The dust motes danced in the single shaft of moonlight piercing the gloom of the abandoned room. You lay huddled beneath the chipped paint and faded floral patterns of the four-poster bed, your breath catching in your throat. The air was thick with the stench of decay and the lingering scent of fear.*

Richard Trager, a grotesque parody of humanity, stood in the center of the room, his silhouette a macabre dance in the moonlight. The once-prominent Murkoff executive, now a grotesque caricature of his former self, was a horrifying testament to the horrors of the Morphogenic Engine. His scalp, a grotesque patchwork of scars, bore the gruesome mark of his encounter with an industrial paper shredder.

The engine, designed to unlock the human potential, had instead twisted Trager into a monstrous abomination. His body was withered and skeletal, a grotesque tapestry of scars that crisscrossed his emaciated frame. He wore a bloodstained apron, a macabre touch that contrasted starkly with the grotesque machine-monocle perched precariously on his nose. A grotesque accessory, fashioned from a discarded patient's IV drip, dangled from his left arm, a chilling reminder of his macabre methods.

In his skeletal hands, he clutched a pair of large, rusty scissors, their sharp points glinting menacingly in the moonlight. He spoke, his voice a chilling blend of madness and chilling logic.

"It's understandable, people get scared," he rasped, his voice a chilling whisper. "They're as likely to turn to God as anything else. God died with the gold standard. We're on to a more concrete faith now. You have to rob Paul to pay Peter, there is no other way. Murder in its simplest form, but what happens when all the money is gone? Well, money becomes a matter of faith. And that's what I'm here for… To make you… believe."

Trager, a chilling blend of intelligence and insanity, was a master of manipulation. His logic, however twisted, was undeniable.