When the room went dark, he heard his name. There it was again, like a familiar ill omen. That Entity that had accompanied him since spring. It never spoke in clear words, but they understood each other. He asked and gave. Its price, very high.

Four times it had guided him. He would walk until the Shadow stopped him. And then, the blood.

But that night was different. The Shadow wasn't pushing: it was offering.

"One more," it said.

"The last?" he thought.

"Yes."

He put on his coat. Checked the knife's edge. Without eagerness. Out of method. Everything had to go cleanly, precisely, definitively. He had a reputation to maintain, though dark and perverse. The Shadow's imperative.

He walked slowly, without that harsh buzzing in his chest. Now everything was smooth, almost calm. The city had accepted the pact: the end. And if it was the last, it had to be a masterpiece.

The streetlamps stained the fog. His steps were a crack in the silence. The Shadow crawled beside him, waiting.

At Miller's Court, he saw her.

A young girl in deep red, worn by rain. Leaning against the doorframe, smoking absently.

For an instant, he wished the Shadow wouldn't stop.

But it did.

It planted itself behind him like an invisible wall. He felt the weight sinking into his back, pulling him toward her.

No, he thought. Not this time. Let me pass.

The Shadow pressed harder.

He took a step forward. Then another. His legs felt heavy, like walking through mud. The girl kept smoking, oblivious. She was young. Too young. A scar on her eyebrow. Fingers stained with ink. Too many details.

Please. You said it was the last one. Let me choose.

The Shadow laughed. A cold vibration down his spine.

Choose? You've never chosen. Not the first time. Not now.

Rage rose to his throat, bitter, useless. He wanted to flee. But his legs no longer obeyed. The Shadow had taken control.

The girl looked up, squinting. Smiled. "Looking for company, love?"

Her voice was hoarse but warm. Something genuine. Something not completely broken yet.

He opened his mouth to say no. To ask her to run. But what came out was: "Yes."

The word wasn't his. The Shadow had spoken it, using his throat. He was nothing more than a puppet.

She gestured. "Come on. I've got a room upstairs."

The Shadow pushed him forward. He followed, his feet moving on their own, while inside something broke definitively.


They climbed narrow stairs. She unlocked a door that opened with rusted groans.

A room that smelled of dampness, soot, abandonment. A lamp flickered. The Shadow slipped along the walls like an animal returning to its den.

The door closed with a dry click.

She leaned against the frame, arms crossed. "So? Quick or slow?"

He set his coat aside. Didn't answer. The Shadow was already inside, pressed against his back.

The Shadow whispered: One more.

"The last one," he thought.

The woman arched an eyebrow. Something in his silence gave her chills. "If you're gonna get weird, it costs more."

He looked up. His eyes were two wells. The Shadow pulsed inside, eager. He slipped his hand into the coat's lining.

She saw it. The glint of steel. Her blood froze.

"No, wait—"

The knife came out in a quick arc. Precise, diagonal, the throat. A clean cut that opened the skin like silk. Blood gushed, hot, splashing his hands. She brought her hands to her neck, eyes wide, mouth moving soundlessly. Just a wet gurgle.

He held her as she fell. The smell of iron filled the air, dense, metallic, almost sweet. The Shadow slid over his arm, purring satisfied.

"That's it," he murmured. "The last one."

The Shadow laughed inside his skull.

He laid her on the mattress, head tilted, eyes glassy. The Shadow indicated the next step. The knife moved again.

First the face. The blade sank into the cheek, tore downward, pulled flesh from bone. Strangely soft, slippery. The sound worse: a wet snap cutting through cartilage, a rough scrape grazing bone.

Then the chest. The ribs cracked. The smell changed: no longer just iron, but something deeper, visceral. Heat. Organs exposed to cold air.

There was no hurry. The lamp was lit. The street slept.

One by one, the organs came out. He placed them on the table, floor, around the bed. A map of flesh. A language only the Shadow understood. His hands covered to the elbows, slipping in cooling blood.

He worked in silence while the Shadow spoke:

See? This is you. What remains when there's no mask.

"I gave you everything," he whispered, hands buried in the open cavity. "You promised me the end."

The end doesn't exist. Only me.

Something broke inside him. Not with a crash, but a silent snap. Like a taut rope breaking.

"You lied," he said, voice hollow. "From the beginning. There was never a last time."

There was never a first time either. It was always me. You're just the hands.

He slowly pulled out his hands. Blood dripped from his fingers. He looked at his palms, the red lines, blackened nails. He no longer recognized those hands as his.

The heart. He had to find the heart. The Shadow always wanted the heart. But it wasn't where it should be. He searched the thoracic cavity. Nothing. He had cut it without realizing, or lost it among the scattered organs.

The Shadow burst out laughing. Long, joyful, cruel.

You can't even finish what you start without me.

Rage rose, sharp and desperate. He wanted to scream, destroy something, tear off his skin until the Shadow came out. But there was nothing to do. The Shadow wasn't in him. The Shadow was him. Always had been.

He fell against the wall, hands hanging at his sides, covered in red. The room was no longer a room. It was an altar. And he, the priest of a god that would never let him go.

The woman was no longer a woman. Just ordered remains, a language he didn't understand but had written anyway.

"I'm done," he said quietly, not knowing if he was talking to himself or to it.

The Shadow didn't respond. It didn't need to.

For the first time in months, the room was silent. Only the smell of iron. Only the slow drip of blood on the floorboards.

Only him.

Jack the Ripper.