Previously on Crimson Mind.....
I am Damien Cross, and I am suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)...
"So you are saying that you have dual personality disorder?" "Yes, sir, and have been suffering from this for the past 15 years."
In the present,
As Damien drives Evelyn to school, she looks over and asks how long he'll be away. With a reassuring smile, he replies, 'Just a week, kiddo. I mean, we have to analyse the Buddha statue first to find out how old the statue is, but it'll fly by before you even notice I'm gone.'
They reached the school, and Damien gave a hug to Evelyn and said goodbye to her. After that, he went to his office.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON...
Damien hired a babysitter for Aira as Evelyn was going to her friend's for a sleepover. He packed his bags, he his kids kissed and hugged his kids, and he went to the airport. He met his new colleague, who was very clumsy. Her name was Rosemary Carter." Nice to meet you, Miss Carter. I am Damien Cross, your new senior archaeologist." "Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Cross." So give me more details about this Buddha statue....."
IN THE PAST....
The interviewer looked at the officer and said, "I don't believe he committed the crime himself. It feels like it was his alternate personality that took over."The officer shot back angrily, "Are you seriously saying you trust him? How can you be so sure? What proof do you even have that this disorder exists?"The man replied calmly, "Son, I've been doing this job for three decades. I know when a man's telling the truth — and when he's not. I saw him... and it wasn't like he was doing it consciously. It was the same look those wives have — the ones who know their husbands are killers, but stay silent out of fear for their own lives." Anyway, lock him up for today, we will deal with him once the mental health professional comes," he added.
THE NEXT DAY....
A police officer shook Damien awake in his cell and told him to get ready, the specialist was waiting. Still groggy, Damien shuffled to the sink to brush his teeth. As he leaned down to spit, he glanced up and froze.
There, reflected in the cracked mirror, stood the same man from the interrogation room. That same haunting smile stretched across his face, unchanged and unnatural.
Damien's heart stopped. Panic slammed into him like a wave. He stumbled back with a sharp gasp and slipped, crashing into a plastic bucket behind him. The bucket shattered under his weight with a loud crack. The jagged plastic tore into his back, leaving a deep gash, but Damien didn't feel a thing.
The noise brought the officers running. They found him curled in the wreckage, wide-eyed, trembling, blood trailing down his spine.
He wasn't in pain. He was terrified. Of something.
IN THE PRESENT....
Since Damien was out working and Aria was safely at home with the babysitter, Evelyn headed to her best friend Jessica's place. At least, that's what she'd told everyone. In reality, she and Jessica were sneaking out to a party, one thrown by Evelyn's boyfriend, Vincent Blackwood.
Vincent wasn't just some high school heartthrob. He was rich. Obnoxiously rich. His family ran Blackwood Industries, the biggest corporation in the region. His mansion looked more like a palace than a house, and his parties were known for being wild and over-the-top.
When Evelyn arrived, Vincent greeted her with a smirk and casually leaned in to kiss her. But she turned away. She wasn't ready for that kind of intimacy. Anything involving sex, lust, or losing control made her uneasy. She didn't know how to explain it. She just wasn't like that.
Vincent, however, was the complete opposite. He lived for attention, for thrill, for physicality. When she refused the kiss, he didn't say anything. His smile faded, and without a word, he walked away.
Evelyn stood there, stunned, her heart sinking. She had only wanted to spend time with him, to enjoy the evening. But now it felt like she had let him down. She wandered through the party, searching for him, guilt gnawing at her like acid. Finally, she sat with Jessica and tried to hold herself together, but the pressure cracked her wide open. She burst into tears, covering her face while Jessica wrapped an arm around her and tried to calm her.
A few minutes later, Evelyn wiped her eyes and decided to find Vincent to make things right.
But when she turned into the hallway leading toward the guest rooms, her breath caught.
There he was.
Vincent.Pressed up against another girl. Hands tangled in her hair. Mouth locked with hers. As if Evelyn had never even existed.
Her world shattered in an instant.
The sadness in her chest was gone. All of it was replaced with rage. Pure, uncontrollable rage.
"What the hell?!" she screamed.
Vincent and the girl flinched and broke apart. He turned, eyes wide, suddenly caught.
"Evelyn, wait—"
She didn't wait.
"You said you loved me! Was that a lie, too? Or did you just get bored because I didn't let you shove your tongue down my throat the second we got here?" Her voice was trembling, but not with fear. With fury.
People nearby stopped to stare. The music still thumped in the background, but the hallway had gone cold.
"You're disgusting, Vincent. You're a coward. And you just lost the only girl who gave a damn about who you were beneath all that stupid rich-boy ego."
Vincent tried to speak again, but she cut him off with a glare so sharp it could've drawn blood.
"Don't. Just don't."
And then she turned and stormed out of the house, Jessica quickly running after her.
Evelyn wasn't sad anymore.
She was done. She stormed out of the mansion.
IN THE PAST.....
Damien was sitting right in front of the specialist, still visibly shaken from the horrifying incident in the bathroom. The specialist leaned forward slightly, pen in hand, and asked, "So, Damien, I heard that you're claiming to have DID. Well, that's strange. Patients with Dissociative Identity Disorder usually don't know they have it. So how can you be so sure?" Damien's eyes widened with fear as he whispered, "I can see him." He swallowed hard. "He did all the killing, not me. He was the one, not me."
Meanwhile, the officer who had arrested Damien from Times Square was leading the interrogation. Suddenly, another officer burst into the room and shouted, "Sir! Sir!" The lead officer turned, irritated. "What?" he snapped. "Sir, a new body was found! And it has the symbol of the Ripper," the younger officer reported breathlessly. "Then why the fuck are you excited to tell me this?" the senior officer growled. "Sir… this body doesn't have a head. And the head we recovered matches the description of the victim's body." The room went tense. "Officer Brandon! Are you saying this mentally unstable man is the American Ripper?" the lead officer asked, half in disbelief. "Yes, sir," Brandon said with grim satisfaction. "He's the one we've been looking for. That son of a bitch."
IN THE PRESENT.....
Damien, after wrapping up his work, finally returned home. Night had already fallen by the time he stepped through the door.
"Evelyn? Aira? I'm back!" he called out.
Little Aira came running from the hallway and leapt into his arms the moment she saw him.
"Hey, sweetheart," Damien said with a warm smile. "Where's Evelyn?"
"She's in her room," Aira replied, hugging him tightly.
Just then, Aira's babysitter approached. Damien pulled out his wallet and handed her a week's payment.
"Sir," the babysitter said with a concerned look, "I think Evelyn's not doing well. You should check on her."
Damien nodded, though he casually assumed it might be period cramps or just teenage mood swings. "Alright, I'll go up."
He walked upstairs and gently knocked on Evelyn's door before entering. But before he could say a word, Evelyn rushed into his arms and hugged him tightly.
It caught him off guard. Evelyn wasn't the type to show much affection, not like this. Something was off. And then… he felt his shoulder getting wet.
"Hey, hey, what's wrong, hon?" Damien asked softly, his voice filled with concern.
She didn't answer at first, just held on tighter. Then, through shaky breaths and muffled sobs, she whispered, "Dad… I'm scared. Please… help me, Dad."
Damien froze for a second. "It's okay, I'm here now," he said
gently, guiding her to sit down on the edge of her bed. "But tell me, what happened while I was gone? Please."
Evelyn hesitated, her eyes darting around the room as if she were afraid someone might be listening. "Dad… I lied to you. I told you I was going to Jessica's house, but… I went to Vincent's party."
Damien raised an eyebrow. "Okay… that's not the end of the world. You broke my trust, yeah, but that doesn't explain why you're so shaken. What happened?"
She looked down, her voice barely a whisper. "At the party… I caught Vincent cheating on me."
Damien sighed with relief. "So… this is a breakup thing? You scared me for a second."
But Evelyn looked up at him with wide, terrified eyes. "No, Dad. That's not why I'm scared."
"…Then what is it?"
She swallowed hard. "The next day… he asked me to come to his mansion."
Evelyn's voice trembled.
"I… I went to the mansion, Dad. I thought… I thought maybe we could talk. Maybe he wanted to apologize. But…"
Her lips quivered as she tried to say the words. Damien could feel his pulse in his throat.
"But what, Evelyn? Tell me."
Tears streamed down her face.
"It was a trap."
Damien's expression darkened. "What do you mean?"
"He… Vincent… he wasn't alone. There were others. Six of them. I didn't know them. I hadn't seen them before. And when I tried to leave, they locked the doors."
She clutched Damien's hand like her life depended on it. "They said… they said I embarrassed him. That I humiliated him in front of everyone at the party."
She looked up at her father, her face pale, broken. "Dad… they didn't let me go."
The room fell into a suffocating silence. Damien sat frozen, his mind trying to comprehend the weight of what his daughter was saying what she couldn't say out loud.
Then came the guilt. The rage. The unbearable scream inside his chest that he couldn't release, not yet. Not in front of her.
"You're safe now," he whispered, brushing her hair back gently. "I'm here. No one will ever hurt you again."
Evelyn buried her face in his chest, her sobs muffled by the fabric of his shirt.
Damien stared at the far wall, jaw clenched, blood boiling.
In that moment, something inside him snapped.
LATER THAT NIGHT....
Damien sat alone in the living room, the soft flicker of the television casting shadows across his face. His daughters were asleep, the house quiet, but within him, a storm raged. Tears streamed silently down his cheeks, not tears of sadness, but of pure, boiling rage. He stood up slowly, almost mechanically, and made his way to the kitchen. Without a word, he opened the drawer and pulled out a long kitchen knife, its cold steel glinting under the dim light. His hands moved with calm precision as he rolled up his sleeve and stared at his arm. With a deep breath, he pressed the blade to his skin, just enough to make a small cut. Blood surfaced instantly, bright and vivid, dripping slowly onto the cold white tiles. As the droplets hit the ground, drip… drip…, something shifted.
In his mind, a voice echoed from a memory: the specialist speaking to two officers behind a one-way mirror. "I've examined the man. He does not have Dissociative Identity Disorder," the specialist had said. One of the officers, Reeves, leaned in with confusion. "Then what the hell does he have?" The specialist's voice was grave, clinical. "It's called IDP Syndrome—Intermittent Dissociative Personality Syndrome. It's rare. His alternate personality is not random. It's triggered by sight, smell, or sound. In his case… It's blood."
Back in the present, Damien stared at the drop of blood sliding down his arm. The air thickened. His breath caught. And then…
A voice smooth, dark, and all too familiar, cut through the silence behind him.
"So… did you miss me, Damien?"
Damien turned, slowly. And there he was. Leaning casually against the fridge, wearing his exact face but with a smirk that bled malice, was him
TO BE CONTINUED......