The Killer's Confession (eBook)

You can't run from the truth

Chakravarthi Kona (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
258 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-0-00-111072-4 (ISBN)

Infos

A killer steps out of the shadows and into your mind.

The Killer's Confession is a psychological thriller where the murderer isn't hiding from the reader-he's talking directly to you. He breaks the fourth wall, retelling his crimes as if you're sitting across from him, inviting you to become his silent witness... or his next accomplice.

Through the deaths of Arjun, Elena, and others who were pushed to the edge, the killer reveals his true weapon: not a knife or a gun, but the way he listens. He studies the lonely, the exhausted, the ones who say 'I'm fine' when they're anything but-and then gently helps their darkest thoughts grow.

As a young digital archivist named Nisha uncovers strange patterns buried in case files, and a survivor named Dev dares to push back, the line between story and reality begins to blur. Is the 'Listener' just a character on the page, or something much closer to you than you think?

Told in a chilling, intimate voice that speaks straight to the reader, The Killer's Confession twists the classic serial-killer narrative into a tense, meta thriller about manipulation, vulnerability, and the dangerous power of being truly heard.

After you close the book, his voice may still be there. The question is: what will you do with it?

Textauszug

3

CHAPTER 3

THE PASSENGER SEAT

You locked your door after the last chapter, didn’t you?

At least checked it.

Don’t be embarrassed. Caution looks good on you. Wear more of it.

Now, back to the car.

Elena’s car smelled like old coffee and coconut shampoo. There was a cracked phone charger on the floor and a half-crumpled receipt by the gear lever. She apologized for the mess when I got in.

People always apologize for the wrong things.

“Do I know you?” she asked again.

Her hands were on the steering wheel, even though the engine was off, like she needed something to hold onto.

I watched her for a few seconds. Let the question hang between us, thick and heavy.

“You’ve talked to me before,” I said. “A lot, actually.”

She stared at me, eyes searching my face for something familiar. A memory. A lecture. A party. A bus ride. Anything that would make this normal.

There wasn’t anything.

That’s another thing you don’t realize, yet:

I’m not memorable until it’s too late.

“I haven’t,” she said.

“You have,” I replied. “In your head.”

That made her laugh, a short, nervous little breath.

“Oh. So you’re… who, exactly? My conscience?”

“No,” I said. “I’m the opposite. I’m what you think when you’re tired of pretending you’re okay.”

Her fingers tightened on the wheel.

You’ve had those thoughts too, haven’t you?

The ones you never say out loud.

The ones that start with What if I just…

And end with something you’re ashamed of.

“Relax,” I told her. “If I was here to hurt you, you’d already know.”

That wasn’t true, not entirely. But partial truths are more comforting than lies.

“I saw you in the library,” she said slowly.

“Many times,” I corrected. “You were always alone. Even when you weren’t.”

Her jaw clenched. A small tell. She hated that I saw her.

“Do your friends know how much you want to disappear?” I asked.

“I don’t—” she began.

“Elena,” I said quietly, “you have googled ‘how to vanish’ sixteen times in the last three months. You’ve researched missing persons cases. You watched that documentary about people who walked away from their lives and started over. Twice.”

Her face drained of color.

“How do you—”

“You leave tabs open,” I said. “You forget to clear your history. You read the same article on two different devices because you want to make sure no one can track you…. but you’re tired, and you’re sloppy.”

Now you’re wondering how I know that, too.

Good.

Stay suspicious.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

I leaned back in the seat, let the silence thicken.

“I’m someone who’s been listening,” I said. “Longer than anyone else in your life.”

She swallowed. Her eyes were shining, not quite tears yet.

“No one listens,” she said.

“There it is,” I murmured. “The truth.”

You should hear how often people say that to me.

No one listens.

No one sees me.

No one cares.

All of you, screaming into your own skulls, hoping anyone will hear.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she muttered. “I should go home.”

“Then why haven’t you started the car?” I asked.

Her thumb moved toward the key, then stopped.

She didn’t know the answer.

I did.

“You’re afraid,” I said.

“Of you,” she shot back, a little too quickly.

I smiled.

“No. You’re afraid that if you go home, tomorrow will be exactly the same as today. And the day after. And the day after. And one day you’ll wake up and you’re forty-five, and you have no idea how you got from here to there, and you’ll realize you never once lived a day you actually wanted.”

Her eyes closed.

There they were. The tears.

“You don’t know me,” she whispered.

“I know you talk about yourself in the past tense,” I said. “Even when you’re alone. ‘I was going to do this’ and ‘I was supposed to be that.’ You’re not living a life. You’re post-mortem-ing one that hasn’t technically ended yet.”

She stared at me like I’d hit her.

“I… just feel stuck,” she said.

“That’s one word for it,” I replied. “Another is ‘finished.’”

“You’re horrible,” she said, voice trembling.

“Yes,” I agreed. “But I’m right.”

She laughed again, that sharp, ugly, honest sound people make when humor and despair collide.

“Why are you here?” she asked. “What do you want from me?”

Now we were getting somewhere.

“I want you to tell the truth,” I said.

“About what?”

“About whether you really want to live.”

There it is.

That question.

The one nobody ever asks directly because they’re afraid of the answer.

She stared at me, breathing too fast now, hands loosening from the wheel, fingers shaking.

“That’s not fair,” she whispered.

“It’s the only fair question,” I said. “Everything else is just decoration. Marks, degrees, jobs, relationships, followers, likes. None of it matters if you can’t answer that one honestly.”

“Of course I want to live,” she said automatically.

“Say it again,” I said. “But this time, look at me when you do.”

She looked up. Our eyes met.

Go on, say it, I thought.

“I…” she began, then faltered.

The word hung there, half-formed, like a bridge she couldn’t finish building.

“You’re scaring me,” she said.

“I’m only saying what you already think,” I replied. “You’re the one scaring yourself.”

We sat in silence for a long time.

The parking lot emptied.

The last car door slammed somewhere in the dark.

A distant engine faded into the night.

Inside her car, the world shrank to two breaths and one question.

“I don’t want to die,” she said finally.

“That’s not the same thing,” I replied.

She flinched.

“Not wanting to die is fear,” I said. “Wanting to live is desire. You’ve been running on fear for years. Fear of disappointing people. Fear of wasting your potential. Fear of making the wrong choice.”

“That’s normal,” she snapped.

“It’s common,” I corrected. “Normal is what happens when you’re actually present in your own life.”

“And what are you?” she said, almost spitting the words. “Some kind of… angel of mercy? Judge? Executioner?”

“Witness,” I said. “And, when necessary, an ending.”

She shivered.

“Did you come here to kill me?” she asked.

There it was. Finally. The awareness.

The car. The dark. The stranger.

The story her brain had been trying not to write.

“What do you think?” I asked.

Her eyes dropped to my hands. They were empty.

You’re doing the same, aren’t you?

Checking my hands in your imagination.

Looking for a weapon, a cord, a knife, a syringe, anything that would fit the story you understand.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she whispered.

“Of course it does,” I said. “This is still your life. For the next few minutes, at least.”

Her eyes flicked to the door handle.

“You can leave,” I said. “Right now. Unlock the doors. Step out. Drive home. Pretend this never happened. Go back to your almost-life, your almost-friends, your almost-joy. Tell yourself this was just a bad dream you had in a parked car.”

Her hand didn’t move.

“Or,” I continued softly, “you can stay. And you can answer the question properly.”

“Which one?” she asked.

“Do you actually want to live, Elena? Not… ‘keep existing.’ Not… ‘not die.’ I mean live.”

She stared at the windshield.

Light from a distant streetlamp cast thin lines across the glass, slicing her reflection into pale, trembling fragments.

“I don’t know how,” she said.

“That,” I told her, “is the first honest thing you’ve said all night.”

She started crying then. Real crying. The messy, unpretty kind. The kind you never post anywhere.

She talked...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 25.11.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-10: 0-00-111072-1 / 0001110721
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-111072-4 / 9780001110724