Cade looked up at the dingy ceiling, a photo stapled to it stared back at him of a woman, a woman he was going to kill today. Maybe she didn’t deserve to die, but that was above his pay grade. Anyone who takes a life with a magical item forfeits whatever peace they had.

  Slicking back his long hair and tying it behind his head, Cade gently splashed water onto his face. The shower nob turned as far to the right as possible. He watched the steam fog the mirrors and glass. Cade stepped inside, hoping it would sear his skin and force him backwards, but it never did.

  What did the warmth of someone else feel like against your skin? What did cool water feel like on a hot summer day? What did the midday breeze feel like passing through your hair? What was it like to feel? Fitting in was becoming increasingly complex; Cade had lost the natural reactions that seemed instinctive to ordinary people.

  The night before, Cade had already left out his clothes for the day—an outfit that matched the cooling weather. To hide in plain sight: match what others do and keep your head low, and no one will ever look your way more than a passing glance. But he was always slightly off. Cade didn’t brisk when the wind picked up; he didn’t bundle himself up into a ball while pressing forward. He was fake, but just surface-level enough that he couldn’t have anyone watching him too closely.

  Cade had stayed in hotel after hotel, never long enough to settle in. Four walls and a bed, just a room to get what little sleep he allowed himself. Whatever possessions he needed were large enough to fit into his pocket; anything else would weigh him down.

  The streets this morning were stagnant, his breath trailing as he exhaled. Cade stopped by the closest bus stop, enough time to reach the art museum before it opened. Cade could follow the pattern and blend in with the crowd, but even after being alive for so long, he knew the people on the bus with him were too absorbed in their worlds to concern themselves with someone else.

  Only one feeling remained in this cold frame Cade called a body: a gnawing hunger that dug deep into the pits of his stomach and set his nerves on fire. A lump in this throat where the hunger cried out for release, a hunger they let run rampant until it was nearly too much to bear, moments away from when Cade would succumb to his nature.

  Every time Cade fed, his hunger grew, so the Concord allowed him to feast on only those they approved, just enough to let him suffer that endless hunger but never too much that he would lose control, even with the dampeners they wrapped around his wrists. Cade had to earn his meals; they were no longer freely taken.

  Slow-moving people, clutching their phones, lined the walkway toward the art museum. It was quiet, a gentle buzz of movement between the shallow gazes of those moving around him. Today was calm, but it wouldn’t remain that way for long.

  “Good morning, sir!” The woman at the counter greeted him and waved him over.

  “Good morning,” Cade says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his wallet. “A day’s pass, please.”

  “Would you be interested in our membership program?” the woman says, shining her best corporate smile and reaching beside her.

  “Just the day pass, please.”

  “But, sir, our membership program includes visits for a year and three complimentary one-time-use guest passes. You will also receive a 10% discount in-store and online at the Gallery Store.”

  There never used to be so many memberships. Every place has one now, and they want you to learn about all their fancy perks. The song and dance tied you to one establishment over the other ten; perfect for someone who liked to remain unnoticed, a loyalty card.

  “Just a day pass,”

  The woman reached behind her and handed him a small sheet of paper on a clipboard.

  “Check in form, sir.”

  Cade wrote down as little of the requested information as possible with the chewed-up pen attached to a frayed string on the clipboard. The woman flashed another corporate smile, took it behind the counter, and typed briskly on the cheap keyboard, with a space bar that required two taps to register.

  “Thank you for joining us; please enjoy your visit,” The woman says, gesturing to the two double doors to her left. “Just head on inside when you are ready. Lockers for your belongings are back there,” The woman gestures to a small opening at the other end leading to a line of lockers.

  “Thank you,” Cade says, nodding and heading inside the museum.

  Artworks blossomed throughout his lifetime, rising and falling in popularity, but seeing them always reminded Cade that other things might age with him. The human experience is plucked from the mind and brought to life across the canvas. The arts have been the purest form of expression for millennia. Some achieved fame in their lifetimes; others didn’t see their works blossom until long after their deaths.

  The exhibit this time didn’t matter to Cade. He wasn’t here to appreciate art; perhaps that would be an option next time if he ever returned, but not today. The first Wednesday shift was a staple of his target's schedule and had the fewest people around.

  Walking around the exhibit, Cade slowly scanned the surroundings, keeping to the edge of the security cameras that lined the hall. The element of surprise always brought him the best results during the hunt. To approach silently when his prey had their natural guard down. People felt safe at their work. Who would be foolish enough to approach them then, and what could not be resolved by calling security?

  Cade’s prey sat silently amongst the art pieces on an uneven stool, drinking their water softly and wiping their lips like any other person. Their eyes tracked the few people wandering around the room.

  “Good morning,” Cade says, standing beside the woman, who looks up softly with bushy, wide eyes.

  “Good morning, Sir. Can I interest you in an explanation of these pieces?”

  “That would be lovely,”

  The woman placed her water bottle down softly beside her and shimmied off the stool. “My name is Maria,” She says, gesturing to the uneven name tag pinned to her chest.

  “A lovely name,” Cade says.

  Maria smiled, a gentle blush across her face as she moved past Cade. “That’s kind of you, Sir,” Maria adjusted the hair behind her ear and walked forward, leading the way forward as Maria weaved amongst the art pieces. She brought him to an exhibit marked with a 1 in the top corner in green tape.

  “This is where our art journey begins. The seven pieces displayed here were discovered in an old estate in Germany. After the owner and remaining heir of the Dreyer family had cleared out their home to demolish it, art appraisers were tipped off about these pieces and swarmed the estate, cheque books in hand. Protests lasted for days when they wouldn’t sell, until they were finally let inside and collected the pieces for a formal review in this very gallery,” Maria says, gesturing to the edges of the frames. “Art appraisers date these pieces spanning over a 200-year time frame. They had no frames then, so those in charge of the cataloging and restoration installed them after the fact.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Were the pieces already named, or did the appraisers give the names themselves?”

  Maria looked down at the text block below the pieces, gently running her hands along it. “Partially both. Each represented a deadly sin: this one, the first. Wrath,” Maria says, looking up at the painting. An explosion of red hues that clashed against each other like the artist flung the paint into a hurricane. It had no shape or form and yet felt deliberate.

  “Wrath is a terrible thing, isn’t it?” Cade says, crossing his arms and shaking his head. “When one's anger grows so strong, they exert their fury onto another. Truly deplorable,”

  Maria stopped in her tracks as Cade glared down at her, her throat swallowed heavy, and her eyes turned back towards the painting. “The appraisers found the paint to contain high levels of iron. It is a close match to human blood. Of how many people, they couldn’t be certain? It was too well mixed to assess without damaging the piece. Theories pop up here and there, but all of them end up sounding like deranged ramblings.”

  Maria walked forward, leading Cade to the second painting in the sequence. “The second, they found, was lust.”

  It was another equally confusing painting. Chains and binds trap a man intertwined with a female body, her embrace sucking him into her skin as she absorbed him slowly, painfully. It was an inevitable demise, and yet the woman smiled brightly as the man wailed in pain.

  “The woman in this painting shares some resemblance to historical figures, but not anyone close enough to make a direct connection.”

  “Another web of theories, then?”

  “Exactly. Guesses upon guesses where they continue to argue for supremacy,”

  “It looks so soft, so easy to waltz into the warmth of another's embrace, not noticing you were already trapped. To be bound and bridled in their web of tricks. Lust is a tricky little slope, isn’t it?” Cade says, turning towards Maria and waiting for her to meet his gaze.

  “I feel the same way. Such a vivid depiction of Lust makes you wonder what emotions the artists were feeling when they began painting this piece.”

  “Perhaps a love they knew they shouldn’t delve into. A love you craved like air but couldn’t have because it belonged to another?”

  “That’s quite the specific example,” Maria says, a trickle of sweat faint enough for Cade to see crawling down her face and coiling around her neck, a gentle tremble in her hand resting against her hip.

  “I love those stories, especially of the scorned younger sister. Never getting their true love, they either accept their loss,” Cade says, softly turning towards the painting, focusing on the man who was slowly, inevitably devoured. “Or, like the woman, force their love onto another regardless of their feelings,”

  Maria walked towards the third painting; her gate grew sloppy, and her gaze lowered. Each step Maria took dragged as Cade trailed behind her.

  “The third painting disco-,” Maria coughed, clasping her hand over her face, trying to stifle it. “My apologies,”

  “Envy,” Cade says, stepping beside Maria as she coughs out the final leg of her breathlessness.

  “That’s correct,” Maria says, wiping away the spit that crawled down her cheek onto her shirt sleeve.

  “Lust, Envy and Wrath. All the sins seem to work hand in hand. Once you stick your hand into the jar, the sweet scent of decay will attract the others like pests,”

  Maria looked at the painting, her hands clenched unnaturally, every muscle in her body flaring, eyes wide as frisbees. “Mirrors break the reflection of other mirrors in a clash of reflections. Reports say that some who saw this piece had to take three days' rest after exposure.”

  “But then you wouldn’t exhibit it here if that were true, or you’d be a fool,” Cade says, stepping forward to get a better look at the painting. “A symphony of shattered reflections, tainting whatever form it reflected. It must be difficult to look at yourself in the mirror when all you see is a decrepit creature that looks nothing like you remember yourself to be.”

  Maria didn’t answer, her gaze fixed on Cade; she refused to break eye contact.

  “Is that what you see when you look in the mirror? Does your face look uncanny now?” Cade says, turning to Maria and pointing towards the shattered glass. “Some days, that’s all I see, too. The face of some monster grafted onto my own, and no matter how hard I pull at it, it just won’t come off. You look at it for long enough, and you forget what was there before.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about, Sir,” Maria says, her knuckles going white as they clenched together.

  “Do you wish the mirror would shatter when your gaze reached it, or might you be invisible like a vampire, never to see that unnatural face again?”

  “I’ll get another one of my colleagues to assist you. I am not feeling well, I am afraid,” Maria says, grabbing her water bottle and nearly knocking over the stool as she tries to scurry away.

  Cade grabs her arm and holds her in place. “What about the rest of the paintings? There are still four more for us to explore.”

  “Please let go of my arm, sir,” Maria says, clenching her teeth as she tried to pull away.

  “It would be hard to feel well when the guilt presses into your chest like that,” Cade says, letting his face fall flat, and whatever emotion Maria saw was gone like makeup under rainfall.

  “What do you want? I have no money. I have nothing,” Maria says, her eyes narrowing and bloodshot as she looks up at Cade.

  “Some matters should be discussed in private, or shall we shout it as loud as we can for all to hear?”

  Maria looks around back and forth. There was no one else here. Not another employee or customer. Silence from wall to wall.

  “Follow me,” Maria says, gently leading Cade towards one of the emergency exits and weaving their way to the top of the building, where a gust of fresh air outside frees the nose of old art's stuffiness.

  “Do you take joy in my mental anguish? You have no proof of anything you are talking about.”

  “Your sister was a lovely, kind woman, wasn’t she? Gentle, sweet, and caring for all. But you, you are none of those things,”

  “She took everything from me. Since we were children, she stole it all,” Maria says, her face bright red as she swings her hands around like mallets. “She had the silver spoon while I had to shovel the shit to get a single thing I wanted, and even when I found someone I love, she stole him from me.”

  “So you made her suffer because you weren’t good enough to keep pace with her?”

  “She was not better than me. She was a thief,” Maria says, her spit flying everywhere like the words were toxin, slipping down onto her cheeks like a rabid dog. “And even after I had him, he only asked about her. He didn’t even see me.”

  “Because there was nothing worthwhile to see in you. You deserve to be forgotten.”

  “What now? Are you going to bring me to justice? Some vigilante justice, like in a comic book?” Maria reached into her side pocket, pulled out a small sewing needle blackened like burnt oak, and clenched it in her pale hands. “Who will you tell if I kill you right here? Or perhaps, you can tell my Sister about how kind you think she was,”

  Cade had seen this type before, far too many to count. So high and mighty. They always thought they were the monsters, without realizing they were the stoic ants, unaware of the steel-toed boot about to introduce itself to them.

  Maria lunged forward, stabbing the needle into Cade’s stomach and twisting it as it pierced his flesh, a trail of dark blood rolling down onto the rooftop.

  “Since you care so much about my sister,” Maria says, teeth clenched and grinding together like a rabid dog. “You can die, a cursed and lonely death just like her,” Maria backs away, smiling as Cade clenched onto the needle.

  Cade plucked it out like a cactus needle, examining it in his fingers, and the smile that Maria boasted so brightly died.

  “You can’t curse me more than what’s I already have,” Cade says, placing the needle gently into his pocket. “I lied earlier to you,” Cade says, his bones cracked and twisted. Cade’s face contorted and tore itself apart. The bones in his jaw widened, and his eyes sucked into his skull as his jaw pressed forward, and his vocal cords twinged and darkened. “I don’t give a shit about your sister's kindness. I’m hungry,”

  Utter shock and fear would be the last thing Maria would feel. The expression crawled across her face as she saw Cade for what he was: a monster. She couldn’t react; it was already too late. Her head fit so gently into his gaping mouth, and with a single bite, Maria was no more.