"𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕡𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝕚𝕤 𝕟𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕕𝕖𝕒𝕕. 𝕀𝕥'𝕤 𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕟 𝕡𝕒𝕤𝕥." – 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔽𝕒𝕦𝕝𝕜𝕟𝕖𝕣
A song blasted from the car speakers as Dean drove, the melody weaving through the empty roads that led toward his old town. The rural landscape stretched before him—the woods, the quiet stillness far removed from the city.
The lyrics seeped into his consciousness:
Pain, hatred, and dismay— I've been blinded by it all. Chained by my own dreams, trapped in my own vengeance. Why have I done this? Why did I put myself through this? Crying, weeping— it's all I can do. Finally, I realized... this game is over. Nothing lasts forever. Sweet Revenge!
His fingers twitched on the radio dial. Turn it off. He needed to turn it off.
But as he reached for the controls, a violent static screeched through the speakers, worming its way into his bones. The distortion enveloped him, wrapping around his senses like a phantom.
Then—he was dragged back.
The past slammed into him with the force of a wrecking ball.
Slurs cut through the damp air like knives. It was happening all over again.
"Your mother is a filthy whore!" "Stay away from us—you'll infect us with whatever disease she gave you!" "You piece of shit!"
The voices rang out from the alley, cruel and unrelenting. Dean stood frozen, his body rigid, jaw clenched so tightly it ached. He had heard worse before—whispers behind his back, disgusted glances, doors slammed in his face—but something about today felt different. The words sliced through him, carving deep into wounds that had never really healed.
A familiar heat surged through his veins. Rage boiled in his chest, tightening his muscles. His fist curled, fingers trembling from the pressure.
Then— Blaagg!
A solid jab connected with the kid's face, knocking him backward. The world blurred around Dean, the echoes of shouts, the scramble of feet, the sudden silence that followed his fury. His breath was heavy, erratic.
The next day, he was suspended.
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Flashback: Dean had grown up neglected, drifting through life like an afterthought. Trouble became his companion—his fists a language he spoke fluently. He had spent time in juvie, collected criminal charges like battle scars, and earned a reputation that sealed his fate. Petty theft, expulsion, addiction. The teenage years swallowed him whole, dragging him down a path that offered nothing but regret.
At his lowest, he had tried to end it all. Pills, alcohol—anything to drown the weight of existence. But death refused him, just as life had.
Now, he clawed his way toward a different future. Odd jobs paid for his studies, late nights spent chasing the dream of something better. A family— his family. One that wasn't broken, wasn't built on pain.
A flickering hope.
These days, Dean still dreams the same dream he once had, piecing stories together like fragments of himself. But the past lingers, haunting his every step.
The scars remain—visible and invisible. And they never truly fade.
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Dean stood at the threshold of his childhood home, the wooden frame weathered by time but still standing—mocking him, haunting him. The air carried the same scent it always had: dust, decay, and old whispers trapped within the walls.
His fingers hesitated over the doorknob before pushing it open.
Inside, silence stretched thick and suffocating. His footsteps stirred the settled dust, waking ghosts of the past. The floorboards creaked as he moved, each sound echoing memories he'd tried to bury.
His gaze landed on the closet door.
The small, suffocating space where his mother had shoved him, locking it from the outside.
"Dean, save yourself. Do not be like your useless father."
Her voice had trembled, but her grip had been firm, pushing him into darkness as chaos erupted beyond the wooden barrier. He had pressed his ear against the door, listening to his father's rage—sickening thuds, cruel words, the brutal symphony of flesh breaking under force.
His mother had been caught having an affair. Her crime was betrayal. His father's justice was unforgiving.
She had protected him. And yet, she had left him.
Dean clenched his fists. He loved her. He hated her. He had mourned her as a son, resented her as the abandoned child she had left behind.
The last vivid image he had of her was at the funeral—the cold body, stiff and pale, laid open inside the coffin.
And then—something else.
A shadow.
A child creeping toward him, nudging him to step closer.
"Let me tell you a secret..."
The whisper coiled around his ribs, suffocating.
"A secret you couldn't find
Deep down in this horrid thought of mine
I'll wrap you around my arms
And twist you with my charms..."
The memory fractured, slipping through his grasp.
Dean inhaled sharply, dragging himself back to the present. He moved through the house, tracing his hand over the edges of a worn wooden chest in the corner—his mother's old keepsakes. Fabrics folded with care, faded photographs tucked between letters that would never be read again.
Packages lay undisturbed near the doorway, remnants of things meant to be sent but never were. His father was nowhere to be found—just as he had been for years.
Without another thought, Dean reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, fingers moving before his mind could stop them.
Dean: I'm on my way back. Are you free? Want to go to the Boneyard Museum?
The Boneyard Museum—"What the Dead Can Teach the Living."
He wasn't inviting Alice to unsettle her. He simply wanted to explore the language of bones—the silent history etched into each fracture, each deformity, each preserved skull.
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The Boneyard Museum
When Alice arrived, they wandered through the dim corridors of the Boneyard Museum, their footsteps echoing softly against the polished floors. Skeletal remains lined the walls, silent sentinels preserving the remnants of history.
They stopped before a towering skeleton—seven-foot-three, a relic of an ancient man who had outgrown his own era.
Alice's voice broke through the stillness.
"Do you ever wonder if stories outlive bones?"
Dean lingered on her words, his gaze fixed on the hollow sockets staring back at them.
"Bones tell stories too... if you listen."
A shadow of unease crept into Alice's mind. Something about Dean felt... off. But his words, his intelligence, the quiet intensity in his presence—it was all too fascinating to ignore.
The museum stretched on in eerie reverence, each exhibit whispering its own tale. Dean drifted forward, scanning rows of skulls—some bearing the unmistakable signs of disease, others warped by time and trauma.
Alice paused before a skeleton afflicted with gigantism, its immense frame a stark contrast to the fragility of human existence. Her fingers ghosted over the glass, lingering on the thought of lives once lived, of suffering once endured.
"Do you think they ever understood what was happening to them?" she murmured.
Dean, standing beside a skull riddled with scars from leprosy, exhaled slowly.
"I think some wounds aren't meant to heal."
They ventured deeper into the exhibit, past skeletons twisted by deformities—each an echo of pain, a testament to survival or ruin. The weight of unspoken thoughts lingered between them, thick as the dust suspended in the museum air.
At the far end, an installation titled Wound Within caught Alice's attention.
Displayed in unnerving precision, it wasn't just the bones that stood out—it was the history carved into them. A ribcage marred with fine incisions, hinting at violence endured in life. A femur fractured in unnatural ways, the lingering imprint of unrelenting force. Scars, written into bone.
Dean stood beside her, hands buried deep in his pockets.
"Bones remember," he said, voice quiet but weighted. "Even when everything else is gone."
Alice turned to him, studying his expression.
It wasn't the museum that unsettled her.
It was the familiarity in his words.
It was the knowledge that some wounds, even buried beneath years of flesh, time, and silence, remained.
Unseen.
Unhealed.
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They stepped into a darker wing of the museum, a place not advertised on brochures—a private collection behind a velvet rope.
Dean unhooked the barrier and gestured for her to step in.
"You trust me?"
Trust. It wasn't about trust. It was about curiosity, about the silent draw of the unknown, the sharp tug beneath her ribs.
She entered.
The room was colder, air thick with age. Here, bones were not simply displayed but cataloged, a hidden archive of violence, deformity, and the slow decay of time. Not just history—memory.
Alice stopped before a case that held a skull—fractured, split cleanly at its crown.
"Blunt force," Dean murmured, coming to stand beside her. His presence was too close, yet oddly comforting.
"Someone did this to them?" she whispered.
Dean's gaze flickered over the remains.
"Or maybe they did it to themselves."
The words sent a chill down her spine.
She moved, restless now, scanning the room—until her breath hitched.
There, mounted along the far wall, a collection of vertebrae strung together like morbid pearls. The placard beneath them read:
"The Ruin of Two."
Alice's fingers brushed the text.
"Two?"
Dean was beside her again, watching.
"A discovery from decades ago," he said, voice softer now. "Two bodies found buried together. Their spines were intertwined. They had broken in the same way—identical fractures, identical wounds. Some say one couldn't exist without the other."
Alice traced the contours of the display with her gaze, something pulling at her—an ache, a whisper.
She swallowed hard.
"Do you believe that?"
Dean's lips curved slightly.
"I believe bones are the quiet keepers of history." he said. "Carrying whispers of lives long past."
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Outside, the museum air pressed against her, lighter but no less haunting.
Alice exhaled, rubbing her temple.
A headache.
Strange. It hadn't been there before.
Dean studied her, silent, unreadable.
"We should go," she murmured, but her feet felt heavier than before.
She didn't remember entering the museum.
Only leaving.
And yet, deep inside the Boneyard Museum, a secret remained—one Alice would never remember.
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The drive home was silent. The museum lights had faded into the distance, but their eerie glow still lingered in Alice's mind. Dean sat beside her in the car, fingers drumming absently against his thigh, his gaze distant—like he wasn't really there.
Alice shifted in her seat.
"That exhibit... 'The Ruin of Two'—why do I feel like I've seen it before?"
Dean didn't answer immediately.
"Some things," he said at last, "feel familiar even when they aren't."
She frowned, fingers pressing against her temple.
The headache.
It had returned. Worse now.
That night, Alice dreamt of bones.
Not relics in glass cases, not history preserved in the museum's quiet halls. Fresh bones. Red-streaked. Twisted. Clawed at the edges like something had fought against them.
She dreamt of her own hands, hovering above a ribcage—fractured, splintered, screaming without sound.
She woke, breath sharp, heart hammering.
The sheets beneath her felt damp. The air in her bedroom was too still.
Had she been crying?
She blinked, rubbing her palms together.
They smelled like iron.
Like blood.
She jerked away from the thought, forcing herself upright.
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Alice entered her office the next day, stepping onto the same polished floors, the same sterile space, but something felt different.
Her assistant approached, hesitating.
"Your schedule was cleared yesterday," they said.
Alice stiffened.
"Cleared?"
"You left early. Said you had personal matters to handle."
Her stomach twisted.
She didn't remember leaving.
She didn't remember anything.
Only stepping in. Only stepping out.
Everything in between was missing.
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The rain battered the pavement, turning the city streets into a gleaming labyrinth of reflection and distortion. Alice stood beneath the dim glow of a streetlamp, fingers curled around her coat, watching as Dean leaned against the wall just beyond the police barricade.
Another body. Another message carved into bone.
The crime scene pulsed with movement—detectives murmuring, cameras flashing, an overwhelming scent of copper lingering in the air.
Dean, for all his usual detachment, looked too comfortable in the chaos.
"You shouldn't be here," Alice muttered, eyes sharp as she studied him.
He exhaled, sliding his hands into his pockets.
"Neither should you."
Alice let out a slow breath, shaking her head. "I'm here for the victim's family," she said, voice even. "They requested Eternal Repose Funeral Home to handle the legalities. Their insurance covers everything. I'm just here to ensure it's properly arranged."
Dean's lips curved into something unreadable. "How noble."
Her gaze flickered toward the coroner's van.
"You knew her, didn't you?"
Dean didn't flinch.
"Everyone did. She was—an artist. Talented. People talk."
A vague answer. A careful dodge.
But then—a chilling detail.
The victim's wrist—bruised, streaked with red.
Alice's breath hitched. She'd seen those bruises before—on Dean's wrist.
The same shape. The same placement.
"You look like you have something to say," Dean murmured, watching her.
Alice swallowed hard.
"It's nothing."
Except it wasn't.
She thought back to the museum—the way Dean traced his fingers over the bone exhibits like he was reading secrets only he understood.
She thought about the way he spoke—"Bones remember, even when everything else is gone."
A coincidence.
Or not.
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Hours later, Alice sat in her apartment, staring at a file spread across her coffee table. The victims—all strangled, each bearing visible marks on their backs resembling torn angel wings.
A calling card.
An echo of something familiar
Her fingers trembled as she turned the page. The private investigator had been thorough—old case files, faded witness statements, scraps of Dean's past she had never seen before. Arrests. Allegations. Fragments of a life shaped by mistakes and survival.
Juvenile detention. A criminal record marred by petty theft. Expulsion. Delinquency. A teenage spiral into addiction, rehab, and desperation. He had fought his way back, working odd jobs to fund his education, now a freelance writer in the shadows of his own notoriety.
But then, on the final page of the report, she saw it—Dean's name, scrawled in the corner of a police record.
Questioned. Released. Not enough evidence.
Not guilty.
Yet.
For someone like Alice—an heiress tied to a powerful conglomerate—it was standard protocol. The machinery that protected her had moved swiftly, neatly wrapping Dean's past into carefully curated reports and assessments.
But just because it was protocol didn't mean Alice trusted it.
She swallowed hard, flipping through the pages again, as if the truth might change if she stared at it long enough. But something about it—the way the reports skimmed over details, the convenient dead ends—felt wrong. Fabricated.
She knew how money smoothed over rough edges, how influence turned suspicion into dismissal. The documents told one story, but her instincts whispered another.
Dean wasn't clean.
But was he guilty?
Alice wasn't sure what was worse—not knowing, or suspecting that she already did.
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The next morning, she met Dean at a quiet café, her pulse hammering in her throat. He didn't look different. Calm. Casual.
But then—the bandage on his wrist.
"What happened?" she asked, forcing the words out.
Dean glanced at his hand, rolling his sleeve down as if it didn't matter.
"Cut myself," he said.
Alice nodded.
But the wound was too clean, too sharp.
Not a mistake.
Not an accident.
A pattern.
Dean smiled at her then—slow, unreadable, like he knew exactly what she was thinking.
"You always look at people like you're searching for something."
Alice swallowed hard.
Because she was.
And she wasn't sure if she wanted to find it.