Jim left the center, weighed down by clouds of doubt and despair. His face was a blank slate, reflecting nothing but a killing emptiness. His thoughts tumbled like leaves in a tornado; every certainty shattered, replaced by a loaded question. The whisper inside him repeated: The killer wins. The winner is always the one who writes the rules, the one who directs the compass.
"Why?" he whispered at the exit door, his words dissolving into London's cold fog. "Why is he doing this? And why now? Why is everything... about me?"
He turned his head for one last look at the massive building. In that moment, he was gathering the fragments of long years spent within its walls—victories that once seemed like mountains, now crumbling to dust. Deep down, he felt he was seeing this place for the final time. A vile internal prophecy told him that the "Jim" who had entered this door thousands of times would leave today, only to cease to be. And when he returned—if he returned—he would return as something else, a different, distorted entity.
He got in his car and drove away, his world now occupied solely by his family. If the killer still had two victims whose disappearances hadn't yet been announced, and if all the threads led to him, then it was logical that these two potential victims would be from his inner circle. His family would need him now more than ever, more than chasing a fate that had become obscure and dark.
He arrived home, where the guards stood like statues on their patrols. They saluted him, but he passed by like a shadow, indifferent to their reaction. Even Dougie the dog, who jumped playfully, trying to get his master's attention, received only complete absence. He continued his march through the house until he collapsed onto the sofa and turned on the TV.
He wasn't looking for the news, filled with pictures of corpses and speculation, nor for fake entertainment programs. Instead, he immersed himself in another world—a documentary about animals. A world where the laws were clear, instincts were pure, and everyone was "in their nature," without pretense or masks. He stayed awake for hours, his eyes devouring a recurring scene: a pride of lions encircling a small honey badger, trying in vain to prey on it.
"Dad, why won't that little thing give up?"
Jack's voice cut through the room's silence, rubbing his sleepy eyes as he looked at the screen.
Jim looked at his son, surprised, then said, "I think I woke you, Sorry. Well... he doesn't give up because it's not an act or pretend bravery. It's his nature. He isn't pretending or anything; he was simply born that way."
"Wow," Jack said with sleep-admiring awe, "Just like you, Dad."
Jim smiled a bitter smile and looked back at the TV, where the lions were retreating, defeated by the tenacity of the small creature who stood its ground, unbowed despite its injuries. He turned off the TV, whispering to himself in a secret-like hush: "No... not like me."
He rose and accompanied his son to his room, tucking him in under the warm comforter before closing the door behind him. But he didn't lie down on his own bed. Instead, he slid onto the floor, exhausted, defeated, steeped in the smell of his own sweat and disappointment. He slept there, on the cold floor, with a swift and complete surrender, like a soldier on a lost battlefield.
In the morning, he woke to the sound of a sparrow chirping on his balcony. He turned on the floor and looked at it, then sat watching it for a moment, as if searching for a message in its wild behavior. He finally stood and looked at the clock: two in the afternoon.
"I must have been tired," he whispered, rubbing his stiff back.
After showering, washing away some of yesterday's nightmare, and eating a little without appetite, he headed to his study. He stood contemplating the pictures on the wall—images of the past, the victims, his colleagues. "Impossible," he whispered, "Impossible for the killer to be one of those foreigners, or even William. But one thing is certain... they are all his message. Even the rat."
Then he approached the picture scrawled with the word "SOON" in blood.
"The killer wants to send a message to me... Am I the cause of all this? In the death of all these victims?"
The dam of memories burst open:
"Yes... I am. That girl... what was her name... Mary...yes Mary. She told me she had a pain in her stomach, but I was selfish, only thinking of my own fate. And because of that... she died. Why did I persist in my selfishness? Even though I thought my old self had died... Now I suppose it's back."
He looked out the window and saw the ghost of his reflection in the glass. "I understand now... that is my nature. I can't get rid of it. I only abandoned it when I was safe. Now, surrounded, my old self has emerged. The devil... has appeared."
He collapsed into the chair, shattered, rethinking everything. Minutes, then hours, passed. Jim, who once thought he could face anything, found himself completely broken. He sat there, at midnight, while the communication device rang incessantly. Soon's voice pierced the silence:
"Jim!Jim! Answer me! Can you hear me? Answer! We're out of time!"
But Jim remained seated, staring into the void. He tried to reach his hand toward the device, but his hand trembled and refused to touch reality, or attempt to change it. He had surrendered to the future's outcome, surrendered to the idea that some destinies are written and cannot be erased. But, deep down, he had not surrendered to the idea that his end was the inevitable result.
He whispered, suddenly, like one finding a key in utter darkness:
"I've got it... I can avoid it all."
He rose quickly and went to his wife's bedroom. He bent down and gently kissed her forehead.
"Aren't you coming to sleep?"she whispered drowsily.
"No,"he replied quietly, "I still have something to do."
Then he went to his children's room and kissed them one by one, tears overwhelming him as he imagined their future without him. "The thought of you not having a father... but my greatest fear... is for your father to be a cowardly criminal who committed suicide to escape prison."
He even said goodbye to Dougie, who licked his hands as if he understood.
"Take care of them."
The dog let out a mournful howl, a howl that understood the truth but was powerless to express it.
Jim left the house and said to the guards in his hollow voice,
"Don't leave this place. And stay vigilant. Evil... is everywhere."
He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and began to wander through London's dark streets. He walked between sleeping houses, through narrow alleys, then onto the large, deserted main roads. He stopped in a major intersection, in the heart of the city whose pulse had momentarily stilled. He took out a cigarette and lit it, taking slow drags of smoke as if inhaling his last moments of peace. But the pure, cold rain extinguished the cigarette with cruelty. He threw it aside.
And he remained standing in the middle of the intersection, soaked to the bone, watching everyone scurrying to escape the life-filled water droplets, the cars speeding to evade a wet fate. While he stood, steadfast, like a stone in a river's flow.
Then he took a step.
One step forward,directly onto the path of fate.
He advanced toward the path of the speeding white truck.
Jim stood before it, directly in its path. He looked into the headlights rushing toward him, the rain falling in slow motion, clear as tears of shattered glass before their dazzling light. Everything became slow, heavy, except for the memories racing like lightning before his eyes.
Jim surrendered.
And perhaps,in the end, this was the essence of his true nature all along.