A young woman's keys jingle in the lock. She's exhausted from the all-nighter shift she just completed at the nearby hospital. Being a new nurse is literally hell on earth.

This nurse is beautiful, with pale, porcelain skin and pitch black eyes. Given her already ghostly features coupled with chronic bags under her eyes, she looks positively corpse-like, which is exactly what she'll become in just a few moments.

The dark circles dragging her face down are yet another side-effect of her inescapable insomnia. She tries to sleep, but an unstoppable force prevents her from getting a wink every night.

Sometimes a nice hot bath brings the sweet release of sleep upon her, so she figures it'd be best to run one tonight.

Walking towards her bathroom, her slow, tired eyes don't even notice that the light in the hall is still on. She always makes sure to turn off every light in fear of the rising energy costs in her boisterous city.

If she didn't have an ounce of unsettling suspicion before, the reality is hitting her now that she may not be as alone in her apartment as she originally thought.

That reality-check comes in the form of King Henry VIII lounging in her bathtub, completely nude, and cradling a large ax.

Well, not King Henry VIII, but the same crazed killer as the previous night, wearing his infamous regal mask.

She screams, but no one can hear her due a train passing by her apartment, yet another reason why she can never fall asleep. The killer continues to cuddle his ax, his lifeless mask striking fear into her blackened eyes.

The killer begins to stroke it, humming a sweet, comforting song to the sharp object.

"Hush little baby don't say a word, daddy's gonna buy you a mocking bird," He sings a melodious tune to his ax, smiling softly in the dead of night.

She starts to turn around, almost getting enough courage to make a run for it, but she stops once the killer stands up.

His naked body stuns her even more than the ax in his hand.

His frame is built like a bodybuilder, muscles taught and clenched. He has the physique of a young man, but the barely there wrinkles and gray hair are a hint to his older age. Peppered throughout his chest are deep, grotesque scars. Most are well-healed, but a few still like fresh to her.

Her nurse background gives her an inkling that they're self-inflicted, and she would be correct. This man savors any pain, not just towards others. Digging scars into himself gives him a unique sense of bliss that nothing else has ever replicated.

Well, besides hurting others that is.

"W-what are you doing in my house?" She asks, frozen in place due to the fear striking her blood cold.

Still, he doesn't respond and continues to pet his ax just to make her more unsettled. This is a tool for people to chop down trees, but in his case, he will chop other things tonight.

After thinking about the person who means the most to the young woman, she gathers enough sense to try to make a run for it.

However, she gets five steps outside of her bathroom before the masked man tackles her to the ground, the force making her ears ring and head buzz with adrenaline.

He slaps her in the face, a haunting scold to a person he considers only a plaything. She's someone who could never be as brave as the wife he encountered yesterday, and the killer knows it.

She screams louder this time, but he suckerpunches her in the nose, breaking it on impact.

"Please...please let me go," The beautiful girl begs, eyes red from burning tears.

"No can do, princess."

He drags her to a dining room chair, and begins to tie the nurse up. Even Houdini himself couldn't escape from knots this intricate. She forces herself to look away, disgusted at his slimy, naked body that occasionally rubs up against hers.

Once she's secure, he knocks the chair over, leaving the woman's face smashed against the floor.

"What are you going to do to me?" She asks, sheer horror in her voice.

The killer hums to block her words from reaching his demented brain. He reminds himself that she doesn't matter. That, no matter how gorgeous she is, the nurse is just another puzzle piece in his master plan.

He grabs his ax and starts cleaning the edge with a napkin. Not soon after, its blade drops to the ground, scraping along the nurse's wood floor.

It makes a sound equally insufferable to nails on a chalkboard, but the killer smiles beneath his mask.

"And if that mockingbird won't sing..." He continues to whisper the tune that his mother used to help put him to sleep decades ago.

Realization that she won't leave her apartment again hits her like the train still chugging by a few feet away from her apartment, and she begins to sob.

"Don't do this, please, I have a..."

The end of her sentence is interrupted by an ax striking her neck at lethal force.

She howls in pain, her head only beginning to detach from her petite body.

He laughs and continues hacking away at her neck. The killer sees a pool of blood, muscle, and severed tendons appear on the floor, the sight making his hairs stand up from pure pleasure.

The masked man picks up a chunk of her neck, sniffing it out of curiosity. The woman continues to screech out of agonizing pain. The killer honestly thought she'd be dead by now, but her screams only make the experience that much more heightened in his mind.

Fortunately, she doesn't have to deal with the excruciating pain for much longer once King Henry VIII's ax chops through the top of her spine.

One more hacking swing and her head rolls down the slight curve of the floor.

Two dead, black eyes are open, contorted into an expression that reminds the killer that the last thing this woman felt was a terror unmatched to anything on earth. A realization that makes him lick his lips in unbeatable satisfaction.

"Daddy's gonna buy you a diamond ring," He finishes the sweet song he first heard long ago, and with his victim permanently asleep from his lullaby, he kisses the top of her head.

"Goodnight."

The man takes the mask he's wearing and puts it on her lifeless face.

Her terrified expression is replaced by the sinister face of a phony, plastic king.

Taking one last look at the dead girl in front of him, he grabs his clothes and starts making his way home.

Not before grabbing her head and placing his greatest work outside of her front door, an unwelcome greeting for the first person to exit her apartment in the morning.

That's one thing that didn't go to plan.

Her apartment door opens a few minutes later by the nurse's child, a young boy no more than five, horrified by the sight of his mother's decapitated head.

The young boy screams, terror clawing down his throat and implanting itself within him.

The last sight of his mother will permanently scar him, and not even a sweet lullaby can make him rest easy for the decades and decades and decades to come.