"We are all animals," she said, her voice calm, as she looked at him.

Mr. Valen grabbed the fork with his little, chubby hands, his voice measured as he replied. "I think I heard my teacher talking about this, but I don't remember, human evolution, we were fucking monkey men-"

"Bang!"

The lady suddenly slammed her hand on the wooden table, the candlelight flickering strongly, but her face remained hidden in the dark.

"How many times must I repeat myself? Your words reflect your mental state. Never speak like prey," she spoke, her voice drowning out the faint chirping of birds, the hissing of snakes, and the growls of predatory animals.

In all this, Mr. Valen remained completely still, watching her, and when her breath calmed down, he spoke, "My apologies, Mother," and continued eating.

Nodding at his words, the woman he called mother continued speaking. "As I was saying, I was not speaking of evolution, my child, I was speaking of us, our kind, the humans who are apex predators, therefore animals."

"But I think we are better than animals," Mr. Valen chimed in, his voice unnaturally composed for a child, as he added. "At least we don't live in the rain-"

"That is not what I mean, child." The lady shook her head, her brows furrowing as she explained. "Say, you lock four rats in a barrel, and leave them in there until the only thing left is one single rat who ate his brothers when he got hungry, now we have a what? Right, we have a cannibal, somebody that out of all possible meals prefers the taste of his own species, now you release that rat into the wild and what do you think he is to the rest of rat society?"

Mr. Valen remained quiet, looking to the large pot in the middle of the room, and the wild vegetables on his plate.

His eyes then drifted unconsciously to the faint, silvery scars on his own forearm. After that, he looked to the woman and said, "I don't think we're talking about rats anymore."

"Precisely, which is why you need to learn to mimic, you already understand the most important lesson you proved it in the dark," the lady answered before opening the pot and asking. "I was going to kill you as well, but you surprised me. What do you feel after your little awakening?"

"Em, I feel like going home," Mr. Valen responded immediately, his gaze growing resolute.

"Then you are perfect," the lady smiled, a small giggle escaping her as she dropped the pot cover on the table. "Are you hungry?" She asked.

"Yes, Mother," he answered quickly, his breath slightly strained.

Nodding at his words, the lady produced a dismembered human forearm from the pot, steaming hot and boiled to perfection, and placed it on his plate, her smile never wavering. "The fruit of your hunt," she said, staring at him.

Wordlessly and without hesitation, the boy cut out a piece from the whole and began eating, the sound of his chewing being the only noise in that quiet shed, and of course the silence screams of the damned.

---------

"Yo, you haven't said anything since," a bold voice sounded out, followed by a violent elbow shove that broke Mr. Valen from his thoughts.

"You're like a rock man," the voice broke out again, its tone slightly strained, as if it were in pain.

That voice belonged to Barney, gruff, but Mr. Valen, who was deep in thought, did not respond; rather, his mind lingered on the sudden memory, 'What truly happened during my time with her?'

Deciding not to dwell on it, then resolved to observe the scene before him.

Because of the crowd of students and, of course the police perimeter up front, he could not move closer. But what more was there to see?

The fountain, a centerpiece of the collage walkway, was currently filled with bloodstained water.

The drains seemed to have been clogged, causing the water to overflow slowly, carrying with it flecks of skin and strands of dark hair across the cracked concrete of the walkway.

'Such sloppy work,' Mr. Amen thought as he gazed at the girl, or remnants of the girl, a victim of this murder, hanging on the Cupid statue.

Her head had been driven through the statue's bronze arrow, the point emerging just beneath her lower teeth with a slimy glint.

The shaft had been driven upwards through her swollen, purple tongue, almost touching her palate, a mixture of spit and blood dried along the edges of her pale, parted lips.

One of her eyes was staring sideways, whitened and lifeless, while the other had seemingly burst from the pressure, a gooey trail sliding down her cheek like some kind of melted wax.

Atop her head was a dead brown rat, tangled in the strands of her rough, patchy hair as though it had tried to escape but failed, and around the neck of the Cupid statue itself were severed arms held by thin strings.

'Two fingers are missing from that arm,' Mr. Valen noted, his gaze locked on the cauterized stumps where fingers should have been.

'The butchering wasn't done here though,' he thought, his eyes turning to her skin, or the skin of her arms, the flesh had been flayed, exposing her flesh, muscles gleaming wetly in the sun, the fountain had done much to preserve the scene.

The rest of her (her lower body) could be found in the fountain, knee shattered, forcing her legs to turn in odd angles.

Her intestines had spilled from her gut (glossy, blue-pink organs washed by the water) and swayed slightly for all to see.

It was disgusting, for some but Mr. Valen found himself endlessly fascinated by some abstract concept. 'A stylistic choice or a mistake?'

"Back up!"

"Back up!"

More police personnel arrived on the scene, assisted by campus security to drive away students in a rather forceful manner.

And that chaos, the students cleared enough to reveal the base of the fountain, where some uneven red letters had been scrawled.

'When did you become a rat, Artist? Do you feel threatened?' Mr. Valen read in his mind, the grim reality of the situation settling in. 'It's a direct response to her taunt at the club, but I thought she was referring to me?'

"I said move it." One of the campus security personnel arrived before him, prompting Mr. Valen to quickly move away, and as he did this, he felt a familiar gaze on him and turned to face it.

Standing at the end of the crowd, motionless amid a sea of raging students, was Alice, the dark-haired, blue-eyed woman.

At this moment, those eyes were staring so intently at him that Mr. Valen was sure of one thing, 'She thinks I killed this girl?'

At that thought, Mr. Valen felt a smile appear on his face, the sincere kind that one would have when meeting and old friends.

He then waved at Alive, and walked away, disappearing into the crowd.

Meanwhile, 'That Murderer,' Alice thought at the sight of Mr. Valen, her fist balled as she too began walking away, her destination being her dorm.

As she walked, she ignored the catcalls of the people around her, too lost in thought to even acknowledge them, 'first I spot him at the club and he's almost like a completely different person, he almost kills a guy in front of me, and the next morning the artist strikes, is Valen the artist? No, that can't be possible, it doesn't add up, at least he's a killer who the Artist is aware of, ahh, I'm not sure, I need more proof.' Alice thought, her brows furrowed in frustration.

"Excuse me," a calm voice came from beside her, bringing her attention to a blonde-haired guy with brown eyes.

"I'm Fred," the blonde-haired man spoke once again, a wide smile on his face.

Alice, after taking a glance at him, went back to her thoughts, not caring for him in the slightest, and Fred, in turn, backed away after noticing hostility.

'I just don't get how everyone is rolling with it. Hey Alice, let's make friends with the weird kid who lived with a serial killer for eight years,' she mocked Vincent and Sophie in her head.

"Now who knows, I could be the next victim. My sister could be the next victim. Someone disappears and comes back a fucking Spartan in a few days, and we're just like, 'Okay, growth spurt!'' she said angrily, her eyes narrowing as she thought, 'Should I report him to the police? No I don't have proof,' she sighed.

She remembered when Vincent and Sophie had first brought the idea of befriending the guy when they were in high school. At first, she was against it, but when she saw how uninteresting he was, she lost interest in the issue.

'He's the most interesting guy in the room,' Amethyst's voice sounded out in her head, forcing Alice to let out another sigh. "You were right about that."

Unbeknownst to her, she had at some point reached her room door, forcing her to retrieve her card from her pocket.

"Hey, Trinity," she spoke as he entered into the room, he voice lingering in the hall.

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