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He bounded up the first staircase he saw and got off at the fourth floor. A pair of hallways bade him choose, so he followed Garovel’s directions to the door of the murderer.

Hector pounded on the door. “Hello?! Please open up, sir! There’s, ah--a gas leak, and we need to evacuate the building!”

No answer.

Garovel ventured inside. ‘He’s hiding her in the bathroom.’

He backed up and started kicking the door. “Please, sir! I know you’re in there! This is very important!” The door didn’t budge at all. It might as well have been a wall.

‘He’s about to slit her throat.’

“No!”

‘Here.’ Garovel found his shoulder, and Hector immediately felt an explosion of pain throughout his body before it vanished familiarly. ‘Kick it in!’

The door flew from its hinges, ripping its deadbolt and chained lock right out of the wood and plaster.

“What the fuck?!” came a voice from the bathroom, and when the man came out and saw Hector, horror struck his face and he backed away toward the living room. “What the fuck are you?!”

And Hector was confused, because he couldn’t see his own skin eating away at itself, revealing the dried, bloodless muscles of his face. He couldn’t see his shaved hair gone ghostly white or his bloodshot eyes outlined in dead, blackened flesh. Hector just kept walking forward, undeterred by the knife that the murderer threw into his chest, and he grabbed the man by the throat and slowly tightened his grip. Hector could hardly believe how weak the man’s struggles were. He easily kept him pinned against the wall, strangling the man until he fell unconscious.