Page 144 of Damsel in Disguise

If she tried to hold on.

If she struggled to stay alive. For me.

I’d never know the answers.

And still, I look for the reaction, the answers in every hunt, only to come up empty-handed.

It drives me insane, and sometimes I take it out on another hunt—two or three kills a night—until I’m spent.

The euphoria of hunting doesn’t linger much longer to matter. Repetition dulls even the most intricate patterns.

And eventually, the process stops being interesting.

It becomes predictable.

Then tedious.

And just like everything else that no longer serves a purpose, I lose interest.

That’s how I’m caught.

I wasn’t being careless, though—I just stopped caring about being careful. That distinction matters more than ordinary people care to realize.

Triarch Dominion didn’t arrive like authorities. There were no sirens, no raised voices, no moral outrage attempting to assert dominance over the situation.

There’s only observation.

They find me exactly where I stand, hands still stained red, breathing steady, the same smile resting on my lips since it never failed me before.

Fifteen is what they counted.

Only fifteen. It’s offensive.

They missed the ones who disappear without disruption, the ones whose absence blended seamlessly into a world that rarely notices what it creates in the process of losing something.

“Interesting,” one of them says.

He doesn’t sound horrified or impressed. But simply… intrigued. Like I’m a problem worth solving.

I try but can’t see his face in the dark.

He stands against the light in such a way that erases every detail, reducing him to a silhouette that’s more intentional than accidental.

The black-colored mask only adds to it, obscuring whatever expression might be there, turning him into something impersonal, something that observes rather than participates.

It makes him feel less ‘human’ and far more ‘unpredictable’.

“You’ve potential,” he says.

Potential.

Such a human concept, heavy with expectation, filled with worthless hope.

So full of promise.

So empty of meaning.

I remember that word clearly, for hearing it quite a lot of times in classrooms and conversations. My teachers tried to define me in terms that I never found particularly useful. They always say I’ve potential, potential to be better.