04

Shirley drove home with Azriel at her side. The entire ride was so quiet. Both of them lost in their own thoughts. Shirley couldn't believe what she'd just seen, and Azriel, too, freaked out to the bones even though she when hadn't seen the footage yet. Shirley wouldn't show it to her for some reason. "I can't show it to you, you can't see it. Not yet at least; not while you are in this state".

 Azriel turned her face to her side of the car, thinking hard about what happened to her earlier. It's never happened. At least not while she was still awake, and that's what made it even worse. When you're in a nightmare, it feels genuinely authentic, but then at the same time, it doesn't because you're asleep. Azriel's was a different story. She was fully awake. She could feel the wind rubbing her cheeks and blowing her hair from one direction to the other. So when she found herself in that situation, she was completely freaked. It all started with Shirley's description of how the homicide took place. For some reason, Azriel had pictured herself as one of the victims and had believed she was present at the scene. And everything happened in her exactly how Shirley described.

Even after several minutes after she was at the car waiting for Shirley, Azriel was still locked in that reality. In her mind, she was hiding from the monster whom she'd just witnessed him killing a baby and a mother. She knew she was next, so she was hiding from him. That was the reason she was frightened when Shirley tapped her on the shoulder. She thought she'd been busted.

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Azriel hastily dashed into her car's dashboard, took out her Pen and a booklet, and randomly just started circling words. She would squint for some time and circle. 

"Um – Az Cap… What are you doing?" asked Shirley.

"I'm just trying to solve a puzzle," replied Azriel, still squinting into the booklet.

"Oh right! A good way to get your mind off things."

 "Yeah… but that's not exactly what I'm trying to do." Azriel mouthed. "I'm actually examining myself; my mind in particular – I mean, to check if I'm still… you know, sane. What happened to me earlier was just too crazy, and, I don't know why or how it happened all of a sudden because it's never happened to me. So I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm not crazy."

Shirley took a silent look at Azriel and then turned her eyes back on the road.

She'd wanted so badly to assure Azriel that she wasn't crazy; Shirley had wanted to be that pillar that Azriel could lean on and feel relieved off everything, but she herself could barely wrap her head around what was going on. Shirley wanted to show Azriel the footage of who she thought was the so-called "ANGEL OF DEATH" fleeing the crime scene, yet she didn't because she thought her mind was playing tricks on her as well. If she weren't driving, she'd have taken and gladly solved the puzzle herself. "Tell me, what do you see?" She asked the receptionist at the Jewelry store after they'd both seen the video. The receptionist was as freaked out as she was, but Shirley was still convinced her mind was playing tricks with her.

Shirley dived into the shower immediately after they got home. She was feeling particularly uneasy the whole time regarding her not taking her bath before leaving home. She felt a drop of sweat in her armpit right after she'd given the profile on the homicide, and that was the trigger. She didn't know if it smelled or not, but she was a little disturbed, especially out of guilt because she knew she hadn't showered since the last time -- that was the morning before that day. She sighed heavily the moment she felt the warmth of the water pouring over her head.

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"Az Cap… So, um, I want you to tell me exactly what you saw," demanded Shirley the moment she entered the living room from the bath. Some parts of her skin were still wet.

 Azriel put down the Pen and the puzzle booklet on the table in front; she looked at Shirley and slightly shook her head. "I really don't want to remember that, and I'm trying hard to forget it even happened to me. Let's not talk about it".  She said and pulled out her lips and squinted her eyes.

Shirley chuckled. "That little trick doesn't work on me Az cap." 

 Azriel's legendary trick had failed her for the very first time. She'd do this when she needed a favor from someone, and it always went her way, even if it wasn't supposed to. She'd pull her lower lip out and squint her eyes, and she became victorious regardless of the situation. One time, she made the chief so pissed for some unknown reason, and before she would show up to work, chief Tador kept yelling at anyone and everyone he saw, threatening to confront Azriel hard and direct. Azriel showed up, and before he could yell at her, she'd already pulled her lip out and squinted her eyes at him. 

Chief Tador: "I… um… I'm disappoin…." He sighed. "Never mind get back to work," he added. The entire department immediately started laughing.

 She thought that cute face would be undisputed forever, but no, it didn't work on Shirley. That was the first time that cute face thing had failed her.

"You can pull you lips back in and tell me right now, or you could stall forever and still tell me because I'm not letting you off the hook till i know what happened to you." Shirley said and smiled sheepishly.

 "Alright. But when the others hear they might think I'm crazy or something!"

 "Oh you shouldn't worry about that, I wouldn't tell anyone what happened."

Azriel closed her eyes sighed hard.

"Your details on homicides are vivid as always; I mean, it gets me out there, makes me understand what happened. Today's what that, but just slightly different. Today's gave off a different kind of vibe. It was as if you were there, and you knew how both the killer and the victims felt. I guess that's how good you are with your job—this' where it started.

 I found myself tied up to a chair alongside the mother, and - I'm not entirely sure what or who that thing was because it looked like - nothing. Yes, like nothing at all. A dark-shadow-like figure, with the woman's baby in his arms, glared down at both of us. He had no face, no hair, and no eyes. He had legs and arms, but they didn't look real, or, let me say, they didn't look - physical. He had the shape, though. He looked like a pile of smoke in the form of a man. He - He strangled the baby. The poor baby didn't know what was going on. She just woke up and found a rope around her neck, and unable to breathe.

I tried to scream for help, but for some reason, I couldn't find my voice, or I didn't know how to use it; because it just wouldn't come out. After the baby, he came in behind the mother, pulled her head backward, and - and - he cut from one side of her cheek to the other side and made her bleed out. He ripped out her heart and ate it right in front of me, and then he walked into the kitchen as if he had forgotten about me. The rope that was restraining me got loose eventually, after I tried so hard to get free from it, and then I ran into the bedroom, locked the door, and - looked through the keyhole. He rushed back to the table in the diner, where we were tied as if he had just remembered there was one more heart he needed to rip out and eat. Realizing I'd gotten free from the constraints, he started searching for me. I kept looking through the keyhole to check his movements, but then suddenly his shadow-face appeared at the other side of the keyhole glaring right into my eyes; that's when you grabbed me and almost gave me a heart attack."

Shirley nodded slightly. "I see"

If she'd heard this a couple of days ago, or perhaps, before she visited the jewelry store, she would have been surprised and might have even told Azriel to find mental help. And it wasn't like she wasn't surprised after Azriel's story. She was. She was pretty much intrigued by it because the description of the figure Azriel claimed to have seen in her head or her vision, or whatever it was she saw, matched the one in the video.

"I don't think you are crazy or anything like that Az Cap… I think we are in a big trouble."