"It's like, I die at the end of the story, and then it's like, it happens all the time."
— Jarad Higgins
A 21-year-old young man named Edrume was buying food at a local eatery when he overheard the news on the television that the vendor was watching.
According to the report, many women had suddenly disappeared and remained missing. Authorities issued a warning, urging people, especially women, to be cautious.
The vendor looked at Edrume and another man sitting nearby. "You guys better be careful too! You shouldn't still be outside at midnight!"
The man eating at the table glanced at Edrume, who was selecting his meal. "You're the one I took the bar exam with, right?"
Edrume turned to the man speaking to him. He was a young man wearing glasses. Edrume confirmed that he was a Psychology student, because of his ID lace.
Edrume then shifted his attention back to the vendor, purchasing a serving of dinuguan (a Filipino pork blood stew) before heading home.
As he walked, he failed to notice that someone was following him. A sudden blow to his back—delivered by the unknown person—caused Edrume to lose consciousness and collapse.
When he regained consciousness, he was in a familiar place. His eyes landed on a woman standing with her back to him, seemingly busy with something on a table. When Edrume attempted to stand, he realized he couldn't—he was tied to a chair.
The woman turned to face him. "Oh, you're awake."
Edrume asked her who she was and what they were doing there. She didn't answer. Instead, she chuckled.
"The dinuguan you bought was delicious," she said, turning to look at him. "How much was it?"
Edrume remained silent. The woman approached him and cupped his cheek.
"So cold~"
She fed him, forcing him to eat. At first, Edrume resisted, but hunger won out, and he had no choice but to eat.
Days passed. Every night, the woman was occupied with something at the table. She only leaves whenever she has something important to do—like buying their food.
Even now, she has yet to introduce herself to Edrume.
One day, Edrume had an episode of his illness. He was in pain all day. That night, the woman gave him some medicine. He didn't know what it was, but he took it out of desperation. Dizziness washed over him. As his vision blurred, he caught glimpses of the woman doing something at the table.
This became a routine—she would regularly give him something to swallow. Over time, Edrume got used to it. In fact, he even started enjoying it.
His mind gradually deteriorated. All he knew was that he was completely enamored with the woman. He was obsessed with her—willing to do anything for her.
One night, when the woman returned home, Edrume asked her what she had been making him take. She didn't answer, only smirked.
When he felt the familiar pain again, the woman immediately handed him the "medicine". As always, he swallowed it. Once again, he felt drowsy, dizzy. And once again, he saw the woman engaged in her mysterious work at the table.
His obsession with her deepened—so much so that he didn't want her to leave, not even for a second.
That night, Edrume noticed how badly he smelled from not having bathed for days. But strangely, the woman never complained about it. He simply watched her at the table. Then, suddenly, she screamed. She began saying things he couldn't understand because he was already too dizzy. And then, once again, he lost consciousness.
When he woke up, it was already the next night. A thought crossed his mind—maybe the woman had been drugging him with illegal substances. Maybe the work she was always doing at the table was making those substances.
Even so, he didn't resist. He was too infatuated with her.
The next night, Edrume asked her again. He wanted to know what she was always saying before he passed out. He wanted to know what she was doing.
"Before you fall asleep? I'm talking to Satan!" she replied.
"I keep repeating the same things to him, over and over! But he still doesn't understand!" she added, grinning.
She took out a cigarette, lit it, and exhaled the smoke in Edrume's face. Then she placed it in his mouth, making him smoke as well. Edrume liked it. It made him crave her even more.
The woman smirked and retrieved something from the table. She returned to Edrume and fed him another dose of the drug—causing him to weaken again.
The next morning, he woke up to find the woman lying motionless on the floor. Panicked, he rushed to her, but she didn't move nor respond. His hands were free. He was no longer bound. Slowly, he crawled toward her and touched her. She was cold—lifeless.
Edrume couldn't believe. He approached her "favorite" table and picked up the drugs she had been giving him. Holding her close, he tried to make her swallow them—hoping they would revive her.
Those were the same drugs that always worked on him when he was sick, so maybe, just maybe... they would work on her too.
But as he came to his senses, another realization dawned on him. He lifted the woman's body and placed it inside a thick wall compartment. As he opened it, a foul stench assaulted his nose. Inside were the decomposing bodies of the missing women from the news. He didn't immediately cover the opening. He inhaled the scent, letting it sink in.
Then, he reached for the woman's cigarette.
"So, that's where you've been hiding them." A voice spoke. A man came out from the closet.
. . .
THE PSYCHOLOGY STUDENT'S NARRATIVE
I had long suspected that something was off about Edrume. That's why I started observing him.
The night after I saw him at the eatery, I waited near his house to talk to him. But instead of him, a woman I didn't recognize walked out.
As days passed, Edrume never showed up again. I grew suspicious of the woman, so I decided to investigate her instead. I noticed that when she bought food, it was always enough for two. That only fueled my curiosity.
Then came the night I finally had a chance to enter Edrume's house. As I crept toward the back entrance, I stepped on something. When I looked down, it was a plant. I froze.
Wolfsbane. A plant as deadly as it was beautiful. Even minimal contact could be toxic. And it was growing right in Edrume's backyard?
I went to his basement. The stench was unbearable. There, I found Edrume tied to a chair, unconscious. I was about to approach him when I heard footsteps approaching the basement.
I hid inside a closet filled with knives. I reached for my phone to call for help, but the screen remained black. The battery had drained. Good grief.
Through a small hole, I watched as the woman entered. She went to the table and started working on something. Then I noticed—Edrume's hands were no longer bound. He was faking it.
Suddenly, Edrume screamed in pain. The woman rushed to him, forcing something down his throat.
As he began losing consciousness, the woman broke down. "I don't know why I keep doing this! I just want to know the truth! I know you did it... I know you killed them! But I don't know how... I don't know how to prove it to them! I have no evidence against you! I can't even bring myself to kill you, no matter how much I want to!"
It sounds as if the lullaby for the slayer is silence for the seeker.
The next night, it happened again. She kept repeating the same words before Edrume blacked out. I realized—her sense of smell was weak. Despite the overwhelming stench of decay, she never reacted nor looked for it.
I woke up starving the next day, still inside the closet. Peeking through the hole, I saw the woman collapsed on the floor. Then, I witnessed what Edrume did next.
I grabbed a knife from the closet—for protection. When Edrume saw me emerge, he was shocked. He reached for the knife on the table—but suddenly stopped. It was as if he choked. He gasped for air—then collapsed. Slowly, I approached. His eyes were wide open—just like hers. Dead.
Later, the authorities confirmed that they both died of poisoning. The source? Wolfsbane. They found it growing in Edrume's backyard. Traces of it were discovered in the cigarettes—but how it got there was still uncertain.
Had the woman unknowingly handled the plant, its toxins seeping into her skin before she smoked? Wolfsbane was beautiful in an eerie kind of way, yet deadly. Maybe she didn't know what it was. Maybe she plucked it absentmindedly, admiring its color, unaware of the danger lingering on her fingertips. And when she later reached for a cigarette, and then, the poison did the rest.
Some of the victims' families cried in anger. Some rejoiced over Edrume's fate. But some wanted a different kind of justice.
Another case I failed to solve.
The woman believed she was hunting a killer, but in the end, she was merely another pawn in his game. He had manipulated her, controlled her, and made her question her own reality—just like what he had done to everyone else.
Psychopathy. Delusional tendencies.
Edrume was a psychopath. That's for sure. I see that now. The lack of fear, the indifference, the way he adapted so easily to his captivity—he was never meant to feel the way normal people do. Even when faced with undeniable proof of his crimes, there was no guilt, no horror. Just... acceptance.
Edrume wasn't a man who forgot his sins—he was a man who refused to acknowledge them. His mind didn't erase his crimes; he simply buried them under layers of self-deception. The woman kept trying to make him remember, as if dragging his consciousness to the truth would make him change. But change was never an option. Because deep down, he never forgot.
The Substance-Induced Psychosis may have blurred his perception, but it wasn't what made him a monster. It didn't create the void inside him—it has always been inside of him—it only made him more dependent.
His obsession with the woman wasn't love. A man like him couldn't love. It was fixation, possession, a twisted need to keep her as part of his world.
And then there was the moment with the bodies. He didn't panic. He didn't break down. He just smoked a cigarette. A normal person would have been horrified. A remorseful man would have begged for forgiveness. But Edrume? Edrume inhaled. As if he had smelled it before. As if the scent of decay was familiar.
So did he ever truly believe his own lies? Did he really think he was innocent? Or was he just waiting for the final moment? I don't know. But maybe, in his final moments—he didn't need to.
As for the woman, maybe she started out genuinely trying to get justice but lost herself in the process. If she really was trying to make him confess, why did she keep feeding him drugs? Maybe she was trying to break him mentally, but if that's the case, it wouldn't work on him just as she wanted to.
The woman's impulsivity is giving me a headache here... She wanted to catch a killer, yet she behaved more like a mad scientist experimenting on a wild animal. If she truly believed Edrume was guilty, why didn't she turn him in? Why keep him locked up, drugging him, waiting for some kind of epiphany that would never come?
She said she couldn't kill him, but she also couldn't let him go. It was as if she needed him to suffer, needed him to remember—but not for justice. No, this wasn't justice. This was something more personal. Maybe something she couldn't even define herself.
Was she obsessed with him too? What if she wasn't just obsessed with proving Edrume's guilt?
Her actions made no logical sense. If her goal was to expose him, drugging him was counterproductive. If she wanted to punish him, why keep him alive? If she wanted a confession, why never ask directly?
Edrume's mind was fractured beyond repair, but she was just as broken. If she had survived, I would have diagnosed her with Folie à Deux—shared psychosis. A mutual madness, where one dominant individual fuels the delusions of the other. Except they didn't actually have a close relationship with each other.
Did she drive Edrume further into insanity? Or did Edrume, in his own twisted way, consume her mind just as thoroughly as he did to the others?
One thing was clear: whatever sick, codependent bond they had—
It killed them both.
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CASE CLOSED
Jiro Keiy Crisostomo