The Ink Beneath the Skin

They pulled the sheet back like they were unwrapping something sacred. Or cursed. Depends on how you look at it.

The girl on the slab had no name, no ID, no prints — just a mess of ink blooming across her spine like black vines curling around a dead tree. It ran from the base of her neck to the curve of her lower back, seamless, coiled, and strangely alive, like it might keep growing long after her pulse had stopped.

“Tell me that wasn’t there when you picked her up,” I said.

Dr. Mara Lin stood beside me, surgical mask loose under her chin, dark hair tied back in a taut knot that matched the expression on her face. She didn’t look away from the girl. Didn’t blink.

“It wasn’t,” she said quietly.

I leaned closer. Not touching. Just watching.

The design was impossibly detailed — not just lines or swirls but symbols buried within symbols. Spirals intersected with geometric shards, lines that formed strange characters I didn’t recognize, but something in me did. The kind of recognition that makes your stomach turn before your brain catches up.

“She died clean,” Mara said. “No external trauma. No internal damage. Toxicology’s still pending, but initial panels came back negative.”

“No ID?” I asked.

“None. Not in the system. No missing persons match either. She’s a ghost.”

“She’s a message,” I muttered.

Mara gave me a look. “You want to explain that?”

“Not yet.”

Because I couldn’t. Not in a way that made sense.

Because I’d seen that tattoo before.

Not all of it — just a sliver. A small hooked curve near the base of the spine. Like an infinity symbol snapped in half and stitched back together wrong. Fifteen years ago, that exact shape had peeked out from the collar of my sister’s hoodie the last time I saw her.

I told myself it was just a coincidence. But I’ve been telling myself a lot of lies lately.

“Could it be ink?” I asked. “Some kind of reactive pigment?”

“I don’t think so,” Mara said. “I took a small biopsy. The substance moves. Not like it’s flowing — more like it’s adjusting.”

“Adjusting to what?”

“Stimuli. Heat. Pressure. Possibly thought.”

“You’re saying this thing is sentient?”

“I’m saying it’s not static. And I don’t like that.”

Neither did I.

---

I walked out into the city like someone trying to catch their breath underwater. The air was heavy with summer rain, ozone and rot mixing into something chemical. Streetlamps buzzed overhead like they were about to die. Cars hissed by in a blur of red and white, their reflections scattered in the puddles bleeding across the asphalt.

My name’s Reese Calder. Homicide. Fifteen years in Crescent City PD, ten of them spent watching this city rot from the inside. I used to think there was a bottom to it. A limit. Something solid under the sludge. But the longer I’ve stayed here, the more I’ve realized — the rot goes down forever.

I lit a cigarette, mostly for the heat, partly for the habit. My hands still shook from what I’d seen. The girl hadn’t died — she’d been claimed. And whoever—or whatever—had marked her, they weren’t done.

This was the third victim in less than a month. Different ages. Different neighborhoods. No links. No suspects. No patterns—except the ink.

They all had it.

And it changed every time.

I was halfway to my car when I heard the voice.

“You’re getting too close.”

I turned sharply.

A figure leaned against the alley wall. Tall. Shaved head. A long coat that looked soaked in smoke and stories.

“Silas Verge,” I muttered.

He gave a slight nod, stepping into the amber cone of a flickering streetlight. His tattoos crawled up his neck like ivy toward his jaw. Silas was a myth among ink artists — ex-gang, ex-occultist, ex-sane. I’d used him as a consultant once, years ago, when a serial killer carved Sanskrit verses into his victims’ skin.

“You’ve seen it,” he said.

“The girl?”

“The ink.”

“It’s a pattern,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

“More than that. It’s a language. And it’s not meant for everyone.”

“Then who?”

He met my eyes. “You.”

Something dropped in my stomach. Cold. Sharp. Familiar.

“That symbol,” I said. “The one on her lower back—”

“The echo glyph.”

I flinched. “It has a name?”

“It does.”

“What does it mean?”

Silas looked past me, toward the skyline drowned in fog. “It means something’s coming. And it remembers you.”

He handed me something. A card. Black. Matte. No text. But when I turned it toward the light, faint lines shimmered into view — the same hooked symbol from the girl’s back. Inked in a way that didn’t reflect so much as pulse.

“I don’t want this,” I said, but he was already walking away.

---

My apartment was quiet the way an old church is quiet — not peaceful, just full of ghosts. I tossed my coat over the chair, dropped the card on the counter, and stared at the wall above my desk. Crime scene photos were taped in uneven lines, victims staring back with hollow eyes and skin that had been painted by something that didn’t use ink or hands.

I took out the files again. Jane Doe One — chest tattoo. Doe Two — thigh. Tonight’s victim — spine. At first glance, the symbols looked random. Meaningless. But I’d stared long enough at patterns to know better.

I rotated the photos. Shifted angles. Reversed the negatives.

Then I saw it.

The three separate tattoos weren’t separate at all. Together, they formed a single design. A perfect ring, jagged and incomplete only because a fourth piece was missing.

My pulse quickened.

I pulled out a city map. Marked the location where each body was found. When I connected the dots, I expected nonsense.

Instead, I found symmetry.

A circle.

And its center?

An abandoned printing press three blocks from where my sister vanished fifteen years ago.

---

I didn’t sleep. I watched the windows. Waited for the knock I felt coming.

It came just after three.

Soft. Two taps. Like a code. I rose slowly, gun drawn, and checked the peephole.

Nothing.

Still, I opened the door.

The hallway was empty — except for a single envelope on the floor.

No name. No stamp. No handwriting.

I took it inside and opened it.

Inside: a photograph.

Black and white. Grainy. A girl in her early twenties standing in front of a cracked mirror, one hand raised like

she was reaching for something.

My sister.

And in the reflection behind her — something half-visible.

Something watching.

Something with eyes like mine.