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."
I-Shirley Chapter 5 Shirley went into the kitchen to get herself a glass of water. She’d worn her hair up, smeared a good amount of Aloe Vera on her face, but kept the region around her eyes dry for the blindfold. Drinking water before bed was something Shirley had done almost all her life, though she only found out about the health benefits a few years ago. Throughout the years, she knew it was a good practice to drink a glass of warm water before going to bed; at least, that’s what her mother told her when she was still a little girl. The woman would bring her a glass of water, make her gulp everything and then send her to sleep. Sometimes if Shirley goes to sleep without drinking, it wouldn’t make a difference to the mother because she’d wake her daughter up and hand her the glass, and Shirley would always be annoyed with her for waking her up, but the mother wouldn’t mind. After some time, Shirley would get a glass of water, stand in front of the mother, and finish it to avoid an
I-ShirleyChapter 6"So are you going to tell me what that w
REBEKAH MECEDA Rebekah had come across many villages even before she turned 21. The young woman had been on the road for over four years. She could have settled in either of the villages, but she refused to. She would say she didn't appreciate how this village smelled, and the next town she would say gave her a weird vibe, and she didn't like it. Every person in either of the villages wanted her to stay. Rebekah Maceda was a good "medicine woman" who had at least a piece of idea of every sickness and what kind of leaves or medicine could cure or control it. She left a mark on every village she passed through because she would attend to the sick and heal them. "You need to find a place to settle. These times of war aren't good, especially for young women like yourself." They would tell her and try to lure her to stay and take refuge in their village, but she wouldn't. Rebekah knew they wanted to scare her and make her stay, but she also knew they spoke true. The kind of world they w
Chief Tador shook his head vigorously in disapproval. He wouldn’t put his entire force on a ghost hunt and definitely wouldn’t waste time searching for whole bloodlines because one of his agents believed in ghosts. “Not only do you want to become ghost busters, but you also want us to find out about each and every victim’s progenitors? Are you aware of how many victims there are?” Spat Chief Tador. What Azriel suggested they do was simply over the bar, and the Chief wouldn’t climb that high, not while the Angel of death was still on the loose. Chief Tador was a straightforward fundamental man who appreciated facts. He wouldn’t go ahead with any decision if he felt a grain of dissatisfaction with it. He didn’t believe in ghosts; he didn’t believe in demons. And even if the shadowed man from the video told him he was either of the two, Chief Tador wouldn’t believe it and would still want to put cuffs on his hands. The Chief deemed Azriel’s idea simply unworthy of their time. “Th
Shirley and Azriel arrived at May's house fast. A drive that was supposed to take longer was shortened to about ten minutes. Luckily for them, there was no traffic, and Azriel herself was a fast driver. Watching her drive on a good day would make you feel like a formula one racing competition spectator. Shirley would tell her to relax behind the wheel; that is when Azriel is driving and alone in the car. But when Shirley's with her, she would ask her to feel free and operate the vehicle how she felt. Shirley enjoyed sitting beside Azriel when she was speeding, and she wouldn't get scared or anything – but when Azriel is driving alone, she gets worried for her. Weird really! Shirley untied the rubber band, released her hair, and made it run loose when they hopped out of the car. The vital air jiggled her hair slightly as she reached for her glasses and folded both temples around the middle of her blouse. Azriel drew closer to her, glared in her face from the side, and kept smiling sh
"Ah-ha… I've been wanting to ask you guys this question for a while now, but it skips me for some reason." Azriel said and strolled to the petit center table, where everyone sat on the floor around it. Each person, holding a glass of red wine. After dinner, the kids had been sent to bed, and the adults sipped their glass of alcohol and chatted about random things. "Why do all of you have Odoi as your last names, but only Shirley has "Angelus-Mortis" as her last name. What gives?" Azriel waltzed back to her corner jokingly with the whole wine bottle in her hand. She'd already had enough to drink, yet she went in for the entire bottle. "Well, Shirley here is the special one of this generation, hence the last name." May answered. The whole "Gang" sent their gaze to Shirley with a warm smile across their faces. "In our family, we believe that one person is selected out of every generation, to be the pillar and the protector of its members. And we believe Shirley is it in this generation
-ShirleyChapter 11At twenty minutes after one in the morning, Ackermann sat comfortably in an armchair in his apartment. He held on his lap a pile of the files of the very first five victims of the Angel of death, the shadow killer. He would go through each of them attentively, not missing a single adjective or an adverb. Before two, he had gone through the files and already gone over it a second time. “Still nothing….” He said as he sent his hands to caress his eyes and face. He Sighed and shook his head in discontent. Detective Ackermann was incredibly fed up with chasing one person and doing the same thing over and over and over again for years. The same thing had gone on in his life the same way, so much that sometimes he wakes up and expects to be called to a crime scene. It had become a formula for him. Wake up on a Monday morning to a phone call, “There’s been another angel of death incident, Detective, come do your thing. Ackermann would sometimes set the alarm for as early
I-Shirley12Ackermann and Azriel had been on patrol for less than thirty minutes, moving slowly and smoothly and quietly in the streets with both the exterior lights and interior lights turned on. “Okay, so basically, you think he murders people on weekends only?” asked Azriel as she still kept her eyes on her side of the car.“Yeah….” Replied Ackermann, also looking around closely. “You’ll realize it too when you take a close look at the files.” He added.“I know right, that’s what I’m worried about.” Said Azriel.“Wait, what are you saying?”“Um-hmm. All these years, and we didn’t figure this out, about the time of his murders. All these years…. How many people have died because we failed to notice this? I can’t help but wonder what else we may have missed.” Azriel said and sent her eyes to Ackermann for a few seconds and then back to the direction she was supposed to keep watch on. It should have been a collective failure for the whole team, herself, Ackermann, and Shirley, for n