The Villain – Chapter 3: The Lonely House

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The Villain – Chapter 3: The Lonely House

The city screamed Sully’s name in terror, yet no one had ever seen his face. They searched in mansions, in nightclubs, in hidden bunkers where the rich hid from their guilt. But no one ever looked at the abandoned edges of the city, where broken windows stared like blind eyes and weeds grew through cracked pavements.

There, hidden in plain sight, Sully lived.

To the world, he was a phantom. But in truth, he was simply a 38-year-old man, forgotten and overlooked, blending into crowds like dust in the wind. He carried groceries sometimes, walked past policemen, even sat in cafés—yet not a single soul ever remembered his face. He had made himself ordinary, invisible.

The house he called home was nothing but a ruin—peeling wallpaper, shattered furniture, and a piano with broken keys. Yet, to Sully, it was sanctuary. The outside world saw emptiness. He saw silence. Silence that gave him freedom.

That night, rain tapped against the rusted roof as Sully sat by the window, staring into the dark horizon. The glow of the city flickered faintly in the distance, but here, there was nothing but shadows and echoes. He reached for the old record player on the shelf, its gears squeaking like an old man’s bones.

He set the needle down. A soft tune began to play—scratchy, imperfect, but hauntingly beautiful.

And then, a voice.

Not his. A boy’s voice, recorded long ago, filled the hollow house. The boy sang of sorrow, of loneliness, of tears that fell apart like broken glass. The voice trembled but carried innocence, the kind only children could possess.

Sully closed his eyes.

The echo of that boy’s song wrapped around him, stirring something deep, something buried beneath years of silence and blood. His lips twitched, and for the first time in days, a sound escaped him.

A laugh.

It was low at first, almost reluctant, then stronger. The boy’s recorded voice sang with emotion, and Sully’s laughter tangled with it, creating a strange harmony—music and madness woven together.

“Tears fall apart…” the boy sang.

Sully repeated softly, “…but we remain.”

For a moment, the killer was not a ghost, not a monster, but a man remembering something he had once lost: companionship. Love.

In the hollow house, the walls carried the echoes—child’s voice and man’s laughter—spinning into something almost joyous, almost alive.

He remembered the boy. Not the world’s boy, but his. A boy who had once looked at him with unshaken trust, who had loved him in silence when the rest of the world turned away. Their bond had been strange, pure yet scarred by tragedy. And though time had buried that past, the music unearthed it again, like bones rising from the ground.

Sully opened his eyes, staring into the cracked mirror across the room. His reflection was a stranger—unkempt hair, hollow cheeks, a face lined with solitude. Yet in his ears, the boy’s laughter still lived.

He reached out, touching the mirror gently.

“You were the only one who saw me,” he whispered.

The house seemed to breathe with him. Every broken wall, every creaking floorboard carried their memory. The music played on, the boy’s voice breaking into higher notes as if crying to the heavens.

Sully laughed again, louder this time, tears burning his eyes but never falling. He was a villain to the city, a killer to the world. But here, in the ruins, he was simply a man clinging to the only fragment of love he had ever known.

The record crackled. The boy’s song ended. Silence reclaimed the room.

Sully sat there, chest heaving, as the echoes of their laughter still danced in the air.

And then he whispered, almost to himself, “They’ll never take this from me.”

Outside, thunder roared, and the rain grew heavier, drowning the city’s streets. Somewhere far away, another man in a suit raised a glass of wine, thinking himself untouchable.

But Sully had already chosen his next song.

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⚡ Cliffhanger Ending:

As Sully switched the record, faint footsteps echoed outside the abandoned house. Someone was nearby. Someone was listening.

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