Right next to the genderless abomination, a faceless, shadowed figured reached out into the pile of endless white. Its hands touched the smooth surface of the cardboard and slid the white card inward towards itself, grunting as it moved. With a slight mutter, the figure began to turn its card over...

"Great. Another call of domestic violence," Kyle muttered to himself, blazing the downtown streets of a flashy metropolis in his squad car. The lights flew by him, neon of every color, in a nauseating kaleidoscope of sensation. Shaking his head of any distractions and keeping his eyes on the road, Kyle continued down the street, in a hurry to get things over with.

City never sleeps...

As he drove, Kyle fumbled about his open glove compartment, groping through the scattered object within as heavy metal blared from the radio. After grabbing through a glock, a pack of spent cigarettes, and some receipts, he reached his goal : a small tube of pills. With a deft movement of his thumb, Kyle popped the cap and quickly ingested one of the pills, grimacing as it went down.

Hope this'll do something for my head that the lights aren't.

Eventually, the officer pulled up to a small apartment building. The structure was a sorry-looking place, even in the blackness of night in the one place of the city that wasn't bathed in a mosaic of color. Scratched paint, graffiti, rust, and screaming tenants all inhabited the building in great supply, and none of it did anything for Kyle's headache. But, a job was a job. Some moron probably drank a little too much cheap beer and ended up striking his nagging wife once...or twice. Or maybe three times. It was a mess, and Kyle had to clean it up.

As he moved up the stairs to the designated apartment floor, the patrolman was greeted by the sight of various onlookers forming a blockade around an room door. Seeing Kyle approach him, one of the bystander's faces lit up.

"He's in there, officer! I heard it - heard it with my good ear! 'I'll kill you, you bitch! I'm sick o' yer back talk!" the man said, a look of excitement on his face as he gestured to the door. Kyle gave the man a nod and waded through the crowd as they dispersed to let him through and made his way to the door in question.

The door was locked. Kyle sighed. He didn't have time for this crap, and his head was throbbing.

"Hey, everyone. Get out of the way, please," he said, waving his hands in the air slowly as eyes fell upon him. After a few seconds, the small crowd distanced themselves from the police officer, whispering amongst themselves.

"Dark times we're livin' in..."

"We shoulda taken care of this ourselves, don't need to get this boy in blue!"

"Mommy, is he going to get the bad man?"

Kyle shook his head again, throwing out the distractions around him. No time to listen to whispers. Reaching for the pistol at his side, he pulled it out of its holster. Then, casually holding the gun in one hand, Kyle shot the door's knob, causing all of the bystanders to jump. The thundering noise of the discharge rang in Kyle's ears, but he didn't care. Not like he didn't already have a headache.

The door creaked open, dust and chunks of wood dripping from its frame as it moved. Taking a deep breath, the police officer walked into the apartment, fully expecting to see a typical scene of a potbellied wifebeater holding a beer bottle menacingly over a cowering woman.

He didn't.

The most macabre scene he had ever witnessed lied before him. Two bodies, so badly maimed that they were unrecognizable, lay intertwined and twisted on the floor, amongst strewn about chairs and a collapsed table, coated in gore. The bodies could have been the man and the woman, but Kyle couldn't know. Were they even human? Their arms and legs had been torn from their torsos, and fresh blood oozed from the sockets. They had 'faces' - but these collections of facial features were so grossly wrenched out of place that they became unidentifiable abominations, above all classification.

Kyle gripped his face and slammed the door behind him, its crash sending a jolt of pain through his throbbing forehead. Thoughts raced through his mind as he looked around the room frantically for some explanation, some clue - anything, anything at all that could give rationality to the madness that just happened. Domestic violence? This was far more than that. No human being - no sane human being could create a scene so horrific, and Kyle knew it. He shook his burning head, trying to dispel the illusion, to wake up from the lucid dream, the awful night terror.

He couldn't wake up.

Schlip. Schlop. Schrop.

The sound of wet, sloppy footsteps echoed their unnerving sound throughout the apartment. Kyle's eyes widened as his body froze. Whatever it was, it was coming around the corner and would show itself at any moment.

Do I want to see this? Those people, I...Nothing makes...

When the grotesque being, covered in unending crimson grime, bearing a human shape and an inhuman disposition appeared, Kyle knew it.

The rules had changed, and the game of life was over.

*************************************
With a slight smirk, the faceless figured dropped its card right side up. A name imprinted in the center served as the only deviation from its immaculate white surface...

Kyle Reynolds
Police Officer