Lance pushed open the door to Eleanor Vance's apartment, stepping into a world frozen in time. The air was thick with the scent of turpentine, old cigarettes and something faintly metallic—the kind of smell that lingered long after a death.

  The apartment itself was small and cluttered.

  Unfinished sketches littered the floor, paint-streaked coffee mugs sat abandoned on the counter, and a single wine glass—half-drunk—rested beside the easel.

  And then there was the painting.

  It stood in the center of the room, illuminated by the harsh glow of flickering LED strips. The figure on the canvas had once been an angel, but something had twisted it. Its wings were still pristine, but its eyes... they were hollow, deep, unnatural. As if the soul had been ripped away.

  Lance stared at the painting, the hollow-eyed angel frozen in some kind of twisted metamorphosis. His fingers flexed at his side, tension rippling through his body.

  The painting disturbed him.

  Was it the hollow eyes or the smeared red across the angel’s wings?

  It felt like the artist had been trying to tell them something before she died.

  Lance stiffened. The surreal and disturbing art piece seems to be dragging him backward in time.

  Seven Years Ago – Lower Districts

  The apartment was cold, the rain leaking through cracks in the window.

  Daniel sat at the tiny kitchen table, scribbling in a notebook, eyes red-rimmed from sleepless nights.

  Lance had just come off a 12-hour shift. He was exhausted, his badge weighing heavy on his belt, but he still noticed the way Daniel’s hands trembled.

  “You okay?”

  Daniel didn’t answer at first. Just kept writing. His fingers smudged the ink.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Lance,” he said finally. “Do you ever feel like someone is… watching you?”

  Lance frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Daniel looked up, eyes wide, voice lower now.

  “Like… he sees everything, but no one else notices.”

  Lance had laughed then, ruffling his brother’s hair. “You need to get out more, Danny.”

  But Daniel hadn’t smiled. He had just stared at him, haunted.

  The memory faded, but the feeling didn’t.

  He forced himself back into the present, staring at Eleanor Vance’s painting.

  Her final message.

  Maya moved beside him, her shoulder barely brushing his. “You okay?”

  He blinked, like shaking himself free of something. “Yeah. Just trying to understand what she saw before she died.”

  Maya wasn’t convinced. The way he was looking at the painting—it wasn’t just about the case.

  It was about himself.

  He was seeing something in it that scared him.

  She almost reached out, but Sarge called Lance over. The moment was gone.

  Agent Maya Carter stepped away, hugging her arms. "She painted this before she died?" Her voice was low, uneasy.

  The uniformed officer standing by the door nodded slowly. "Yeah. Neighbors said she was obsessed with it. Worked on it nonstop for weeks."

  Cursor tilted his head as he examined the piece. His usual smirk was absent. "You can see it in the brushstrokes. Down here, everything is controlled, precise... but near the top, look." He pointed to the way the strokes became erratic, violent. "She wasn't painting anymore. She was—"

  "Fighting something," Lance finished, narrowing his eyes at the distorted upper portion of the painting. He had seen this kind of panic before — perhaps a message hidden in chaos.

  Sarge grunted from the other side of the room, rummaging through a stack of papers and discarded belongings. "Creepy as hell," he muttered. "But we ain't here to play art critic."

  Maya noticed a crumpled receipt on the table.

  "What's this?" Maya asked, picking it up.

  "Looks like a bill," Sarge said, scratching his chin. "Found it wedged under some old mail. Someone was getting paid."

  Lance studied the note intensely. The ink was slightly smudged from moisture, but the name at the top was still legible.

  Dr. Simon Moore – Clinical Psychiatry

  Consultation Fee: 3,000 SYN

  A long silence fell over the room.

  Cursor let out a low whistle. "That's a lot of credits for a struggling artist."

  Lance's gaze darkened.

  "Psychiatrist." He set the bill down, his mind already working.

  Sarge folded his arms. "So what's our angle? She sees a shrink, then kills herself? That's a hell of a coincidence."

  Lance didn't believe in coincidences.

  Maya was flipping through Eleanor's sketchbook, her fingers skimming the pages. "If she was paying this much... it wasn't a casual visit." She pondered in silence.

  Lance took one last look at the painting, its hollow eyes staring back at him. Whatever had happened to Eleanor, it did not just began on the night that she had died.

  It had started before and Dr. Simon Moore must have something to do with it.

  Lance straightened. "Let's go have a chat with her psychiatrist."

  Maya sighed. "This is not going to be easy."

  As the team left, the painting remained, its angelic figure now fully shrouded in shadow.