, nurses sleeping upright at desks. Anurak led them through back halls he knew intimately, their footsteps hushed.

They reached the records wing.

“Three minutes,” Phupha whispered, kneeling at the terminal.

Anurak stood watch, eyes scanning every shadow.

Kamon leaned close. “You always break laws this easily?”

Phupha whispered, “Only the ones that need breaking.”

A file opened. Kamon's eyes narrowed.

“What's that?” he asked.

“Video logs,” Phupha said. “Night shifts. The night Supat died.”

He clicked play.

The grainy footage showed Supat’s room dim, silent.

Then, movement.

Not Anurak.

Someone in scrubs, smaller. Female? No badge.

The figure moved to Supat’s IV, adjusted something, then… smiled at the camera.

Paused.

And held up a sign:

“Mercy is not for everyone.”

Phupha whispered, “What the actual fuck?”

---

Outside, in the car, the air was thick with tension.

“She knew the cameras were there,” Kamon said. “She wanted to be seen. But not identified.”

“She’s making it a game,” Anurak murmured. “And I’m the scapegoat.”

Kamon shook his head. “Not just you. She’s dismantling your credibility, your ethics, your life. And now mine too.”

Phupha looked between them. “We have to go deeper. We need to bait her.”

Kamon sighed. “That’s risky.”

“So is waiting for another body.”

A long silence followed. Then Anurak, voice steady: “Use me.”

Both men turned.

“What?” Kamon asked.

“Put me on a list,” Anurak said. “Let it leak. Say I’m under surveillance. She’s watching. She’ll panic. Make a move.”

Kamon looked at him for a long moment. “You’re not afraid of dying?”

Anurak’s smile was bitter. “I’ve already lost more than life can take.”

---

Later that night, back in Anurak’s condo, Phupha stayed behind while Kamon left to draft the official leak.

Rain battered the windows again.

“I shouldn't be here,” Phupha said, peeling off his wet jacket.

“You are.”

“I don’t sleep with sources.”

“Then don’t call me one.”

Anurak moved closer, eyes unreadable.

Phupha whispered, “This is a bad idea.”

“I’ve lived with ghosts long enough. Tonight, I need something real.”

And when their mouths met, it wasn’t fireworks. It was thunder hungry and quiet and aching. Flesh seeking solace. Hands gripping bruises only time could see.

It wasn’t about love.

Not yet.

It was about survival.

And maybe that was the most honest kind of intimacy there was.

---

Across town, the woman in the scrubs watched from a laptop in the shadows of an abandoned clinic. The footage showed the kiss. The tangled limbs. The way Anurak’s head tilted back in surrender.

She smiled.

The voice modulator lay on the table beside her.

She picked it up.

Recorded one more message.

“Love makes you weak. I’ll remind him why he never should have loved at all.”

She clicked send.

And planned her next mercy.

---

TO BE CONTINUED...