It was already past midnight, yet the streets were still busy.

Some individuals walked alone, while others gathered in small groups near open stalls and dim bars.

The crowd here was mostly between eighteen and thirty-five, with only a few older ones mixed in.

From the information got from her phone, this place was known as a spot where people came to drink and lose control. It was obvious from the start.

Women passed by in outfits that drew attention. Some wore very revealing shorts, while others wore dresses that showed more than usual.

At this hour, that kind of attention often came with risk.

Men stared as they walked past. Others leaned closer to whisper, their eyes following them their bottom area as they moved away.

Few who were bold enough started hitting on them. Some women shook their heads and walked away without slowing down.

Others smiled and chose to go with them if the men looked good enough, disappearing into the night for brief, careless company.

But none of that really caught Francis’s attention.

His focus stayed elsewhere.

The thought of reviving his daughters defined him.

Everything else lost its meaning. The noise of the street, the laughter, even the gorgeous women passing by all faded into the background.

To him, this place was nothing more than a hunting ground.

Francis made Samantha slow her steps and kept her in the blind spots of nearby CCTV cameras. With parasite eyes, spotting them became much easier.

’Potential targets.’

Four young adults stood outside the bar. Their voices were loud. Bottles rested on the table beside them. One of them nearly lost his balance when he stood up.

Francis made a note of their movements and faces, and he noticed clear signs of substance abuse.

He dealt with so many in his past life that spotting these details became second nature.

’Drunk. High on drugs too. Perfect.’

One of them noticed her first. Soon, the others followed, trailing behind her like sharks drawn to blood.

"Miss... you okay?" they asked, assuming her stiff steps meant she was drunk and easy to take advantage of.

Francis did not answer. Instead, he made Samantha glance at them for a moment, letting them see her face, then turned her gaze away.

"Wow... did you see that? That girl is a 10 out of 10!" they shouted, breaking into excited cheers as they quickened their pace.

"You’re right. I’ve never seen someone that pretty, except in those magazines I jerked off."

Samantha, still unaware she was being used as bait, turned toward the alley.

The men following her were completely fooled. They thought she was leading them there on purpose 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Well, they were not wrong, but their twisted fantasy was different from what was about to happen.

She kept walking, turning through corners, only speeding up slightly whenever they got closer.

The men did not think much of it. They kept following her, caught up in their own lust, until they reached a dead end.

The place was quiet and empty. No sane person would come here alone unless they were doing something they were not supposed to.

The four men started laughing as they cornered her. Their hands pressed against the wall, blocking any escape route.

"Hey pretty girl." The tallest man grinned. "We’re guessing you brought us here because you want to have some fun with all four of us. You into that kind of thing?"

"I..." Samantha slowly lifted her head.

The men leaned in, excited to see her beautiful face.

At first, nothing looked wrong.

But the moment the moonlight hit her skin, something was off.

The first crack appeared near her cheek.

A thin line split open.

The man closest to her froze. "...huh?"

The line widened.

Then another one split open.

And another.

From underneath, small eyes began to open.

Not one.

Not two.

Dozens.

Seeing such a gruesome scene made the already intoxicated men confused, before fear set in. For a second, they even thought they had taken too many drugs and were hallucinating.

The tallest man stumbled back. "Yo — no, no, no..."

One of them tried to grab his friend, but his hand missed entirely. "What is that... what is that?!"

Samantha’s arms twitched, and she pulled out the knife she had been hiding before swinging it.

The blade opened the first man’s throat in a single clean arc. He grabbed at the wound with both hands — a reflex, nothing more — then crumpled.

At the same time, she pivoted her body like a broken marionette. Her other arm swung out in a movement that looked too weird and uncoordinated to work properly, yet it still hit its target.

The second man caught the blade across his side, just below the ribs. He gasped and staggered sideways into the chain-link fence, clawing at it for support.

"Help — somebody — please —"

crack!

She drove the blade through the back of his head, forcing it out through his mouth.

Blood, saliva, and brain matter gushed out and pooled on the ground after she pulled the knife back

The last pair tried to run, but their intoxicated state made them unsteady. Samantha caught up to them easily and struck their legs and abdomen, stopping them from escaping.

Then she dropped onto one with her full weight, pinning him down, and raised the knife.

"No... please, no. Don’t kill me," He was still calling out.

Still believing, on some level, that if he was loud enough — if the words were right — something merciful would answer.

"Please—I’m still young... please don’t kill me."

He looked up.

And found her face.

Whatever he had been hoping for.

Whatever desperate, irrational image his mind had conjured in that final reach for mercy. It died the moment he saw her.

There was nothing there.

Her face was a ruin of cracked skin and wet, blinking eyes, and not a single one of them carried mercy.

The first blow landed in his shoulder.

"AHHHH!" his voice broke as pain took over.

The second landed lower.

"NO!!!!"

He was still talking between sobs — still saying please, still saying stop.

But the words were losing their shape. His hands came up weakly, fingers trembling, trying to push her away.

They found her wrists and held nothing.

Few meters away, the second survivor managed to pull himself along the fence.

One hand still pressed to his side, the other dragging him forward inch by inch.

His body gave out before he made it three feet.

Samantha rose and walked toward him without urgency.

The dozens of small eyes across her skin caught the moonlight, watching and blinking before the final blow was delivered.

Almost immediately, silence returned.

Only one figure remained standing—a woman who became a murderer against her own will—and four corpses, because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Francis did not care about any of that. He controlled her, and she began gutting them with her knives, extracting the liver.

crack!

A mouth opened on her stomach, wide and unnatural, as if something inside had forced its way through the skin.

Francis fed on the livers, and he could feel energy surging back into him.

’More... I need more.’