His face was wrong. Not deformed—just empty . Where eyes should have been, there were only dark, polished ovals, like obsidian. He smiled. It was the smile of a man who had already killed everyone he loved and felt nothing about it.
The case was a ghost. Matte black, no artwork, just the word stamped in faded silver across the spine and the cryptic suffix BDMV burned into the lower corner like a brand. Eli found it in a condemned video store—the kind that had died ten years ago and never got cleared out. Dust had fused the plastic to the shelf. When he pried it loose, the air smelled of mold and old popcorn.
The first scene was a standoff. The gunslinger—credited only as The Man in the nonexistent subtitles—faced six men in a dusty street. No dialogue. Just wind. Then the draw.