Chapter 11 - The Paralyzing Truth
"You think you're saving people, Detective," Clara sneered, her voice shifting into a choir of dead voices.
"You think Samuel Carter was your ancestor."
"Samuel didn't try to stop me—he created me."
"He was obsessed with living forever, so he traded his daughter's soul to tether himself to time."
"You aren't a detective who stumbled onto a case."
"You are Samuel's splintered conscience, doomed to hunt your own sin forever."
Noah staggered back, the weight of the realization striking him harder than a physical blow.
His memories flashed before his eyes—not fifteen years of solving murders, but a century of repeating them.
Every victim he had ever investigated in Black Pine had been a version of himself or his descendants.
He looked down at his gun, then at the cassette recorder attached to his belt.
The digital timer on the recorder was counting down.
May you like
00:02... 00:01... 00:00.
The clock struck 3:17 a.m. deep underground.
