Criminally Possessed

It all started on a Monday at 8 am. We had been working on the same case for a long time. There was a criminal on the loose who was committing many different crimes. I was put in charge of this case and did not want to give up on it. This criminal had ruined so many lives and I didn’t want it to continue.

I was walking to work and got a call from my boss saying that we had caught the guy we had been looking for all this time. His name was Kai Brender and was 19 years old. He said that Kai was unconscious in the interrogation room. 

As I arrived at work I came to the room behind the two-sided mirror. I could see him lying there, completely blacked out. Some time went by before he slowly woke up. He looked confused and stressed when he realized that he was in an interrogation room. 

“You can go in now.” My boss told me in a calm, but serious voice.

“Okay, John” I replied to my boss and started walking towards the door. I started moving the doorknob when I heard John, my boss, tell me to be careful but serious. I looked towards him and nodded, then I looked back and walked in.

He looked worried about what was going on and what was going to happen. The minute I walked in he looked at me and nervously asked, “Where am I? Am I in trouble?”

He looked tired and I saw tears starting to run down his face.

“Kai Brender,” I started saying. “You are at the police station, and yes, you’re in trouble. You’re in a lot of trouble.” I tried to be as serious and strict as possible. I asked him if he was aware of the number of crimes he had committed and he got even more confused. 

I was disappointed and thought he was just acting dumb. After a little bit I understood that he didn’t know what was going on. I started asking myself if we were able to get the right guy or if there was another reason why he didn’t seem to remember what had been going on and what he had been doing.

After a little thinking, I told him that he was going to be exported to a cell where he would stay as I tried to figure out exactly what was going on there. As I was escorting him to the cell he was going to stay in he asked with a gentle voice, “Who are you?”

I looked at him and answered, “I’m Amara Hill, and I am the detective who is working on your case.” His eyes were filled with tears and whispered, “Please, let this be over.”

When we stopped I started opening the door to the cell and told him, “I’ll try, but then you’ll have to work with me.”

“I’ll try. I’ll try to remember.” He cried. He walked in and turned around with a face full of tears as I closed and locked the cell door and walked away.

I walked to my boss’s office and knocked on the door. He told me I could come in, so I opened the door and walked in.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked immediately. He nodded out of curiosity as I sat down on the chair sitting against him. 

“Are you sure we caught the right guy? Kai doesn’t seem to remember anything at all, and I’m pretty sure he’s not lying,” I asked him.

“I’m sure we caught the correct guy, and I know you know exactly when someone is lying. Maybe he has memory loss or something like that. And keep in mind that we caught him in the act. He was assaulting someone when we came. So I’m pretty sure we have the right guy.” He answered with a calm voice. I could see that he understood that I was worried.

“We’ll know that we caught the correct person if none of the crimes continue as we are holding him in.” He continued. He tried to calm me down a little bit. After he answered my question I said “Okay, thank you.” and stood up to leave. 

I walked out, closed the door to the room, and went to my office. I wanted to do some research about the reasons why Kai doesn’t remember anything. I sat down in my office chair opened up my computer and started doing some research about it. I found many different reasons for why he might not remember anything, but the thing is that I don’t understand how these things might have happened. 

I took notes as I did the research and looked over the files of the case. None of them matched up and I was completely lost. I didn’t understand how these things could connect and nothing was adding up. 

I was thinking about giving up until I remembered that I promised Kai that I would figure out what was going on, so I decided not to quit. Even though it is pretty obvious that he is the guy who committed all of these crimes, we don’t know why he did it. If there is any reason behind it. If there were more people involved. Or if he was all alone. 

After more research, I thought it would be a good idea to see if he has any physical or mental illness or illnesses. It could be dementia, depression, head injury, Parkinson’s disease, stress, anxiety, and other neurodegenerative diseases. I read that all of these can lead to memory loss and might influence their brain into doing things they might regret. I found that interesting and wanted to see if he had any of these diseases. I thought that if he had a disease like that, then that might be the reason for his actions and why he doesn’t remember it.

I stood up and walked out of the room to my boss to tell him my theory. He accepted it and permitted me to try it out. I walked towards his cell with two guards following me. I unlocked his cell’s door and opened it. As the door opened I saw he was looking towards us still with a few tears running down from his eyes. 

I asked about his medical record and if he had any diseases like that.

“I haven’t been tested for anything” he answered with curiousity. 

“Do you think we can test you?” I said with a little smile on my face.

“Why? What does this have to do with any of this?” he asked. He looked hopeless, but I wished for him to still have a small spark of hope left inside.

“I was doing some research and found out that the reason you did all of these crimes and don’t remember anything of it might be because of a disease like this. If you have a disease that causes memory loss and influences the brain in this way, then that will help a lot with the case. Although we can only do this with your permission. So, is that okay with you?” I explained trying to make him understand.

“But how do you know for sure that I’m guilty?” he asked, being sure that he was innocent.

“Because they caught you in the act and arrested you on the spot. Trust me, we know it was you.” I replied.

“Then I say why not? Let’s find out if I have any diseases,” he said with a smile growing on his face. Hoping this would help he stood up and the guards followed him to where we were going.

We went into a room where a psychiatrist was going to find out if he had any diseases. It took about an hour to finish the tests, and a few days after for the answers to arrive. I was disappointed, but confused when I found out that he didn’t have any of these diseases, and wondered why he didn’t remember anything. 

I walked towards Kai’s cell to tell him the unfortunate news as I wondered how he didn’t remember any of these crimes. As I stood right in front of the door taking a deep breath. I opened the door and told him the news.

“Are you sure?” he asked as his eyes filled with water. 

“Yes. They tested it multiple times to double-check. They didn’t find anything.” I replied. I could see his tears starting to run downward as he asked, “If this is true, then why don’t I remember anything?” 

“I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure that out.”  I answered as I tried to calm him down a little bit. I turned around and walked outside to lock the cell door. 

I went back to my office to do some research. Some time passed by and I still couldn’t find anything. I looked at the clock and saw how late it was. I thought I should start going home, so I packed up my things, turned off the lights, and locked the door on my way out. As I walked home I couldn’t stop thinking about How this was possible. The psychiatrist said that he hadn’t had any brain injury of any kind, so it couldn’t be anything like that. 

I struggled to sleep at night, but the next morning, as I was getting ready to go to work, I got two theories of what was going on. The first one is that everything is acting. Even if it didn’t seem like it, I might not have been able to detect the lie when we first met in the interrogation room. Maybe he was forced to do this, threatened into doing it, or just did it thinking there wouldn’t be any consequences for his actions. He looked pretty worried when he woke up and realized where he was. He looked stressed and scared of what was happening.

The other theory was less likely to be true, but I won’t take any chances. It sounds pretty supernatural when I think of it, but what if he is being controlled into doing these things in some way? And every time he is being controlled he isn’t himself and doesn’t know what he is doing. Or that when he is being controlled he is put in a type of trans or is technically unconscious. 

I thought this theory sounded stupid and weird, so I went with the first one. I was going to interrogate him a little more, trying to make him comfortable with his surroundings. This is a technique that is often used, and it usually works. 

As I arrived at work I got Kai escorted to the interrogation room as I unpacked my things in my office. I brought everything I needed including a notebook, a pen, and my computer. I arrived at the interrogation room to see him sitting there handcuffed but with bruises on his forehead, eyes, and hands.

I had a worried look on my face and wasn’t sure how to react. 

“Did the guards attack you or something? What happened to you?” I asked with a stressed voice. It was obvious that I was really worried at this point.

“I’m not sure. I woke up like this.” Kai answered. 

“It has happened a few times before this, it usually happens when I’m in deep sleep. I’m not sure why and I don’t remember how it happens, but I don’t think it is dangerous. Don’t worry about it.” he continued.

That was when I came up with something that I think might be the reason why he did all of these things and doesn’t remember anything. What if he somehow committed all of these crimes as he was asleep? If he was in deep enough sleep, he might have been unconscious enough to not remember anything. 

He looked confused as I was thinking and writing this down. 

“How often do you think this happens?” I asked with a curious smile on my face. 

“I’m not sure. It happens randomly, but overall I think it happens about once a week or something,” he answered thinking hard about the answers. He looked confused about why we were talking about this and the reason for these questions, but without asking any questions, he kept on answering.

“And about when do you think it started?” I asked with even more curiosity.

“I would say it started a few months ago. To give you a specific number, I’d say about three or four months ago” he replied. That was around the same amount of time the crimes started happening. As well as these deep sleep episodes happened about the same time as the crimes were committed. 

I thought that the reason that all the crimes were committed at night was because then it was he thought it was less likely for him the get caught, but now I know that the reason is because he was sleeping as he committed them. It also explains how he doesn’t remember anything of it. The only question is, why is this happening?

It might just be the good old sleepwalking, but I thought it was more to it. I wrote down the new theory and got the guards to escort him back to his cell. I went back to my office to check the security cameras on his cell to see if that would help somehow. 

As I was walking back to my office I was stopped by John, my boss. He was about to go to my office to check in on the case and how it was going. I told him about the new theory and I’m not sure if he believed any of it. John told me that Kai was awake when they caught and arrested him, but fell unconscious when they arrived in the interrogation room.

I told him I was going to check into it anyway just to be sure and went back to my office. I thought to myself, “If he was awake, I’m pretty sure he would have remembered everything.” I thought I would figure it out once I watched the security camera’s video from last night, and that everything would be more clear after watching it.

Once I came into my office, I closed the door, sat down, and opened my computer. I opened up the files for the security cameras for his cell. I found the file for that night and opened it to see what was happening and why he was having these episodes.

I opened the file and fast-forwarded to when Kai was going to sleep. It took some time before I got there, but when I finally got there I saw something weird. It looked like a light blue light traveling into his body through his mouth.

I didn’t understand what was going on so I got my co-workers, Naomi Banks, Olivia Brier, Edward Shep, and Ezra Carson, who also worked on this case. They were doing their research in their office but came pretty quickly into my office. They didn’t have any idea what that mysterious light could have been. We watched a little bit further to see what happened next. 

“He looks pretty much awake to me. And why is he beating himself up?” Olivia said. We were all confused. 

“Was this a little bit how he looked like when you caught him?” I asked. They were the ones that arrested him. 

“Well, yes. He was wide awake, just like that.” Edward answered. 

“The next morning there were bruises all over him, and he didn’t remember anything of what happened. He told me that this had been happening to him for a while now. My theory is that whatever is traveling into him is, in some way, making him do it for him to then wake up later not having a single memory of what he had done.” I explained to my team. 

“I know someone that might be able to help us figure out what that is,” Ezra mentioned.

“We can ask her to come here so she can look at the video and then she might be able to help us. If that’s okay for you Amara.” He continued. I looked at him and answered, “That’s a great idea. Can you ask her to come here tomorrow?” 

He said yes and we continued our day. When they went back to their office I continued with my research. The only thing I found out was that this is most likely something paranormal. I didn’t find it believable in any way, but I did some more research about it and saw a chance that this could be real. 

The next day Ezra, his friends, and I met up to try to figure out what that light-blue-looking light was. Ezra introduced me to his friend. Her name was Eleanor Cree. She looked like a crazy girl, but I trusted her enough to let her help us. We showed her the security camera clip and what happened after. We could see the light disappearing into his body, Kai doing what looked like beating himself up, then seeing it escape out of his mouth and leave his body. 

“I’ve seen that before,” Eleanor said as she looked nervous and worried. 

“What is it?” I asked her. She looked at me and Ezra.

“We have a huge problem. That is the Akuma spirit.” She explained. Eleanor looked worried.

“What is the Akuma Spirit?” I asked getting even more scared as time passed.

“The Akuma Spirit is an old spirit who possesses people, taking control over them. He makes them do many different things meant to hurt others in any way.” She explained. We were all worried about Kai wondering if the Akuma Spirit had taken over someone else as well.

“But something I don’t understand is that the Akuma Spirit had been trapped a long time ago. The only way he could be able to do it now is if somebody set him free.” Eleanor said as she panicked. 

“How about we figure out who did it after we trap it again,” I suggested. Ezra nodded agreeing with the plan. 

“Only the person who set him free knows how to do it. We have to figure out who that is before we can trap the Akuma Spirit again.” Eleanor explained. She looked stressed and terrified. 

“But how can we figure out who did it?” I asked.

“Whoever has the box, is the person who let Akuma free,” Eleanor said.

“The box?” I said wondering what it was. Eleanor explained that the box is the only thing that can trap the Akuma Spirit. 

When we were done I went to tell Kai about what we found out. As I told him, tears fell from his eyes, but he was grateful and terrified at the same time. He felt bad for all the people he had injured in any way and wanted us to catch the Akuma spirit as soon as possible. I offered to let him go now that we knew he wasn’t conscious of what he was doing, but he declined the offer as he was scared of something like this happening again. 

When I finished there I wanted to go to John to tell him what we found. I walked to his office and as I got there, I saw him acting stressed. At first, I thought that he was stressed with another case, but I later recognized the box Eleanor talked about. John looked at me, realizing that I’d seen the box. His eyes started watering and he started crying as I stood there in shock. 

He apologized with regret as I arrested him. I put him in an interrogation room to wait until I told the rest of my team to get there. Told them everything and they were all surprised. I went into the interrogation room where he was waiting so I could interrogate him. I asked many questions, including how to trap the Akuma Spirit, but he refused to answer any of them. 

It took some time and everybody on the team had to use different techniques to try to get the truth out of him. We struggled hard as he was trained for these types of situations. Eventually, he told us that he got in trouble with a gang and was threatened with doing what he did.

“Do you know what you have done?” I asked with a disappointed voice. Tears were escaping my eyes as I felt really bad for Kai.

“You have ruined many lives, and you will help us catch Akuma,” I demanded. He was ashamed, but eventually told us how to catch the spirit. 

“To catch the Akuma Spirit you have to lure him back into the box. It’s hard, but it can be done.” He explained. The only thing left now was to lure and catch the Akuma Spirit. But how are we going to do it? And will we be able to catch him?