The Abyss Gazes Back

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes back into you."

The girl's body was dumped in a back alley. Drained of blood, like the ones before her. The third such case in one week.

All three victims had the same background. They were poor, homeless, and no one particularly cared what happened to them.

They were not people who 'mattered'. Their deaths wouldn't make the evening news, nor would they draw attention to the monsters lurking in the shadows.

The runaways and the homeless. The sex workers and the addicts. The immigrants and the racial minorities. The people forgotten by the more privileged members of society. The monsters always chose the weakest and most helpless of our kind as their prey.

"Rest in peace, Jane. And may the next world be to you than this world was." I whispered a short prayer for the girl whose dead body was dumped unceremoniously in this alley like yesterday's garbage. Then I began the hunt for her murderer.

Monsters delight in hunting those weaker than them, but they often forget how quickly the hunter can become the hunted.