Chapter 1
It was a dark and stormy night. Herlock Sholmes, the self-titled “World’s Best Detective(and everything else)”, sat at his antique rosewood desk, thumbing through what appeared to be a photo album. A woman in a dress the color of the night sky stood behind him, watching silently, with a somewhat befuddled expression on her face(well, you couldn’t really see her entire face, really only a set of comically large nostrils and, in stark contrast, a pair of thin lips covered in fire engine lipstick); for Herlock Sholmes was wearing his most prized outfit - a blindingly garish trench coat with yellow and purple stripes, paired most fashionably with a pair of Levi’s.
Sholmes stood up and strutted around the room, evidently thinking himself the peak of haute couture. His muddled gaze passed over the aforementioned woman, then stored the memory in the rather hodgepodged section of his brain labeled “For Later” in Comic Sans. A mental hand reached out, for the first time in many years, to shuffle around on the shelf, shuffling around until it finally re-unearthed the memory a few seconds later. It shoved it in front of his mind’s eye, which glanced over it critically and sent it to his brain, where it processed the information. Herlock Sholmes whirled around to face the woman, who smiled at him and raised her hat.
Sheriff Williams sat at his antique rosewood desk, thumbing through what appeared to be a photo album, containing several photos of what appeared to be the same stone sculpture of a scared-looking man in a trench coat. A woman in a dress the color of the night sky stood behind him. Sensing a presence behind him, Sheriff Williams made the connection at lightning speed and whirled around. The woman smiled and raised her hat, revealing a pair of soulless purple eyes.
Sculptor Aria Asudem stood before an excited crowd of spectators in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Behind her were several stone statues, all of people with comically bewildered expressions.
“I’m so excited to present my new self-titled collection of artistically grotesque statues!” she said, gesturing to the pieces behind her. The crowd chattered excitedly, and Aria Asudem beamed, her lips slathered with fire-engine red lipstick.
