I don't remember when the obsession started. Or maybe I do, but admitting it would mean facing something unspeakable—something even the dark has the decency to hide. I live in shadows, a world stitched together with threads of nightmares and cold iron, where blood is currency, and flesh is the trade.

My name? They call me Fl3sHm0Ng3R. It’s not a name you speak lightly, not without feeling the weight settle over your heart like a shroud, constricting, squeezing. There’s power in the sound, a dark rhythm that pulses like a fever in the vein. I’ve never had to ask for anything in my life; the darkness provides. I take what I need, and it gives what it wants.

I walk the alleyways that no light touches. Cobblestones slick with something that isn’t water, something darker. My boots crush the remnants of yesterday’s sins as I move through the city’s underbelly, where even the rats have learned not to look too closely.

My hands – they’re not what they used to be. Veins twist like roots over knuckles scarred from a lifetime of cutting, slicing, peeling away the layers that make a person. Fingertips calloused and cold, they hold...