"If you wish to break the law, do it beautifully."
— Charles Baudelaire
There comes a moment when philosophy demands proof.
You can read all the books in the world, quote Nietzsche until your throat turns dry — but unless you act, your thoughts remain just theories dancing inside a coward's skull.
Tonight was my experiment.
The city outside my window was soaked in silver — rain glazing the streets, making everything shimmer like a crime scene already washed clean.
In the reflection of the glass, I saw myself — still, composed, indistinguishable from the man I used to be.
But something had changed.
It was the calm.
Real monsters are never loud.
The subject of my first act was not random — he was necessary.
A man named Elias Varon, my former superior at the publishing house. A man who built his reputation by crushing others beneath his polished shoes. He smiled with teeth that belonged in someone else's mouth — borrowed confidence, borrowed decency.
He believed himself untouchable.
And perhaps that was his first mistake.
I waited for him outside his office, where the neon lights hummed like dying bees. He exited alone, his umbrella snapping open like a shield.
He didn't notice me follow. Most people never do. The world trains them to see noise, not silence.
There was no rage in me — only purpose.
I observed him for days, learned his routes, his habits, the rhythm of his arrogance. He was predictable, like a badly written character who believed he was the protagonist.
At exactly 10:41 p.m., he entered the alley shortcut — the one I had chosen.
Rain fell harder now, cloaking sound in a soft blur. The knife in my pocket was small — almost elegant — chosen not for violence, but precision.
He turned at the faint sound of my footsteps.
"Kael?" he frowned, surprised. "What the hell are you—"
I silenced him with a gesture — finger to my lips.
Not out of cruelty. Out of courtesy.
Some acts deserve quiet.
When the blade slid beneath his ribs, it wasn't passion. It was geometry — calculated, exact, inevitable.
His breath caught in disbelief more than pain. I watched the life drain from his eyes, not as horror, but as revelation.
He whispered something — a prayer or a curse — I couldn't tell.
Then nothing.
For a moment, I simply stood there, feeling nothing but awareness.
The mind sharpens in such silence.
There is no morality in that space — only clarity.
I looked at my reflection in the rain puddle — distorted, trembling, divine.
"There," I whispered. "Now I've earned the right to question the law."
I wiped the blade clean, slid it back into my coat, and walked away.
The street swallowed me whole, indifferent and infinite.
It felt… peaceful.
When I returned home, I froze.
Lilith was there — sitting on my couch, one leg crossed over the other, as if she had always belonged in my living room. Her eyes caught the dim light like polished glass — calm, predatory, and impossibly knowing.
My breath hitched. How the hell did she find me? I never told her my address. We weren't that close — not yet. Not enough for this.
"You—" I began, my voice catching somewhere between shock and suspicion.
She tilted her head, the faintest smile tugging at her lips. "Rough night?"
I glanced at my hands — faint traces of red beneath the nails, the smell of iron still clinging to me. The room suddenly felt smaller, the air heavier.
"I need to clean up," I muttered, walking past her. The bathroom light flickered as I turned the tap, watching crimson dissolve into the drain — as if washing away the sin made it any less mine.
In the mirror, my reflection stared back — hollow, trembling at the edges. I wasn't purifying myself.
I was pretending to.
Behind me, I heard her voice, low and amused.
"You can't wash off what's already inside, Kael."