Chapter 1 A Stories Beginning
So, do you want to know what I do? I’ll tell you a story, it happened a long time ago. It’s a long story and it’s more depressing than most others that I’ve been through in my career. So you might want to refresh your drink.
The room was dim and those who hadn’t spent their lives crawling through the shadows would find it black as pitch. The thunderstorm outside had knocked the power out and the wind howled and boomed, I didn’t care though, It was nice to sit alone in the dark, But my line of work had made me over cautious, So as my paranoia grew I lit up my grandfather’s kerosene lantern, The oil soaked wick took the matches flame onto itself and it glowed hues of orange and yellow. It was the only source of light, That and the occasional blinding flashes outside.
There was a time where everything in the world was black and white, There were good people and there were bad people, Or so I thought. Oh how the mind of a young man works. I eventually realized that in this world there is no white, No black, Just seas of grey. Sometimes bad people do good things, Sometimes good people do bad things. Everyone has their own demons, Some more sinister and dark than others.
Thoughts danced in my mind as I slumped back into my aged leather armchair and took a long drag from my cigarette, The sweet smoke filled my lungs for a moment before I exhaled. The smoke hung in the air like a bad omen, I had gotten used to bad omens. I have seen some things that would turn most away from my line of work. Hell, I’d even contemplated walking away from it myself far too many times to count. There is something about this line of work though, The longer I am looking in the shadows for answers to someone else’s problems the darker the world gets, But the darker the world gets, the more I get paid, So I stay.
I’ve learned things about missing people that I would rather not remember. A dozen or so sets of twins, All from different families and cities, Being kidnapped and slowly tortured, Some fed to rats, Some meeting far darker ends for a mad doctor’s experiments, Or just the more mundane cases, When a so called lady for hire goes missing and winds up dead because of a person that didn’t want to pay for their play. I pressed the butt of my addiction into the ashtray and leaned deeper into my damaged armchair, Feeling the stretched and split leather against my arms and palm, I closed my eyes and let myself drift off, It’s not like I had anyone to go home to anyway.
My guardian angel was in my hand immediately, A round slid into its chamber as three loud knocks called me from my slumber. I looked over at the two ticking hands, I unlocked the door and sighed. A young brunette, My fixer, Luna waltzed in and collapsed her umbrella, Her long legs making their way over to the chair I have set out for clients. I take the hint and sit down across from the Young woman, She handed me a large brown envelope without saying a word as per usual.
It was another missing persons case, A blonde girl by the name of Anna Mcallister, She had deep blue eyes, Was about thirteen years old, Nearly five feet tall and 100 pounds, She was last seen two weeks ago with some friends getting drunk off of alcohol that was most likely stolen from the parents. I started to push away the folder as five hundred-dollar bills slid from it, I pocketed the money and read into the case file. It seemed like a simple infiltration job, Go in, Find information and get out…
If only I knew where this wild chase would lead me, I would have taken that envelope and burned it until it was a pile of ash and embers...
