The idea given by Nam is actually not a bad thing. The main problems are; doing so might have been easy if her father was a pensioner. As an officer in a multinational company, Mr. Armstrong cannot easily leave his job in Thailand. That was also the reason why her father had refused a similar offer that Becca had offered him a few months ago—and one thing for sure, that reason wouldn't change even if she asked five times.

But maybe she can consider monitoring and escorting her family and that means it will bring her a second problem considering her rank is only a sergeant—means she can't just do as she pleases because her authority is still limited. Hell, she thought. I'll still try to file an application at the witness and victim protection agency later.

Her team had returned to the office earlier with various pieces of evidence along with information from local residents, while Freen asked permission not to return to the office until the next few hours to meet the profiler and schedule a meeting with the team, and lastly: Becca herself was living on the premises. to supervise the forensic team cleaning her house.

Apparently, apart from the dozens of bugs and small cameras that she had found earlier, the forensic team still found dozens of other bugs hidden—even in the bathroom ventilation duct. Watching how the forensic team put everything in a special bag was enough to make Becca feel that she had to rent an apartment to save herself.

While waiting and helping Nam search for fingerprints and DNA in every room in the house, Becca also occasionally checks her cell phone to check if there is any incoming information from her team members. Everything was going as it should until a voice suddenly sounded.

"How did it feel when you found out that you weren't alone all along?"

Becca gasped. As quickly as possible turned her face to the right and left to find where the voice she just heard came from. Around her, there was only Nam and three forensic officers who were busy loading equipment into a yellow suitcase—no one else.

If so, where did the unfamiliar sound come from? The voice was too clear to be considered a hallucination!

When she was silent and really focused on listening to the voices around her, the same foreign voice returned to her ears and echoed in her head. "I will kill your family. Mom, Dad, Richie, BonBon... and when they're all dead under my feet, I'll make you see their bodies before I kill you. Haven't you been waiting for this moment too, Rebecca Armstrong?"

Between breaths, Becca cursed. Without realizing it, her hands were now touching her head and she started squeezing most of her hair while walking backwards towards the wall and casting frightened looks at one by one the people who were there. The voice was back in her head like a demon decapitating in a dream—and damn, now she could see the black creature just passed in front of her as its head lowered for a few seconds.

What the hell? Becca rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand before looking back at the front, the result was predictable—nothing, just people busy with their work. Sensing that something was wrong with herself, Becca decided to walk away and find a quieter place to cool off and get more oxygen.

But, oh God, the more she tried to refuse to believe what she was hearing and seeing, the more torment those hallucinations gave her. The ear-piercing whispers of the crowd said that she would soon be killed or she would kill someone else first.

She closed her eyes, tried hard—all she could, made herself aware and believe that things weren't real, things weren't there. Those creepy whispering voices only existed in her mind as a result of a lack of rest, and the black, human-like shadows were simply a side effect of her less than three hours of sleep a day.

A split-second later Becca opened her eyes. She gasped, shocked half to death when she found that a forensic member had suddenly approached carrying a knife pointed in front of her eyes. On reflex, Becca used her right hand to brush away the knife hard, and immediately lunged forward, wrapping her arms around the officer's waist and pushing her back with great force.

The officer shouted. She couldn't fight back because Becca had controlled her body and pushed her—and she was lucky that Becca didn't lift her up and slam her body on the floor—until she hit the wall. Becca released her grip from the officer's body, then her left hand was now choking her neck followed by her right fist that threw a punch at the officer's cheek and jaw.

"No, no! Becky, stop it!" Nam screamed in panic, completely not expecting that her fellow police officer would attack one of the forensic officers by pushing her against a wooden table. She jumped out of her equipment and immediately butted into Becky's body, who was pinning her down and looked like she was going to hit the officer. "Stop it, Rebecca Armstrong!"

Nam's body collided with Becky's body so that the young Armstrong was unsteady and rolled three times. The sound of a loud crash sounded so surprising when Becky's body hit the floor mercilessly, followed by the sound of a loud slap on her face that came from Nam.

She only stopped after the sixth slap and saw Becca's face starting to turn red. It seems that she accidentally smacked Becca's lips because as soon as Nam turned her hand to look at her own palm, she found a wet bloodstain stuck to it. Lifting Becca's head by holding her hand behind her head, Nam said in a rather loud tone in front of her face. "What are you doing? What were you thinking when you attacked my team, Nong?"

The breath that blows fast, the tightness in the chest, the heat and pain that she feels makes her dizzy to think of an answer. Once again her mind completely in turmoil. It's like all her memory and thinking abilities are scrambled and thrown in all directions, leaving her brain empty, and paralyzed. What she did was completely out of her control, deep inside she also felt that what she was doing was wrong and she can't do anything to hold it back.

It's just that, as a human being who is in a state of threat and her natural instincts are always trying to move quickly to protect herself, Becca couldn't help but throw the forensic officer away in one slash of the hand. Because within her sight—and also according to the voice in her head—the forensic officer was brandishing and intending to swing a scalpel at her.

Enduring the painful sting from her neck, Becca tried hard to hold back the pain and looked to her right—at the forensic officer she had attacked earlier. The officer herself was being seated by two other officers and trying to calm her down, she seemed fine and was only experiencing mild shock. Oddly enough, there wasn't the knife or sharp weapon she'd seen earlier although Becca could have sworn she saw it pointed in her face a moment ago and now... it just disappeared.

Staring at Nam in disbelief, Becca stuttered, "A—a knife. I swear, I saw her pointing a knife at me, Nam. Really, I didn't mean to do that to her, my body moved on its own. I—" the panic that was clearly shown on her face, coupled with the cold sweat pouring down profusely, until the exaggerated hand gestures made Nam speechless and just stared back in silence. Presumably that passivity made Becca even more frustrated now. "Nam... I swear. That knife really exists... I saw it with my own eyes!"

Nam took a deep breath. Again, without giving an answer, the woman walked over to her partner and crouched beside her. Gently she lifted her co-worker's hand and groped every inch of the clothes clinging to her body. It didn't stop there, she also helped her to stand up and checked whether there might be a knife hidden under her body. If what Becca saw was real, there's a good chance the knife was either stepped on by her or thrown somewhere.

Two other officers also joined in looking for the knife in question, and in the end they also did not find the knife which made Becca suddenly act brutally and injure the forensic officer. Seeing the reality in front of her eyes—also after she tried her best to ignore the weird looks from all of Nam's co-workers who were with her—Becca felt half of her life being pulled out of her body, making her weak and barely able to stand so she had to walk weakly to a chair. nearest and dropped her body there.

Not far from her, Nam stood with a hard feeling. She turned around and asked her teammates to make things right—including apologizing to the officer who was accidentally attacked by Becca and promising to pay for the treatment of the wound—only after that she asked permission to speak privately with Becca.

After making sure there were no more people besides the two of them, by slowing down the stomping of the shoes on the floor to minimize the sound that might disturb Becca and actually make it even more uncontrollable, Nam walked over and pulled a chair beside Becca, placing a bottle of mineral water in front of her friend before come sit beside her.

Becca seemed calmer, but that didn't take away from the look that came from someone who was in deep thought or more of a person who was confused over everything. She didn't want to interrupt, but she had to know what was on the junior's mind. The thing is, she had been acting strangely for the last few weeks and it turned out she wasn't the only one who felt that way.

Heng, Irin, Noey, and the others also agreed that they felt something strange about Sergeant Armstrong. Starting from her changed attitude, to her habits and ways of speaking that are not like her old self. Everyone in the office knew Sergeant Rebecca Armstrong as a friendly police officer who never wore a cold expression and never spoke in a harsh tone. When she was on patrol, she also never took her smile off her lips so that people who knew her would definitely call her as sunshine.

She wasn't kidding about it, Becca used to be a warm person. But now, even though Nam spends more time with her as a co-worker who both worked on murder cases, Nam actually feels more foreign to Becca. It feels close, but on the other hand she feels very far from her.

"Becky," Nam started. Her hand touched Becca's wrist, then gave a gentle massage there. "Just wanted to make you understand that I have always considered you more than a friend. You are family to me, you are my sister who I always love and respect. I believe in you like I trusted myself all this time and I hope you will realize that. Realizing that I am always here, for you."

Glancing at Nam's hands massaging her wrists, Becca stretches her hand forward to grab the water bottle and makes Nam's hold on her hand got loose. She took a moment to open the bottle and drink most of the water, closed it again and placed it on the table and made a thumping sound of the plastic surface hitting the wooden table.

"I don't know what to tell you anyway," laughing bitterly, Becca finally gave an answer—Nam didn't miss the sound of her voice trembling slightly as she said the last word.

"You don't have to tell me anything if you can't. But, you should know that I'm always here for you," said Nam. "To be honest, there's a lot I want to ask. Especially about the change in your attitude and personality, to the point where... you go so far as to attack the forensic officer and said that she brought a knife to injure you."

A small sigh escaped Becca's lips. The woman used her fingers to brush her hair back, then paused and caught her breath. Stay calm. If you don't, the sound will come back and drive you crazy. "Maybe I'm just tired, Phi. To be honest, I also heard voices threatening me and the officer happened to be in front of me too. It's true I was hallucinating earlier, sorry."

Frowning, Nam replied quickly, "Voice? You hear voices?"

Becca nodded.

Nam sighed, looking away so Becca couldn't see the change in expression on her face. She was clearly worried, very worried and didn't feel comfortable with the confession that Becca had just made. Starting from the sounds and hallucinations that are so real that it makes Becca act against her will, it is clear that in some moments Becca has difficulty distinguishing reality from her hallucinations.

She didn't want to tell Becca this. She couldn't imagine how shocked her junior was when she heard Nam's guess, even though she herself was very sure that the symptoms she was feeling were an early warning of a very real threat. Nam has to tell her, no matter what Becca feels next. All of that is better than bringing the next bad impact.

Nam's face turned more serious and she moved her seat closer to Becca. "Becky, I'm sorry for saying this. But... I advise you to seek professional help. I'm worried that you're starting to experience the first signs of schizophrenia."

At first Nam thought that Becca would answer her with harsh, intimidating sentences—as Becca usually does to people who make her displeased. Instead, she just pinned a thin smile on her lips. Nam can read all the emotions that have piled up together—sad, angry, disappointed, tired, and others. She could also feel how much mental burden Becca was feeling while working on this case.

Becca sighed softly. She picked up the water bottle in front of her and gulped down the entire contents before squeezing it into a small plastic lump which she then held in her fist. "What... will happen if I do suffer from such a psychological disorder, Nam?"

"I'm not sure. If you do well in therapy, they won't kick you out. However, if the condition is severe... perhaps you get transferred or worse, your rank will be stripped."

Becca was silent for a moment. Nam's answer just now was spinning freely in her head. Dozens of statements that came along with dozens of questions that never got an answer immediately hit her head like a big boulder. She didn't know what to feel when she imagined what would have happened if she had actually been diagnosed with severe schizophrenia—what would have happened to her career in the police force, how much pleasure would the monster have had in knowing Becca had fallen before she actually did. meet her.

Ignoring all the bad scenarios that suddenly made her dizzy, Becca decided to stand up and finish her chat with Nam. The cellphone in her trouser pocket had been vibrating for who knows how many times, and she couldn't take it anymore. She opened her phone, looking to see where the notification came from.

The notification was from a messaging app and Heng was the one who messaged her earlier and left 10 unanswered calls. She skimmed through all the messages the man sent, ignoring the unimportant points and only focusing on the messages related to work.

Without replying, Becky locked her phone and put it back in her pocket. "We better get back to the office. Heng just contacted me if he found an eye witness who wants to come to give few statements," she touched Nam's shoulder, inviting her to leave the house together. She also took a roll of police tape that was on the TV table and took it with her.

"Witness? Are you serious?"

Becca muttered. She opened the front door, let Nam walk through it, closed it, and locked it before placing police tape on the door in a large cross. "Yes. This person claims to have crossed paths with the killer."

"Oh," Nam chuckled, "Ha... the monster just made a big mistake, huh? This time she left a very clear trail for you, Nong."

--0--

Maybe now can be categorized as the worst day for Song. The reason is easy; there were so many young men who annoyed her because they verbally abused her or yelled at her, some things were missing so she had to pay for them with her own money, even the store's CCTV cameras that still hadn't been repaired so she couldn't see what kind of bastards kept making her pay compensation.

While she was muttering various kinds of curses in her mind, a clatter sounded and the glass door automatically slid open. A familiar woman waved her hand at her. "Hello again," she greeted, giving Song a faint smile. "I just wanted to buy gum because I saw you were getting ready to go home because your shift was over."

Song nodded. Somewhat languidly she turned and took some gum from the shelf behind her, scanned it in the scanner and handed it to the woman in the hat. "Not buying coffee?" she asked.

The woman took out a bill and shook her head, "No, thank you. I've had a lot of caffeine intake today. Anyway, I don't have any plans after this and intend to go home after work. Interested in taking up my offer to... you know, giving you a little ride?"

"A ride?" Song repeated. Seemed to consider the offer for a few moments. The woman in front of her couldn't be called a stranger because they chatted and had dinner together several times at the convenience store—even if it was just instant cup noodles and green tea—she also knew her quite well because she worked as an insurance officer.

Moreover, she was also in the stage of saving expenses so by accepting this woman's offer, she could save money to buy food for the next two days. Finally, Song nodded and accepted the woman in the hat who of course greeted Song with a big, pleasant smile.

After packing up her things and saying goodbye to the night shift clerk—and not forgetting to convey a few messages from the manager to raise awareness—Song walked over to a silver car parked in the yard of the convenience store. The car was already on, it seemed the driver was waiting for her so she immediately opened the car door and got inside.

"Who would have thought your apartment is only a few blocks away from mine. I had expected it, that's why I dared to invite you. I knew you wouldn't immediately accept an offer from a stranger." The woman in the hat started the conversation in the car. "You know, the news about a deranged psychopath on the loose recently scared me to go alone. Taking you home together like this, at least makes me feel better."

"Correct. I always worry every time I come home to the apartment. Reportedly the psychopath is still looking for new victims."

It is true. Their journey did not take long. It only took about 10 minutes and Song's apartment building was starting to appear. The quietness of the streets contributed much to their journey, and though Song wished she could chat with this woman a little longer, she also hoped to get to sleep earlier tonight.

The woman beside her started tapping the steering wheel while whistling melodiously. The soft melodies of the song Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star could be heard filling the entire car because the car radio was turned off. The night was too quiet, and the moonlight was too dim. When the car stopped in a deserted basement parking lot, whether because her focus was on her cellphone or because it was dark at night, Song did not realize that the driver was not touching the steering wheel.

But a hammer with a yellow handle that was smashed into her head three times. After the third blow, seeing Song's remaining consciousness and her hands still twitching, trying to claw at the driver's face to save herself, the owner of the hammer used her left hand to choke Song's neck and swung the hammer around to bury a hole in the young woman's temple with hard swing for the last time.

Everything happened very quickly. The commotion that originally filled the car and the tension that came from Song's screams disappeared, replaced by the roar of the engine still running. Splatters of blood stuck to the windshield and the left side of the car. All the splattered blood melted down and formed a red line on the glass surface. Even with a rancid smell that might be disgusting to most people—but for her, that smell was the most extraordinary smell she had ever tasted.

"Oh, this is amazing," she mumbled. Once again she looked outside, no one was passing by and heard her so she still had time to prepare her gift.

The hammer in her hand barely slipped out of her grasp, but she quickly strengthened her grip on it. Ah, how careless. She was so focused on the blood and human body beside her that she lost control of her surroundings.

Usually, she never did things like this. Cleanliness was the top priority in her record so she would kidnap, make her victims unconscious first before then being taken to her apartment to be executed. All processes such as torture, soaking the corpse in liquid formalin or deodorizing clothes, and separating the skin from the body were always carried out in the bathroom of the apartment.

This is the first time she acts outside her territory. Who would have thought, the taste is really great. Adrenaline bursting and filling every circulation of her blood, the scent of blood, and the softness of human flesh that she touched with the surface of the hammer made her fly up to the seventh heaven.

Smiling broadly, taking the time to glance at her face covered in flesh and blood in rear view, she again whistled Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star while raising the bloodstained hammer high.

In the next instant, a terrifying crashing sound was heard. The hard surface of the hammer hit Song's face, cracking her temple bone and causing the tip of the hammer to sink deep into her face. The hammer was retracted and blood was gushing out, splattering in all directions. It didn't stop there, she hit Song's face again without reducing the power of her punch. So hard that repeatedly the hammer lodged itself into the hollow bones and lumps of flesh. She still didn't stop until one last punch, she realized her face was no longer to be found.

Or in short, unrecognizable because of its very messy shape. A pair of eyeballs were no longer where they were, dangling and almost breaking. She put on a rubber glove, then pulled one eyeball out and raised it to eye level.

"Hey, don't hold a grudge against me. You've helped me, so I would be grateful," she said. She then put the eyeball into her mouth, and filled her mouth for a few moments before she used her teeth to chew the eyeball whole. "I never liked eyeballs. But this one, that's fine."

When she swallowed the eyeball that was in her mouth and was about to take the other eyeball, her hand suddenly stopped moving because of the sudden stinging pain. She straightened her body, staring at her face in front of rearview. No wonder she clawed my face.

Sighing in annoyance, she leaned back in the chair. The wound wouldn't go away quickly, and it would definitely raise the suspicions of most people. Her appetite vanished in an instant, replaced by the exasperation that comes from knowing that her victim this time managed to touch her and left a wound.

Time keeps rolling on and the less it means, the greater the risk that will occur when she gets out of the car. Not wanting to waste any more time, she took a notebook from her jacket pocket, wrote down a few sentences and tore them from the book. She placed the torn piece of paper in Song's still intact hand, making it look as if she was holding the paper.

Everything is perfect. She had managed to show a different side of herself to the sergeant, and she couldn't wait to see how she would react when she found out what kind of gift she was giving her. She would love it, for sure.

"Sergeant Armstrong. This is my present for you."