The silence returned to envelop the pale blue corridor behind the wall, as if life itself had vanished the moment the television went silent. Caleb Norman stood frozen in place, breathing heavily, his hand still trembling from touching the eye card, and the blood-written phrase still burned into his mind:
> "One step closer to survival... or a step toward your end, Showman."
The detective within him tried to piece the scene back together. This wasn't just a trap. This wasn't merely the work of a sadistic killer. No, this was something far more complex. A theatrical crime… layered with symbols, roles, and riddles. And now, he wasn't just a victim—he was a key player in a performance with no visible stage boundaries.
Caleb glanced at the mirror at the end of the corridor. What he saw wasn't his reflection. It was a masked man, identical in build, wearing the same coat—but with hollow eyes. It wasn't just a mirror. It was a reflection of something else… something deeper.
He took a cautious step forward, then halted when he noticed something written on the glass:
> "Confess… to begin."
He whispered to himself, "Confess to what?"
At that moment, images flickered onto the glass—overlapping files, faces of victims, a crime that occurred five years ago. A case that had never been fully solved. It was marked as unresolved due to insufficient evidence.
It was… the first case Caleb had ever worked on.
He muttered, "No… no one knows about this… no one…"
Then a familiar voice echoed behind him—the masked director:
"Sometimes, the show begins when you think you've written the final scene."
Caleb spun around, but no one was there.
The mirror began to crack… and each fracture revealed a memory from Caleb's past: a child crying in a hospital hallway, a trembling hand on a trigger, a woman screaming behind shattered glass.
Suddenly, the mirror shattered completely, and the corridor transformed into an interrogation room.
At the center: a table, and two chairs. On the table—a single file.
Caleb slowly sat down, opened the file, and found a photo of himself as a freshly graduated detective. Behind it, a crime report titled:
> "Roswell Street Incident – Victim: Lina Fire."
His eyes widened. Anna Fire…? Was she her sister? Or was the connection even deeper?
Before he could delve further, the wall across from him lit up, showing a video. In the footage, he saw himself—young Caleb—in an interrogation room five years ago. A hopeful rookie, smiling, trying to project confidence. Opposite him sat a mysterious man, his face disfigured, who said:
– "When the curtain falls, who holds the director accountable?"
Young Caleb replied, – "We seek justice, not a show."
The man laughed: – "Yet you chose to close the file, didn't you?"
Caleb froze. He remembered. He had been forced to shut it down… political pressure, missing evidence, veiled threats.
He whispered, "I had no choice…"
But the screen didn't let him off the hook. A new sentence appeared:
> "Now the choice is yours. The game began when you let the crime be forgotten."
At that moment, a door creaked open behind him. A new hallway—narrower, lined with hanging photographs. Each photo… a scene from an unsolved crime.
Elsewhere in the city, at police headquarters, Anna Fire sat in front of a computer screen, analyzing the data she'd retrieved from the theater apartment. Suddenly, she noticed something strange: one of the fingerprints matched a person… who was officially declared dead five years ago.
– "Impossible… this man died in a documented car accident."
She clicked on his name: "George Kern."
His case file popped up—an old case.
The date? The same day as Lina Fire's.
Anna's breath caught. This theatrical show wasn't just a string of crimes. It was a reenactment of old, interconnected cases—bound by a past that had been deliberately buried.
Her phone buzzed. A new message from the unknown number:
> "The second curtain is about to fall… will you find your role before the end?"
She tapped on the message. An image loaded.
Caleb—tied to a chair, in the same theater she had seen before. But this time, the stage was bathed in crimson light, and the curtain was half open.
The terrible truth dawned on her: – "Caleb isn't just a victim… he's the key."
Back in the real theater, among the shadows, the masked director sat before a giant screen.
He said calmly:
– "Let the next act begin, grea
t detective… will you write your ending, or your redemption?"
And the curtain closed.