When something terrible happened, one would think it was the absolute worst scenario that people would remember first and foremost. Putting out as a hypothetical example, watching someone killed before your very eyes, it would be the easiest to say that it would be the dead body that would be remembered first. Now, if the hypothetical were to become real, people would say that the reality would be mistaken instead. It was the scream that everyone remembered first.

A scream from the victim before they became a lifeless body. The flowers drifting right after. And it would not be the body they remembered last after such a terrifying ordeal. It would be a final scream, but not as incoherent as the first.

“The detective is finally dead! THE DETECTIVE IS FINALLY NEVER COMING BACK!”

“This time, you will finally die for real and you will never come back from the grave!!!”

That scream, declaration really, came from a lone killer who was responsible for the entire farce that had unfortunately became reality. The maniacal laughter that followed will haunt many people in nights to come and many people indeed when the whole world watched a madman’s spectacle through a live broadcast which made sensational news and a killer murdering in front of everyone could only get comeuppance in their arrest after such a blatant crime.

If only it was as simple as that, when the killer was more than an ordinary one even if that attention hog action would not classify such a person as run of a mill. The killer had done the deed as a serial killer infamously known as the Gravekeeper, but with copycats looming, there was a need to fact check.

It had been days after and the only thing left was to clean the madman’s mess. It could be seen when an abandoned warehouse that was suspected to be the madman’s lair had been sealed off and canvassed by multiple officers.

Because it was in the aftermath of the arrest that police had been trying to find any evidence against him, connecting the personal identity and crosschecking with the criminal one until they squared on his hideout with flowers and notebooks, a place that felt like it had seen better days.

It came as close to the modus operandi Gravekeeper had given. Flowers and a note, as police started looking through the notebooks, as blank and pristine as they had been bought except for a lone one that didn’t quite make the cut, with torn edges and frayed pages inside. It might be the current notebook used by the killer when getting those notes in, but with so much written word that it could easily be classified as a journal.

The journal was most important as people would eventually flip through to analyze it, disappointingly not seeing much as they would hope even if it was incriminating enough with many teared out pages here and there along with fair few haphazard snippets thrown in through so much cross outs that simply stood out disturbing for anyone to read:

-accident but death —— not enough people

Gravekeeper as a name is just —- they don’t —-

—- detective. So they want to stop this. Why? Why can—-

—- illusion. There is no way… —- don’t come back a——

Riley Riley Riley Riley Riley

dead dead not alive —- don’t come back —- keep —- STOP—-

THIS TIME DETECTIVE RILEY WILL STAY DEAD

It would take a long time for the words to make more sense. For the cross outs to be removed in a way so that people know the actual words written underneath. More disturbing still, the madman’s possible journal’s torn out pages matched the letters previously acquired and believed to be torn out of a book. Matching the torn edges would only confirm the deduction.

It would also confirm the deduction that the madman is the same serial killer the police had tried in vain to chase for years, leaving behind so many bodies in his wake.

Right up to the body of a detective that would be mourned by the whole station. The main detective on the serial killer’s case and the probable reason that they were targeted to unfortunate demise, Detective Riley.

And right now, they have finally apprehended the serial killer too late, where the only things that the officers could do was to make sure he stays in the cage he belongs and throws the key. To do so, they have to get as much of the facts and make a case so much against him that there could be no doubt…

After all this time, where no one knew the serial killer other than the given name of ‘Gravekeeper’ with such a twisted modus operandi, the person underneath all that blood and despair is finally emerging, ready to tell a story that will help the masses find out the reason. A reason no one should accept because nothing should justify countless murder but a reason because someone doing without one would be a different kind of unacceptable.

Now, the ‘Gravekeeper’ has a name, Kyle Baston. A name that will lead to the his story and reason people crave.

Writer’s Note

Usually these prologues would have a cover, but while I had the image in my brain from a building to blood and petals, I decided not to do it. Mostly because the last time I created a cover, I had to contend with AI images and I decide that not today. I also hadn’t been writing for the past few weeks, and it’s just that I have fanfictions and am unnecesarily busy with life. But this is certainly one of the stories I want people to know, the prologue of it especially when I got a good review from a friend who enjoyed it. I love killers in many detective stories battling against each other in cat-and-mouse, and I always wanted the killer’s perspective which birthed this story. Hope it’s enjoyed