Russ didn't stand out. That was his gift. His silence, his stillness, the way he moved just slow enough to go unnoticed—it all made him invisible in a world that only paid attention to noise.
At twenty-six, he worked nights as a janitor at Detroit's old courthouse. The job was quiet, paid next to nothing, and kept him surrounded by concrete, flickering lights, and the smell of lemon cleaner. Most people would have hated it, but Russ didn't mind. It gave him time. Time to observe. Time to study. Time to gather pieces of a larger puzzle no one else even noticed.
Every night, he walked the same path. Past the marble steps, through the metal detectors, into the maze of courtrooms and hallways where power lived. He swept, scrubbed, and emptied trash while judges, lawyers, cops, and city officials passed him by without so much as a glance. Men in suits laughed together behind closed doors. Women in expensive heels clicked past him with fake smiles. He saw them all.
He saw the same judge who sentenced a homeless man to six months for stealing bread shake hands with a known real estate scammer. He saw lawyers throw cases for favors. He saw cops plant evidence, then drink coffee while joking about it. Russ kept a notebook. Not for revenge, not for glory. Just for the truth.
Names. Dates. Patterns. Drawings. Sometimes even footage, if the cameras weren't pointed his way. He knew who lied on the stand and who got paid under the table. He wrote it all down, neatly, methodically.
Then came the day that broke him.
It was a sunny morning, the kind that made the city look almost hopeful. A trial had just wrapped. A girl, maybe nine years old, had taken the stand. Her voice was shaky, barely above a whisper, but her words were vivid. She spoke about the man who hurt her. A businessman, clean suit, nice tie, white teeth. Someone who donated to charities, gave speeches at local schools, smiled for every picture.
The jury deliberated for less than an hour. When the verdict came in, the girl looked up with wide, glassy eyes.
Not guilty.
One of the jurors even winked at the man.
The courtroom didn't erupt. It just... sighed. The way it always did. Like this was normal. Like justice was a tired game, and everyone had agreed to pretend.
Russ mopped the hallway afterward. His mop dragged through the same puddle over and over as he listened to the girl's mother sob into the floor. Nobody came to comfort her. Nobody said anything. They all just left.
That night, the businessman was found dead in his mansion.
Strangled. Brutal. Precise.
A word had been carved into his chest, deep and uneven, like it had been done in a hurry but with intent.
GUILTY.
The media erupted. They called it a tragedy, a horrifying act of vigilantism. Speculations swirled. Cops stormed into Russ's apartment the next morning.
They didn't ask questions. They showed him his own notebook. The one he thought he had hidden well.
There were names in it. That businessman's name circled three times. There were sketches of the courthouse, of people's routines, of floor plans. A drawing of a noose. A scribbled phrase in the corner: "Some deserve it."
Russ said nothing. He didn't deny it. He didn't confess either. He just stared at the floor, already knowing how this would go.
They called it an obsession. Said he was mentally unstable. A danger to others. He was declared unfit for trial. No appeals. No discussion.
Coldgate Asylum took him in like he was an old friend.
Coldgate wasn't a hospital. Not really. It was a graveyard for minds people didn't want to deal with. The building was old, built with red bricks and rusted bars. Vines grew through the cracks in the walls. Inside, the air always smelled faintly of bleach and mold. The lights flickered like they were afraid of the dark.
Days in Coldgate blurred together. Morning and night didn't mean anything. The staff barely looked at him. The guards were cruel, loud men with fists like bricks. The nurses gave him pills that made his tongue heavy and his limbs useless. He was allowed outside once a week, in a small concrete yard with high fences and no trees.
The other patients screamed at night. Sometimes they whispered to walls. Sometimes they banged their heads against them. Russ stayed quiet. He didn't scream. He didn't cry. He just watched.
Until the riot.
No one knew how it started. Maybe a patient snapped. Maybe a guard pushed too far. But suddenly, everything went dark. Lights out. Sirens blaring. Screams echoing through the hallways. Smoke. Fire. Doors slamming. Feet running.
Russ had been in the shower room when it began. He barely had time to wrap a towel around himself before a nurse came flying through the doorway, her face covered in blood.
Then chaos.
He stumbled through the corridors, pushing past bodies, some alive, some not. The air was thick with smoke. Sprinklers sputtered uselessly. Somewhere, someone was singing a nursery rhyme at the top of their lungs.
Then it happened.
A sharp pain, deep in his side. Then another. He looked down and saw the blade. Rusted. Jagged. Held by a man with no teeth and eyes like broken glass.
Three stabs. One in the gut. One in the ribs. One just beneath the lung.
Russ fell.
He landed beside a shattered mirror. Blood pooled around him. The cold floor pressed into his back. His breath came in short, ragged pulls.
He turned his head and saw his reflection.
But the man in the mirror wasn't bleeding.
He looked calm. Clean. Awake.
The man in the mirror smiled.
Not cruelly. Not kindly. Just... knowingly. Like he'd been expecting this moment all along.
"I've been waiting," the reflection said. His voice was smooth, clear, echoing in Russ's skull. "Let me help."
Russ didn't panic. He didn't ask questions. He reached out.
Fingers touched cold glass.
And then...
...Light.