A scruffy boy with puppy-like blue eyes as bright as a July sky walked down a dark, almost perpetually deserted alley. The only light came from a single disgusting yellow, dim streetlamp. He was dressed in nothing more than a thin sweater, filthy pants that were too small for him and clearly pre-worn by someone else, and sneakers whose brand was impossible to determine. This, despite it being November.

In the distance, the much-desired silhouette appeared: a young woman, probably a nineteen-year-old student. The boy pinched his nose hard, remembering how his father had sold his bicycle — the one he'd spent a year honestly saving for by washing car headlights at a roadside. Tears welled up in his eyes. He began sniffling and looking around nervously, pretending to search for someone.

"Hey there, sweetie, are you lost?" the woman asked as she approached him.

"Why do they all ask the same thing? Why does every single one follow the same script? She's going to ask my name next, probably add something like 'Do you know where you live?'" he thought, looking up at her from under his brows but staying in character. Tears. Raised brows. Sniffle. Mumble.

“Y-yeah,” he dragged out, sniffing audibly.

"What's your name, sweetheart? Do you remember where you live, or maybe a phone number for one of your parents?” she cooed with sympathy, her gaze softening.

"Well, now, this is new," he thought, intrigued: "No one's ever asked for a parent's phone number before. As for my name... who should I be today? I was Daniel yesterday… Andrei's gotten boring... hmm, got it!" His eyes sparkled briefly, but his face remained contorted in faux misery as he stammered:

“David ... I don't k-know the number ... but I remember where I live. Could you take me there, please?” He radiated fake hope and grabbed the woman's wrist.

He always responded to any name. He didn't really have one. Today he was David; two weeks from now, he'd be Alex; in a month, Mark. The boy always followed the same plan: head out onto the streets, find desolate places in the evenings, target women aged sixteen to twenty-five, and lure them home. There, his father would greet the "rescuer" warmly, invite her in for tea, and then, right in the kitchen, kill her with a precise stab to the heart between the third and fourth ribs using a kitchen knife. That same knife would then be used to carve meat off her body—and the bodies of many other women like her — which was neatly packed into bags and stored in the fridge. The seven-year-old boy would watch all this and sometimes even help his father.

The boy did not remember his mother. All he had were fragments of his father's angry, abusive rants about how all women were whores and how she should have been killed back when she wanted to leave him.

The boy’s birthdays were celebrated in a peculiar way: his father allowed him to eat whichever piece of meat he wanted. The boy always knew exactly what to choose, being quite familiar with the anatomy of the female body. He knew the tastiest, tenderest parts were the sides (if there wasn’t too much fat) and the chest —excluding the breasts, which were only good for making rich broth.

When their apartment was eventually searched, the boy calmly identified which jar contained which woman. “That’s Masha, she had a nice watch. And that’s Lisa — her husband and little child were waiting for her that night when I met her. She was really worried about me,” he said in a voice that was too calm.

I’ve been working with this boy for six months now, ever since his father was finally arrested after one of his victims managed to escape the cannibal den and provide intelligence to the authorities about that depraved monster. And in these six months, I still struggle to create a complete psychological portrait of the boy: he was always quiet around men who tried to work with him before me, but he acted differently with women — open, yet strangely unsettling. He would sniff them, lick his lips, but always chose thin women with no noticeable marks on their bodies.

It’s all tied to his experience — he learned to analyze and manipulate long ago. He always hunted thin women because fat isn’t tasty or useful except for rendering fat for other uses. Women without tattoos were his preference since, among cannibals, there’s a belief that tattooed flesh tastes bad. So, if you have tattoos, consider yourself lucky. On cold days, when the risk of him bringing home a woman with “marks” increased, he would spend the walk back talking about how badly he wanted a tattoo himself, asking the women if they had any. They would, of course, tell him everything, assuming the child was under stress and just needed a distraction. By the time the door to his apartment opened, he already knew whether he’d have dinner that evening or not.

When his hunt was unsuccessful, he would signal his father with a specific gesture — saying “thank you” to the woman and leaning against his father, who would thank the woman as well and close the door. Behind that door, the boy would face hours of beatings and curses.

The intuition of patient №1095 had grown to the point where, within a minute of speaking to a woman, he could figure out what to pressure her with, how to continue the conversation, and how to gain her trust enough to get close — close enough to bite her hand or neck. He read his prey masterfully, better than I — a psychiatrist with 30 years of experience — could ever hope to. He was willing to endure any treatment if it would benefit him in the near future. But when he was told that continued attacks on young nurses would result in him being assigned to an older doctor, he fell silent, behaved more restrained, and changed his tactics. Like a true predator, he began searching for new ways to approach his victims.

Now, gaining favor with one nurse meant double portions of meals, sweets, or privileges other children didn’t have. If one nurse refused him, he would shift his attention to another, completely forgetting about his previous “object of affection.”

You might be wondering how I managed to find a way to connect with a boy who preferred only young female psychiatrists. The answer is: I didn’t. I still haven’t gotten a single word out of him. Instead, I observed his tactics and started playing his game by my rules. My assistant would speak to him during his free time. He told her everything, and it was my job to compile questions for the next day.

I couldn’t prescribe any medication because, according to all tests and analyses, he was a perfectly healthy boy, ready for cooperation and dialogue. In reality, he was a deeply withdrawn child, adept at deception and manipulation. Yet, despite conversations with all the women who interacted with patient №1095, none detected any signs of remorse, fear, or disgust for his actions. It seemed he simply didn’t care. Women of a certain age were nothing more than walking pieces of meat to him; no one else existed in his world. He neither saw nor heard anyone else.

The boy never showed particular interest in his peers. However, there was once a girl named Nika, seven years old, who caught his attention. She was brought to us after being rescued from a family where she suffered both physical and emotional abuse. She was blind because her mother, during a drunken fit, had burned her eyes with a broken soldering iron. Luckily — or perhaps unluckily — Nika was saved and brought to my department after her recovery. She was also one of my patients.

A bright and kind soul, despite all she had endured. One day, I noticed the boy talking to her in the playroom. I was shocked; he had never interacted with any of his peers before. Seeing this gave me hope — perhaps he was on the mend, and soon we could transfer him to the care of a proper social service, where he might finally find a new family.

But I should have been thinking about something else entirely.

A week later, Nika was found dead in her bed. Without her eyes. It seemed they had been gouged out with a fork — which turned out to be the case. Patient №1095 hadn’t returned his fork after dinner, which was the fault of a nurse who was, of course, dismissed after the incident. That night, he snuck into Nika’s room, gave her strong sleeping pills — claiming they were candy, which we still don’t know how he obtained — and began gouging out her eyes and eating them while everyone else was asleep.

No screams. No noise. Everything done with terrifying precision and intent. When asked “Why?” he simply said he was curious about how blind eyes would taste. And then added: “Not very good.”

The hospital underwent a thorough investigation by the police, but the administration managed to hush it up by handing over a hefty sum to the security service.

Do you now have some idea of how dangerous this child was? He charmed everyone with his innocent eyes, making people lower their guard. He deceived the entire hospital, and everyone believed him — even me! But in reality, he was a cruel, calculating maniac and a cannibal who got away with everything.

We didn’t know what to do with him or how to treat him. For him, murder and cannibalism were the norm. His psyche wasn’t stressed because he was used to it. It was his normal. When we tried to integrate him into society, he saw it as barbaric, something out of this world. Peace was what caused him stress.

PTSD, dissociative identity disorder, bipolar disorder, delusions of grandeur, Judge syndrome — these were just fragments of his complex mental state.

But just a couple of months ago, the boy was taken from me, despite all protocols stating that only I, as his doctor, could decide whether he was fit to leave the psychiatric hospital. Patient №1095 should never have walked out of those walls.

I can’t say I wasn’t relieved to get rid of the little monster, but being in the same room with him was hard. His gaze... there was something wild in it, an aura of raw, negative energy. At times, it seemed like his shadow took on strange shapes or danced even when the light sources remained still. When he talked about his “dinners,” nurses noticed his eyes darken and roll back as if he was reliving every moment, savoring it.

Later, I learned he was placed with a family living on a farm with livestock. They claimed fresh air and nature would benefit him more than confinement within four walls.

Today, I keep asking my colleagues for updates on the family. They always tell me the boy is thriving, running around happily, and getting along with his new family. But should I mention that, in the past month, flyers of missing girls aged 19-25, last seen at that farm, have started appearing around the city?

Oh, and that family hasn’t slaughtered a single cow, pig, or chicken from their farm..