GHOST DETECTIVE

The sixth...

It began with silence.

Not even the usual mechanical hum of the lab. No chanting. No muttering. Just Gawin, standing still in the dark, his reflection fractured across the glass of the massive tube where Joss's body floated.

Then he moved.

Methodical.

He reached for his coat and gloves, each motion deliberate. No urgency. No emotion.

Joss (murmuring):
"You're going out again, aren't you... Another one?"

Gawin didn't respond. Didn't even blink. But Joss could feel it—something inside him was shifting. Like tension tightening on a wire just before it snaps.

Joss tried to hold back as Gawin left, but the tether yanked him forward, dragging his spirit like smoke behind the man he was forever bound to.

The streets were empty.

Rain slicked the pavement. Neon signs blinked like weak heartbeats. Gawin moved through the city like a shadow—seen, but never noticed.

He entered the condemned theater near the river—an old art house fallen into rot and mold. The perfect place for another masterpiece.

Joss hovered by the entrance, dreading what he knew was about to happen.

And then—the sixth victim.

They were already there, dazed. 

Drugged? Willingly? It didn't matter. 

Gawin moved behind them, gentle, almost reverent. He whispered something into their ear.

They didn't scream.

They didn't run.

The ritual began.

Later, when the body was found, the scene chilled the investigation team to the bone.

In the theater's decaying main hall, the victim sat in a pristine red velvet chair—posed, upright, facing the cracked screen. A film reel played behind them, casting flickering shadows on a face that no longer lived.