The Darkest Dream

“Mr. Kent, it is working just as you wanted it to. I’m not sure though if-” Kent Ramsey, CEO of Red Engine Games, gestured for his assistant to stop. “I know what it is and what it will do and I don’t mind what it might end up doing, understood? And not a word about it will leave this room.”

Kent’s icy blue eyes gave out a death stare that automatically zipped assistant’s lips, letting only “Yes sir” escape.

Taz Oliver Hayes’ cell phone rang and the caller ‘Captain Gomez’ yelled as soon as the call was picked. “Hayes, I want to see you in my office, RIGHT NOW!” The call was cut even before Taz could answer back.

Walking the streets of San Francisco was his dream ever since he was a child, who grew up in Falmouth. Taz was five minutes away from his precinct. He had no choice but to run and try not to spill his morning espresso.

He entered his captain’s room, his left sleeve soaked with espresso. Captain Gomez stared at Taz’s sleeve and said, “You are five minutes late. Maybe I should get permission to move Starbucks away.” Taz found it hard to apologize and gave an embarrassed look, lifting his eyebrows.

“Listen, you have a case. I’m setting you up with this case, as I will be out of town for the next two weeks. The files are on your desk. Have fun.”

Captain Lucien Gomez, head of the police precinct, gave a smirk as he walked past Taz out of his room.

“Pfft, Jerk.” Taz thought.

Taz gave a look at the files on his desk. The case files. The obvious issue that was going around in town. The post mortem report says cardiac arrest due to improper coordination of electric signals that cause the heart to beat.

“So this disease was common in southeast Asia a long time back.” Taz sat down, googling the symptoms for the disease called SUNDS, sudden unexplained nocturnal death syndrome.

So why did this genetic disease become a case that had to be handled by the police detectives? Taz wondered. And after a moment’s observation, “Oh, only that this is not genetic. I see.”

Paper work was something Taz despised, and he was allowed to take up new cases only after finishing the paperwork of the previous case.

“Ah man, the previous case was so much fun, car chase, stakeouts, drug mafia. But the paperwork for that is just so frustrating.” He whined to his colleague as he scribbled on the sheets with his left hand, staining some part of the sheet with the espresso that he had got on himself earlier. In response, his colleague glared at Taz, sitting with much bigger files and paperwork on his desk.

As Taz completed his work, he went to the washroom, nodding a ’sup to all his colleagues on the way.

Taz found it relaxing to have a soliloquy. He spoke to himself as he washed his left sleeve, trying to remove the stain on his cuffs, which had his initials ‘TOH’. “Five kids, around twelve to fifteen years old, died in the same manner and this was the only similarities between these deaths.”

Taz researched and found that this case was trending only in their country and nowhere else. “So, these deaths are not very common, but the cases are increasing day by day. Interrogate vic number one, the family of course.” He wrote a few points in his pocket diary.

“Ma’am, I am detective Taz Oliver Hayes, San Francisco PD. Firstly, I am very sorry for the unfortunate incident regarding your son, Marvin. Very unfortunate. Wish I’d been there.” He always felt awkward and did not know how to console the sad ones. The lady who opened the door looked at him in confusion and said, “I am the maid. Ma’am is inside. Please come in.”

“Detective, I can’t understand why a cardiac arrest is taken as a case by the police after two weeks. I was told this is a rare case of SUNDS.” The concerned mother of the victim questioned the detective as a tear drop emerged out of her obviously visible dark-circled eyes.

“It seems like this condition is observed in several other kids’ death recently, apparently not so rare and I am assigned to find out if there are any links between these kids and if there are any symptoms to identify the disease earlier.”

The mother was a given a few photographs of the late kids and asked to observe if she was familiar with any of them.

She shook her head and made eye contact with the detective asked “Do you think these deaths are not natural?”

The case seemed so simple, just a few coincidental natural deaths, yet Taz couldn’t reply.

“I need you to go through the things that your son did, let’s say from umm a day before his, you know... umm-” “Yes, ah, he went to school then came home and studied. The next morning, we went shopping. He wanted to buy a new released video game and then umm, give me a moment.”

The Marvin’s mother sipped a glass of water after she found it hard to find words.

“He played the game and then went to sleep. That’s it.” Taz bid sayonara and left the house after noting down some points mentioned by the dead son’s mother.

Taz went to interrogate the other children’s parents to find out any possible clue that would relate them, but secretly hoping it was just coincidental, natural deaths because, if not, it was going to become a pain in the ass.

Most of the criminal cases lead the detectives to either the hospital or the mortuary, and Taz’s next on the list was something he despised.

One thing Taz never got used to was to have a chat with the pathologist Dr. Femrey at the San Francisco hospital mortuary, surrounded by dead bodies. “Can we have a talk outside the mortuary doc?” Taz scrunched his nose in disgust. “Haha, detective Hayes, I see you still aren’t used to this smell huh, sorry lad, work pending.”

After his uncomfortable talk with the doctor, he found that the heart had stopped due to arrythmia, a common disease without any known cause. Although arrythmia being common, SUNDS was a rare genetic disease and definitely not communicable.

Taz took some time to research more about this medical condition, even after having a long chat with Dr. Femrey.

He confirmed that these were not genetic and were definitely something bizarre.

The first five kids seemed to have done nothing suspicious or out of the ordinary. School, shopping, lunch, dinner, games, study, sleep.

Without any lead or evidence, Taz wanted to close the case as a natural death, but a small hunch kept him from closing the case.

“I do not know what I am going to look for, but just following my instincts.” He said to himself as he knocked on the victim’s kids’ houses one last time.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, considering the kids’ death was two weeks back and the housemates would have occupied the rooms and mixed up everything.

Also, that Taz had no clue what he was doing.

Lurking in the halls like the ghost of the pasts, Taz looked for things that could form a plausible link to their deaths.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Except all the kids seemed to have gone shopping to buy the same video game that was released just a few days before their deaths. Yard of the dead by Red Engine games.