The rain hammered against the corrugated iron roof of the abandoned warehouse, a relentless percussion accompanying the final act of the White Devil's life. He sat on a cracked, rusted stool, the metallic tang of blood clinging to the air, a familiar scent that had become a perverse perfume throughout his career. His reflection, a ghostly apparition in the rain-streaked window, showed a man etched with the lines of countless nights spent in the shadows, a man who had danced with death too many times. The Colt .45, cold and heavy in his hand, felt like an extension of himself, a familiar weight that had brought an end to so many lives. Tonight, it would end his own.
He closed his eyes, the echoes of his victims' screams a phantom chorus in his ears. He didn't feel remorse; he felt…nothing. A hollow void where once a burning ambition had resided. The thrill of the hunt, the cold precision of the kill, the power…it had all become a tedious ritual, a hollow performance played out in the bleak theatre of his own making. The numbness was a more chilling companion than any fear.
The gunshot was a sharp, brutal punctuation mark to his existence. The world exploded in a kaleidoscope of white-hot pain before plunging into an abyss of suffocating darkness. Then, nothing. Or perhaps, everything.
He woke to the shrill shriek of sirens, the cacophony of city sounds assaulting his senses. He was lying on a damp, cold floor, his body aching, his mind a fractured landscape of fragmented memories. The metallic taste of blood was replaced by a bitter bile rising in his throat. He tried to sit up, his limbs heavy, unresponsive. His vision blurred, the world a chaotic smear of color. He blinked, trying to focus, and saw a pair of worn, leather shoes standing above him. He tried to speak, but only a ragged gasp escaped his lips.
He was weak, pathetically weak. The strength, the precision, the almost supernatural calm that had defined him as the White Devil…gone. Vanished. Replaced by a crippling fragility that horrified him.
Days bled into weeks. He was in a hospital, a sterile white landscape a stark contrast to the grim, shadowed world he'd inhabited. He learned his name was Iraway. Iraway, a name as foreign and awkward as the clumsy hands that now belonged to him. He was a police officer, he was told. A rookie, barely trained, inept. The irony was a cruel joke, a bitter twist of fate. The cold precision of the White Devil was gone, replaced by a fumbling awkwardness that was both frustrating and terrifying.
He looked at his hands, his own hands. They were different. Smaller, softer. The calluses, the scars that had told the story of his violent past were almost entirely gone, leaving behind a pale, almost feminine softness that felt alien. He flexed his fingers, the movement hesitant, weak. The strength, the power…gone. It felt like a limb had been amputated, leaving behind a phantom pain that throbbed with a deep, unsettling ache. The strength he'd cultivated over years of relentless training as the White Devil, the almost inhuman proficiency in combat and killing...it was all gone, reduced to nothing. It was a profound and unsettling void that left him feeling lost and adrift.
He struggled to make sense of it all. The White Devil's final moments felt like a fever dream, a hazy memory that was both vivid and surreal. His past life seemed to exist in a parallel universe, completely disconnected from the reality of his current existence as the clumsy, ill-equipped Iraway. The disjunction was agonizing. He was a ghost haunting his own life, a specter of his former self, forced to confront a stark and jarring reality.
The memories of his former life as the White Devil surfaced in fragmented flashes—blood-soaked floors, the cold glint of steel, the whispered orders, the chilling precision of his execution. Each flicker of memory brought a wave of nausea, a surge of suppressed rage and frustration. He was a predator forced to exist as prey, a master reduced to a bumbling apprentice.
Three months vanished in a fog of physiotherapy, painful exercises to rebuild his weakened body, psychological counseling, and countless sessions of self-doubt. His new life, if he could call it that, felt like a cruel sentence, a purgatory where he was forced to confront the consequences of a life spent in darkness. He could still feel the phantom weight of the Colt .45 in his hand, feel the cold steel against his skin. The muscle memory was still there, a ghost in the machine of his new body, a reminder of his lost proficiency.
He had developed a routine, a series of rituals, designed to keep the monstrous urges he harbored at bay. Regular, grueling workouts designed to regain some semblance of his former strength. Meditation, an attempt to quell the storm raging within. The quiet solitude of his apartment became his sanctuary, a refuge from the cacophony of the city, a place where he could retreat into the shadows of his own mind.
His return to the police station was less than triumphant. He looked like a man who had spent three months in a coffin. The once sharp lines of his face were softer, the eyes, devoid of the cold glint that had characterized the White Devil, were now filled with a quiet, almost disturbing intensity.
Dalan, the police chief, a portly man with a superstitious streak as wide as his girth, was visibly shaken by Iraway's return. Dalan had consulted a fortune teller, a wrinkled old woman with eyes that seemed to pierce the veil of reality. Her chilling prediction had sent shivers down Dalan's spine. "The devil," she'd croaked, her voice raspy as dry leaves, "has come to the world." The chief's unease wasn't unfounded. Something about Iraway's quiet intensity, his almost unnatural stillness, felt deeply wrong, deeply unsettling. It was as if a shadow had been woven into the very fabric of his being. A shadow that was far more sinister than any man could possibly know.