The Apartment Massacre!
Police sirens blared as a black figure ran out of an apartment building, covered in blood, and into the shadows of the nearby alleyway. The police cars quickly parked outside the building and a SWAT Van emptied out it’s soldiers. The soldiers ran into the building with their massive guns and batons. Suddenly a slick, black, Rolls-Royce pulled up next to the police. The car had blacked-out windows, blacked-out tires, everything was slick black. The window rolled down and a man wearing a tan trench coat, and a tan fedora appeared.
“Hello Officer, what has seemed to happen here?” The man in the tan fedora exited the Rolls-Royce and asked a nearby police officer.
“A massive murder case, Mr. Looker.” The officer said as other police carried out dead bodies.
“Let’s take a look.” Mr. Looker said as he walked through the front doors of the apartment building.
Mr. Looker had a nametag on his trench coat that said, “Detective Spiare Looker”. He walked inside and saw bloodied walls and police officers that were treating the wounded while waiting for ambulances to arrive. The walls were splashed with blood and words were written out of the blood. The words said, “Mavros”, “Warrior of Black”, and “Soulless”. He then grabbed gloves from his pocket and a couple tiny tubes, he then scooped up blood samples.
“Bring these to the officers outside and ask them to identify the samples,” Spiare said as he gave an officer who was entering the building the tiny test tubes.
“Yes, sir.” The officer grabbed the tubes and ran outside.
Upstairs, there was screaming. The ambulances arrived and helped the wounded while helping people from the second level of the apartment. Spiare walked up those stairs and into a nearby room that was empty. A large sword and shield were painted out of more blood in that room.
Spiare got another blood sample and looked out the window and saw a black figure, covered in blood standing next to an alleyway of a nearby building. He snapped a picture of the figure. The figure then faded away.
-----
One month and two weeks after a large incident of the Raiju, the death of Ruon and Recondite. I have to say, it’s unfortunate. Ruon revealed his last name. . . Ries, the last name of the Egyptian girl who I had traveled with Atticus to the void realm. I wish I could ask many questions if Ruon was ever still alive. But for that, I lost answers. The death of both of my foes by this mysterious dark figure, it was hard to see but he did kill Recondite after Recondite killed Ruon. The castle of Toray was finished moderately quickly, around a month after the huge destruction. The king, Tyler was safe and so are the people. The government managed to help out with its technology, fixing the castle and the buildings using special materials which could make the town durable.
December 12, the year 1062 on our planet. The sky bloomed with white powders, the floor turned burnt frost and the air was as cold as the glacier from the two poles of our world. During that month, my friends and I, Corey Stone, Derek, and the ghost, NoFace hang out almost every day. Our school was canceled for that month and a half, meaning we all have free time except for Kon and some others whose school was near the shore, west from our kingdom. But that’s not all, the government was mostly outside, doing their work instead of being inside for the warm comfort, away from the freezing air.
I yawn and leaned forward on top of my bed. I look left to check the digital clock. It was 7:30, early in the morning. I got out of bed and took my red hoodie with a pinned dice on it. I wore and quickly sprinted outside my original room. Yes, I was back into my old mother’s house. She knows everything including what had happened, most of my friends, and why there was blood in her house.
“Good morning!” I greeted my mom who prepared me breakfast. Scrambled eggs and toast. The same old morning dish. “Again? But didn’t I have that yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and the whole week ago. Doesn’t it get old?” I questioned my mom.
She looked at me and slightly smile. “Nothing is better than my own homemade scrambled eggs using a special ingredient given from one of the government secretaries.” And then she stopped, picking up the pan and pouring the food onto a white clean and shiny plate. “If you don’t like it, I could always let you starve. But I won’t do that.” She then cackled.
“Y-yeahhh.” I replied, went up to the kitchen counter, grabbed a steel spoon and quickly chomped down my breakfast. My mother began to wash the pan and utensil then she swiftly turned on the TV.
As soon as the TV turned on, the one sentence that caught my attention is “there was mass murder.” My eyes fixed on the large screen TV, showing a detective near an apartment building covered in red blood, inside and a bit of outside too. The detective continued on his speech. “I am detective Spiare Looker, and there was a murder at an apartment building near the marketplace. We found out that a mysterious black figure appeared, covered in blood. He might be related to this murder and if you did see him or know him, report back to us, IMMEDIATELY.” He spoke seriously with a glare toward the camera. A black figure? Then Spiare’s address appears on the news headline on top of the screen along with images of the inside, the words, and the picture. . . I’ve seen that greek armored figure before. Where was it? . . The person who killed Recondite!!!
“Mom, I’ve seen that black figure before. I’m going to go down to Detective Spiare’s house to report it.” I said as I grabbed a pencil and sticky note and wrote down Spiare’s address, “19 Shield Street”.
“Alrighty, see you later, I’ll be doing laundry and dishes.” Mom said as she finished scrubbing the pan.
I then walked to the front door and slipped on my new snow boots and placed my heavy winter jacket on and ran out the door. It just snowed a lot last night, so there was snow and ice everywhere. Our new neighbors who moved here from Proteum were outside building a snowman.
“Good Morning Mr. and Mrs. Rubino. Hi Jack!” I called out the couple and their six years old son, Jack.
“Good Morning Dustin, beautiful day isn’t it?” Mrs. Rubino greeted me.
“Yeah, I’m heading out to Detective Looker’s house. I’ll see you guys later.” I continued to walk down, the now snowy, cobblestone path.
I turned onto Shield Street and walked down the sidewalk. Shield Street is a street full of rich folk, huge mansions scattered everywhere. The street also went up a small hill where the largest mansion stood, with a view of the large mountains outside the walls of Toray. I looked at the house numbers and noticed the large mansion on the hill was number 19. I climbed up the hill and to the mansion. A blacked-out Rolls Royce was parked outside. The mansion was white marble with a large garage on the side, beautiful gardens, and a huge pool with a waterfall in the back.
I walked up the stairs and rang the doorbell, shortly after a butler wearing a tuxedo, gray mustache, and carrying a towel opened the door.
“Hello young Sir, what do you need?” The butler stroked his mustache.
“Yes, my name is Dustin Smith. I have information on the black figure that appeared at the apartment building.” I told the butler.
“Come, come inside. I shall direct you to his office.” The butler gestured for me to come inside. I followed him inside the mansion. The house was beautiful, it had bright green plants in pots, a living area in the middle of two sets of stairs, a kitchen behind the stairs, dining room upstairs, and other rooms scattered around.
“If you go up those stairs and down the left hallway, the first door on the right is his office, Mr. Looker should be inside.” The butler pointed upstairs and went off into the kitchen.
“Thank you!” I said as I began to walk towards the stairs.
I walked up the curved, marble stairs and down the left hallway. I knocked on the door the butler said was Spiare’s office and a voice answered.
“Come in.” The voice spoke.
I opened the door and saw bookshelves on the left and right walls, a messy desk with a laptop, a large window behind the desk, and the man in the tan trench coat and tan fedora.
“Hello, are you Mr. Looker?” I asked him as I sat in a chair in front of the desk. I then unzipped my heavy winter jacket and placed it on the backside of the chair.
“Yes, and you are?” He asked me as he cleared some books off his desk.
“Dustin Smith, and I have information about the black figure from the apartment building massacre,” I told him as he opened up a drawer and placed a photo on the desk.
“You recognize,” Spiare said as he pointed to the image, “this figure?”
I looked at the image, it was a picture of the black figure slowly fading away.
“Yeah, remember the Raijū Incident? Well, the figure was there.” I told Spiare.
“Interesting. We have found that this figure might be related to an ancient building in Proteum, it is called the House of Black and White.” Spiare told me as he got up and went to the bookcase on my right, he took out an ancient book that was titled, “Black and White, the Story of Skotadi”.
“‘He was becoming ill of his age when he came to his two sons, he told them about a special type of magic called Black Reality and White Reality. Skotadi gave his sons a scroll each, they were then cursed with magic powers. One son controlled the power easily, but the other went insane, killing hundreds of Proteumian people.’ This is a book was written one thousand years ago and talks about Skotadi, an old master of magic, one of the most powerful in Proteum history. Skotadi fell ill and cursed his sons with special magic powers. Skotadi passed shortly after. I believe the son who went crazy might be related to this black figure.” Spiare said as he placed the opened book on his desk, the book was tattered and stained.
“You’re crazy! The book was written one thousand years ago, there’s no way he could possibly be alive!” I got up from my seat and looked at the book.
“It could be true, would you like to come with me to Proteum to try to find this ‘House of Black and White’, I’d need an extra hand finding this place,” Spiare asked me as he showed me a picture of a beautiful hillside and waterfall, “they also got some beautiful sights to see.”
“I’ll give ya a call if I decided to come.” I pulled out my phone from my pocket and he punched in his number. He then went to his photo-copier and copied the photo of the black figure, he then gave me it.
“Thanks. See ya,” I said as I walked out the door, putting the photo into my pocket.
“Goodbye,” Spiare said as he turned on his laptop.
While walking home I decided to give Corey and Derek a call to see if they wanted to hang out. They both said that they could come, so I made my way down to the newly built park. The park was a massive snowy area with wooden benches, leafless trees, and a large fountain in the middle where people threw coins inside. I walked through the arch-shaped gate and sat down at one of the wooden benches surrounding the fountain. After a little while of waiting for Corey and Derek walked through the gates, I waved at them to get their attention. They then sprinted over and sat right next to me on the sturdy smooth oak bench, enough to fit five people.
“So guys, you heard ’bout the apartment building massacre?” I asked them and brought up an article about it on my phone.
“Yeah, tragic really.” Corey scratched his head.
“I heard the killer was the black figure that appeared after we killed the Raijū.” I reached in my pocket and pulled out a copy of the photo of the black figure that Spiare gave me, I then showed them it.
“Really Dusty? That’s crazyyyy.” Derek spoke with popcorn in his mouth.
“Yeah, you guys wanna come to Proteum with Spiare and me? We are gonna look into who the black figure is and how we could stop him.” I asked Derek and Corey.
“Uhhh, how long will you guys be there?” Corey asked.
“Probably a day or two. Derek you in?” I questioned Derek who was stuffing more popcorn in his mouth.
“Hell yeahhh, heard they got some gnarlyyy waves there. Surfs up, dude!” Derek got up and pretended to be on a surfboard.
“Yeah, I’ll be able to come. How are we gonna travel there?” Corey asked me while looking at a map of Proteum on his phone.
“No clue, ask Spiare later,” I answered while showing him Spiare’s phone number. I look up at the sky since it was winter, the sky got dark fast. It was almost nighttime. You could see the moon shining on a clear sky with bright dots around it. I stood up and told them, “Maybe I’ll call him on the way home, it’s getting dark.”
“This is why I hate winter.” Corey glanced at the sky. “It goes by too quick. Well, bye. Call us again if you found out how we will get there.” He and Derek got off the bench and strolled away.
I took out my phone as I was walking and dial Spiare’s number. I waited for a few seconds and Spiare quickly picked it up.
“Hello, Dustin,” Spiare answered.
“Hey Spiare, I was wondering if you needed some extra hands. My friends Derek and Corey would like to come along. Can they?” I asked him, “I gave Corey your number for you can keep in contact.”
“Ok, they can come along. Anything else you need to know about it?” Spiare questioned.
“Yeah, how will we get to Proteum?” I asked him.
“You’ll see.”
“Uhhh, ok. Bye.” I responded.
“Goodbye.” Spiare then hung up. I placed my phone back into my hoodie’s pocket. “You’ll see?” What does he mean? An urge of excitement hit me. Whatever it is, I hope it like a boat or even a helicopter. I continued walking my usual route back home. I can’t wait until tomorrow. . .
