Now I am tired, would *you* like to narrate, Nero?

  Alright, now it’s my(Nero) turn again to narrate.

  At the funeral, Ethan was inconsolable, his grief consuming him as he cried with no end in sight. I stayed close, trying to offer him whatever comfort I could, but his sorrow was too deep.

  As I spoke softly to calm him, a young woman about our age approached. She placed a gentle hand on Ethan’s back and said quietly, "Ethan, is that you?"

  Ethan looked up, his tear-streaked face lighting up briefly with recognition. "Grace! It’s been a long time," he managed, offering her a hollow smile before breaking down again.

  Grace gave him a sympathetic look. "Ethan, I’m so sorry for your loss. Can you tell me... what happened?"

  Ethan continued to cry in silence, unable to speak, so Grace turned to me, her expression both curious and concerned. "What happened?" she asked softly.

  I took a deep breath before answering. "The same person who killed Boyd… set fire to the mansion."

  Grace’s face went pale with shock. “That’s… horrifying,” she whispered.

  I nodded solemnly. “Ethan witnessed it all… he saw everyone die right in front of him.”

  Grace’s eyes widened, her voice breaking with empathy. “No wonder he’s so scared and traumatized… Anyone would be.”

  I shook my head. "We can’t afford to be paralyzed by fear—not now. We don’t even know when or how that Ghost will make his next move."

  But Ethan, gripping the armrests of his wheelchair with a newfound resolve, interrupted. His voice was fierce, unwavering. “He won’t get away with this. It doesn’t matter who he is or what he wants... I’ll make him pay.”

  Grace visited Ethan a few days later, sitting beside him to offer comfort and support. I stayed nearby, listening to their conversation. As they spoke, I learned that Grace was the daughter of General Kane Roderick—a name I recognized immediately.

  When she left, I casually asked Ethan, “Where does she live?”

  He glanced over and replied, “In Arcuss Town. Why do you ask?”

  “Just for general knowledge,” I answered, trying to play it cool, though her connection might prove helpful in our investigation.

  Grace returned a few weeks later, her expression twisted in anger and sorrow. “My parents are gone,” she announced, her voice quaking with emotion. The weight of her words settled heavily in the room, and I could see Ethan’s face fall as he processed her loss.

  “What happened?” I asked, trying to grasp the full situation.

  “I don’t know who did this,” she replied, tears streaming down her cheeks as she leaned her head against my chest. “But they were both murdered.”

  Ethan, with a grim determination, said, “I know who it must be. It’s that Ghost. He wants to turn the world into hell.”

  I let out a bitter chuckle, replying, “As if it isn’t already hellish enough.”

  “He wants to make it worse,” Ethan insisted.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Grace pulled her head from my chest, still sobbing. “It’s already the worst it can be.”

  After a moment of uncomfortable silence, I said, “We’re wasting time. This Ghost is unpredictable, and we’re nowhere close to catching him.”

  Ethan opened his mouth to respond, but before he could finish, the front door of the mansion burst open. Officers stormed in, guns drawn, and shouted, “Ethan Sterling!! You are under arrest!”

  Ethan fought against being taken away, desperate to understand what was happening. He asked the officers repeatedly for answers, but they were indifferent to his pleas. To my disbelief, they also escorted Grace and me to the police station for questioning.

  Once there, we shared everything we knew about Ethan, hoping to clear his name. The officer, trying to be sympathetic, reassured us, “It’s not your fault. You’re victims in this situation.”

  Curious about the unfolding chaos, I asked the same officer, “What’s going on?”

  His response left me stunned. “Ethan Sterling is a serial killer. From February 19th until now, he has killed 18 people.”

  The date hit me hard; it was just three days after Boyd was murdered. My heart raced as I processed this information, realizing how deeply intertwined our lives had become with tragedy and despair.

  I leaned closer to Grace and whispered about the date, but her mind seemed distant, lost in her own turmoil. Just then, another officer rushed in, breathless and urgent. “There’s been an explosion in Nicorf Town!”

  My heart sank; that was the town where I had lived with my parents. Panic coursed through me as I thought about what might have happened. The weight of the situation was suffocating, and I knew we had to get to the bottom of this before it was too late.

  I turned to Grace, trying to shake her from her daze. “Grace, we need to figure out what’s happening. This could be connected to the Ghost!” I could see the fear in her eyes, and I knew that our time was running out.

  We followed the police and fire brigade to Nicorf Town, my pulse racing. As we approached, the scene came into view: it was the very house where I’d once lived with my parents. Oddly, I felt no sadness; memories of my father and his wife brought only bitterness. But then my thoughts turned to my half-brother, only six years old, innocent of the cruelty that plagued the rest of my family.

  The house was engulfed in flames, a wall of smoke pouring into the sky. As firefighters fought the blaze, I scanned the crowd, hoping for some sign that my brother might have escaped.

  A tug on my shirt jolted me out of my thoughts. I turned and saw a little boy, face streaked with tears. “What’s your name?” I asked gently, kneeling to his level.

  “Owen,” he replied, his voice trembling.

  “Full name?” I needed to confirm who he was, even though a part of me already suspected.

  “Owen D. Wolfsbane.”

  It hit me like a lightning strike—my half-brother, standing here completely unharmed. The explosion had leveled the house, yet here he was, without a scratch. Anxiety gnawed at me. How had he survived such a devastating blast?

  I passed Owen to one of the officers, still dazed. After the firefighters managed to contain the blaze, Grace and I returned. Grace was visibly shaken, still processing the revelation about Ethan and reeling from the shock of the explosion. With Ethan absent, I couldn’t look after Owen properly, so I had no choice but to place him in the care of a nearby orphanage. It all happened so quickly, a whirlwind of chaos that left us all scrambling to make sense of it.

  A few days later, I returned to Nicorf Town to investigate further, and Grace insisted on joining me. We started by speaking with locals, who claimed they'd seen a young man with white hair, in a wheelchair, carrying a large bag into the house a week before the explosion. It matched Ethan’s description precisely. I knew Ethan too well to believe he could be a murderer—but this sighting only complicated things.

  We checked nearby security cameras, and there it was, clear as day: Ethan, wheeling up to the house with that large bag in tow. My mind raced. If he wasn't responsible for the explosion, what was he doing there, and what could have been inside that bag? The unsettling question hung between us: *Why was Ethan at my father’s house before the blast?*

  A few days later, the news broke that Grace K. Roderick had been identified as the killer of her father, General Kane Roderick. My heart sank as I processed the shocking revelation. How could she, the girl who had shown such compassion and support to Ethan, be involved in something so heinous?

  The implications were staggering. If Grace had indeed killed her father, it could connect her to the recent wave of violence and chaos surrounding us. I wondered if her grief over losing him had driven her to madness, or if there were deeper motives at play. My thoughts raced as I tried to piece together the fragments of this tangled web—was she linked to the "Ghost" in some way, or was she just another victim of the unfolding tragedy?

  I needed to confront her, to understand the truth behind her actions and the chaos that had engulfed both our lives.

  Now Grace should explain what happened, right?

  U-u-uhh, y-yeah I would love to.

  After I was arrested and taken to prison five days later, I discovered I’d been assigned a cellmate: none other than Ethan Sterling, the alleged serial killer. His face lit up with surprise and relief when he saw me.

  "Grace! You came to save me, right? Do you know why they brought me here?" he asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

  I looked at him, my voice shaking with anger and confusion. "Save you? Ethan, how could you… I can’t believe you. Did you really kill 18 people and set that bomb in Nero's father's house?"

  Ethan looked utterly bewildered. "Grace, why would I do that? I don’t have the nerve to even look at a dead body, let alone kill 18 people. And how would I even know where Nero's father lived?"

  His response gave me pause. The doubt in his eyes made me wonder if there was more to this situation than I’d realized.