2026-02-09 20:15:21The silence that followed the roar of the engine and the gunshots in the apartment felt suffocating. Inside the cramped SUV cabin, the only sound was the windshield wipers squeaking as they swept rain from the glass. The sharp stench of gunpowder still clung to Eduardo’s jacket, mixed with the metallic smell of blood drying between his fingers.
Eduardo gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. Every few seconds, he glanced at the rearview mirror, making sure no police strobes were chasing them.
“Edu… you’re bleeding again,” Emily’s voice broke the silence. The tremor in it revealed how close she was to a complete breakdown.
Eduardo did not answer. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Sure enough, thick red liquid flowed again, this time faster.
[WARNING: ADRENALINE OVERDRIVE HAS FULLY ENDED.]
[ADDITIONAL COST: CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM DAMAGE DETECTED.]
“Argh!” Eduardo groaned through clenched teeth.
The pain struck like thousands of needles driven straight into his brain. His vision blurred. The world ahead seemed to sway violently. Eduardo lost control for a split second, the SUV veering toward the curb before he yanked the wheel back into the lane.
“Daddy! Daddy, what’s wrong?!” Chloe screamed from the back seat, bursting into tears again.
“I… I’m fine. Just a little dizzy,” Eduardo rasped. His voice sounded like sandpaper scraping steel.
He jerked the SUV to a stop on the side of a dark road, far from any streetlights. The moment the engine died, Eduardo slumped forward, his head hitting the horn and producing a long, piercing TIIIIIT that hurt the ears.
“Eduardo!” Emily immediately unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned toward him, gripping his shoulders. “Look at me! Open your eyes, Edu!”
Blood was no longer coming just from his nose. Eduardo felt a ringing in his ears, then warmth as blood began to seep from them as well. The System was collecting its debt. The monstrous strength he had used to butcher Claude’s men earlier had not come from muscle, but from what little mental stability he still possessed.
“Hah… hah… Emily…” Eduardo looked at his wife with eyes reddened by burst blood vessels.
“Yes, I’m here. We need to go to a hospital, Edu. This isn’t normal. You’re bleeding so badly!” Emily tried to wipe the blood from his face with the edge of her shirt.
Eduardo stared at Emily’s face. He saw her lips move, he heard her voice, but suddenly something felt wrong. A part of his soul felt as if it had been torn out. He looked at the woman in front of him, knowing she was his wife, the person he loved, but there was a massive hole in his memory.
“Em…” Eduardo whispered hoarsely. “Please tell me… what date did we get married?”
Emily froze. Her hand, mid-wipe, stopped in the air. “What? I just told you earlier, Edu. Are you joking again?”
“I’m not joking, damn it! Just answer!” Eduardo suddenly snapped. His emotions surged out of control, a side effect of the System that amplified his darker instincts.
Chloe flinched in the back seat, covering her ears as she curled in on herself.
Emily stared at Eduardo in horror. Tears fell from her eyes. “June twenty-fourth, Eduardo. June twenty-fourth! Why are you asking that again? Did you hit your head that hard?”
Eduardo closed his eyes. He tried to imagine a calendar, tried to picture the moment at the altar, but there was only darkness. He had lost it. The System had taken the memory of the most important day of his life as payment for Adrenaline Overdrive.
“Physical victory… paid with mental defeat,” Eduardo murmured softly, repeating words that seemed to surface from nowhere in his mind.
“What are you saying? You’re scaring me, Edu! You’re not the Eduardo I know!” Emily shouted in frustration. “You killed people earlier like you felt nothing, now you forget our wedding date? What is really happening to you, Edu?!”
“I saved your life, Emily! That’s what matters!” Eduardo shot back, his cold stare making Emily shudder. “If I hadn’t become that ‘monster,’ Marco would have raped you in front of our child by now! Is that what you wanted?!”
Emily fell silent. She could not deny that brutal truth. She looked at Eduardo’s trembling hands, the same hands that had crushed a human skull without hesitation.
“Daddy… please don’t fight,” Chloe whispered weakly through her sobs.
Hearing Chloe’s voice, Eduardo’s anger eased slightly. He took a deep breath, trying to steady his heartbeat that had been forcefully driven by the System. His head felt a little lighter, though a dull ache still throbbed behind his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Eduardo muttered. “I’m just… really stressed. We need to get out of here.”
“But your injuries?”
“I’m fine. Just side effects… from some medicine I took earlier,” Eduardo lied again. There was no way he could explain Grandpa Antonio or the insane System in his head.
He started the engine once more. The SUV roared, coughing out thin smoke from its dented hood.
“We need to switch cars as soon as possible. This one’s too noticeable,” Eduardo said as he guided the SUV back onto the road.
“Edu, where are we going? We don’t have money, we don’t have a destination…”
“I have a plan. Claude keeps a small safe in a shop near the night market. We need capital to run farther,” Eduardo said in a calculated tone. His emotions were fading, replaced by cold, tactical thinking as the System began to dominate his mindset.
The ten-minute drive felt like an eternity. Eduardo constantly watched the rearview mirror. Then, from the distance behind them, the sound he hated most returned.
WIIIIIII UUUUUU WIIIIIII UUUUUU!
Several police cars sped past in the opposite direction, heading toward their apartment. Eduardo saw the reflection of blue and red lights ripple across the windows.
“They’re already there,” Eduardo whispered. “We can’t go back. From this moment on, our old life is over.”
“Daddy, I’m sleepy,” Chloe said softly.
“Go to sleep, sweetheart. When you wake up, we’ll be somewhere safe,” Eduardo replied gently, even as his eyes remained sharp, scanning the road like a hawk.
Emily looked at her husband from the side. She saw Eduardo’s profile lit by dim streetlights. She saw the wounds, the blood, but what frightened her most was that she no longer saw the love that used to shine in his eyes.
Beside her, her husband looked like a weapon waiting to be cocked again.
“Eduardo,” Emily called quietly.
“Hm?”
“Hold me… just for a moment after we arrive. I need to know you’re still my husband.”
Eduardo fell silent. He felt the urge to snap, but there was a fragment of humanity left in the corner of his heart that felt pity. “Yeah. Later.”
The SUV continued driving through the intensifying rain, leaving the blood-soaked harbor district behind and heading toward a darker uncertainty. Eduardo knew the embrace Emily asked for would feel different. Because inside him, the Ghost was beginning to take the husband’s place.
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Ch 13. The Lost Memory
The world in Eduardo’s eyes felt like an old television broadcast that had lost its signal. Everything appeared gray, flickering, and filled with a deafening hiss of static. He could feel violent jolts, his back slamming against the stiff car seat, and the sharp smell of gasoline mixed with sweat stinging his nose. “Boss! Hey, Boss Eduardo! Wake up, damn it! Don’t die in my car. I just cleaned the seats with my spit this morning!” Gord’s voice sounded very far away, as if it were coming from underwater. Eduardo blinked his eyes, which felt glued shut by thick fluid. He touched his own face. Wet. Cold. When he looked at his palm under the dim glow of the streetlight, the color was not red. It was black. Pitch black, like bitter squid ink that smelled of rotten copper. “Hah... hah...” Eduardo jolted upright, his body shooting up so fast that his head slammed into the roof of the battered sedan. THUD! “Whoa, easy, Boss! You just passed out for ten minu
Ch 12. Dawn Raid on the Gambling Shop
The shop house on Roses Street stood arrogantly among rows of shabby buildings that seemed to have long surrendered to poverty. Behind its steel doors, Claude's football gambling operation pulsed like a dark heart, pumping dirty money into the mafia boss's pockets while the surrounding residents struggled to survive. Eduardo shut off the engine of the stolen sedan two blocks from the target. Pale blue dawn light washed across the asphalt, casting long shadows that looked like the fingers of death. "I can't believe you actually brought me here, Boss," Gord whispered while struggling with the zipper of his jacket that had jammed again. His cursed luck at work as usual. "This place is the most heavily guarded spot in the district. These guys aren't the market thugs you shot earlier. These are Claude's elite crew. They carry real toys, not rusty pistols." Eduardo did not look at him. His red eyes, the result of exhaustion and the strain of the system, stared coldly at the
Ch 11. The Madman's Luck
Eduardo crouched in the shadows behind a pile of rotting wooden crates, his eyes narrowing as he watched the dark comedy unfolding before him. In the middle of a narrow alleyway that reeked of stale urine, a scrawny man with wild, unruly hair was being systematically beaten by three large thugs. The man was Gord. He looked more like a failed vagrant than a fighter. Yet, there was something about him that kept Eduardo from turning away. "Die, you dog!" one of the thugs roared, swinging a thick wooden plank directly at Gord’s head. Gord, who was busy trying to spit out a mouthful of bloody phlegm, suddenly slipped on a banana peel that had appeared out of nowhere. His body flopped to the side in a ridiculously clumsy motion. CRACK! The wooden plank smashed into the concrete wall exactly where Gord’s head had been a split second before. Even more absurdly, the plank snapped clean in two. "Damn it! This wood is rotted through with termites!" the thug cursed, st
Ch 10. The Predator's Preparation
Eduardo stood in front of the motel door, its paint peeling and flaking, staring at the loose change left in his palm. There were only a few coins and one crumpled ten dollar bill. Enough to buy two pieces of cheap bread, not enough to pay for his family’s shattered dignity. He placed the money on the small table beside the bed, right next to Emily’s limp hand as she slept. Eduardo did not leave a note. A ghost left no messages. “I’m going to get breakfast,” he whispered softly, more to himself than to Emily, who might have been trapped in another nightmare. Eduardo stepped out of the room, closing the door so gently that not even a click was heard, a new habit formed since the Shadow Step system had taken root in his body. He walked toward the stolen sedan parked beneath a dark, leafy tree. Once in the driver’s seat, Eduardo checked his weapon. Rico’s Glock 17. “Two bullets,” he muttered, staring at the nearly empty magazine. “One for the lock, one for the sur
Ch 09. The Breathing Ghost
The mirror above the motel sink was crusted with grime and split by cracks, reflecting a man Eduardo barely recognized as himself. He pulled off his shirt, which now looked more like a blood-soaked rag than clothing. Under the flickering neon light, his body was a horrifying sight. His skin was pale as porcelain, yet his muscles appeared denser, more pronounced, as if forcibly carved from within. On his left side was a stab wound from Jojo’s knife that had slipped between his ribs. It was no longer bleeding heavily. Instead, a clear fluid mixed with black flecks pulsed from it. “Damn it,” Eduardo hissed. He grabbed the rough motel hand towel, clenched it between his teeth, then poured cheap alcohol he had found in the stolen car’s first aid kit directly onto the wound. “ARGHH!!!” The scream was muffled by the towel. The pain was not just a surface sting, but like electrical current burning through his nerves. Strangely, in the middle of that agony, a system not
Ch 08. Flight Beneath the Rain
The SUV’s worn tires screamed as Eduardo wrenched the steering wheel, forcing the vehicle onto a muddy dirt path. Rain poured down relentlessly, as if the sky itself wanted to drown this city of sins. Inside the car, the atmosphere felt colder than the air outside. “Edu, slow down! You’re going to get us killed!” Emily shouted, clutching the handle above the door. Eduardo ignored her. His eyes were locked on the trembling rearview mirror. He had just seen the flash of police lights at a major intersection. They were looking for this car, a stolen vehicle already wrecked and soaked in blood. “We need to change vehicles,” Eduardo muttered. His voice was flat, emotionless, like a machine processing data. “How are we supposed to do that? We don’t have any money, Edu! We didn’t even pack enough clothes for Chloe!” Emily’s voice edged toward hysteria. She glanced back at their daughter, who was asleep from exhaustion, though her body jolted every time the car hit a potho
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