Chapter 16

By the third week in prison, Arthur stopped sleeping.

The other inmates had learned what he’d done before the guards even finished processing him. Whispers traveled through concrete faster than electricity.

Women.

Young women.

What he did to them.

No one sat near him in the cafeteria. Men spat into his food trays when the cameras couldn’t see. Someone carved the word MONSTER into the paint above his bunk. Every morning he woke with fresh bruises he couldn’t explain.

At first, he thought prison justice was satisfying itself.

Then he met the man.

Arthur was washing his face in the communal bathroom late one night when he looked up into the cracked mirror.

A huge figure stood behind him.

He was enormous—well over seven feet tall, broad enough to block the doorway. He wore no uniform. His skin looked gray beneath the flickering fluorescent lights, and his head had been shaved clean. His hands were thick and scarred.

Arthur spun around.

The bathroom was empty.

He looked back at the mirror.

The burly man remained.

Watching.

Arthur stumbled backward.

“Who are you?”

The giant’s expression never changed.

“You know who I am,” he said.

His voice sounded like steel doors slamming shut.

Arthur ran.

He asked the other inmates about him the next day.

The chatter in the yard died.

Nobody laughed.

An old prisoner named Velez finally spoke.

“You’ve seen him?”

Arthur nodded.

Velez stared at him for a long moment.

“They tell stories,” he said quietly. “About the prison itself. That every prison has a soul. Most sleep. Some watch.”

He pointed toward the concrete walls surrounding them.

“This one judges.”

Arthur scoffed, trying to hide the tremor in his voice.

“You expect me to believe the building turns into a man?”

Velez’s eyes never left him.

“They say he only comes for the worst of us.”

A pause.

“And until now, nobody had actually seen him.”

That night, Arthur heard footsteps outside his cell.

Heavy.

Slow.

THUD.

THUD.

THUD.

He wrapped himself beneath his blanket.

The footsteps stopped outside his bars.

Silence.

Then—

“You cried louder than they did.”

Arthur’s blood froze.

He peeked through the fabric.

The giant stood in the darkness beyond the bars.

No guard reacted.

No inmate stirred.

The man’s massive fingers curled around the steel.

“You begged for mercy sooner than they did.”

“I didn’t—”

“You remember every scream.”

Arthur squeezed his eyes shut.

When he opened them, the hallway was empty.

The torment continued.

The burly man appeared in reflections.

In polished floors.

In the black screen of Arthur’s television before lights out.

Sometimes he simply watched.

Sometimes he spoke.

“You liked locked doors.”

“You counted their tears.”

“You thought no one was listening.”

Arthur stopped eating.

Stopped talking.

He developed dark circles beneath his eyes.

One morning, guards found him clawing at the cell walls until his fingernails tore away.

“Get me out!” he screamed. “He’s here!”

There was no one there.

Weeks later, Velez passed Arthur in the infirmary.

“He still visits?” he asked.

Arthur stared at the floor.

“He doesn’t leave anymore.”

Velez’s weathered face tightened.

“What does he do?”

Arthur’s lips trembled.

“He makes me remember.”

The old inmate said nothing.

Because prison was supposed to punish the body.

Years behind bars.

Cold meals.

Violence.

Isolation.

But perhaps the prison had grown tired of watching monsters arrive with excuses.

Perhaps concrete absorbed enough suffering to develop a conscience.

Or perhaps evil simply attracted something older and heavier than guilt.

The last time Arthur was seen alive, the night guard found him standing in the center of his cell.

Alone.

His eyes were fixed on the corner.

He whispered apologies to empty air.

Over and over.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

The guard glanced toward the corner.

There was nothing there.

Just shadow.

But as he closed the observation slot, he could have sworn he heard another voice answer from within the darkness.

Deep.

Patient.

Unmoved.

“No.”

The next morning, Arthur was dead.

No wounds.

No signs of struggle.

Only terror frozen permanently across his face.

The story spread quickly through the prison.

The giant had finally appeared.

Not for thieves.

Not for murderers who regretted what they’d done.

Not for gangsters or addicts.

For Arthur.

The first.

And, the inmates hoped as they listened to heavy footsteps echo through old corridors late at night…

not the last.