The faucet for the shower was turned. Waters were gushing out from the shower above Ax's head. Eyes closed as the water was rushing down his head. 'Just enough cold...' He thought.
After he had done taking a shower, he reached for the sink inside the bathroom. Opened the mirror cabinet over the sink, took out a toothbrush and a toothpaste. He pressed the middle of the toothpaste and put a little paste on top of the brush. The brush was brought into his mouth and he brush his teeth.
'Task.' A task panel was summoned
[ TASK ]
Achieve 40,000 steps in a day.
( 29,459 / 40,000 )
Remaining Time : 11h 23 m 59s
'It is still far from complete. Why is it so hard to complete it? I chose normal though. I'm afraid that I won't be able to finish it at this rate.'
He spat out onto the sink. Then, he rinsed his mouth with water for several times. After done cleaning up, he walked out and put on his plain black t-shirt and trouser. He just hoped that he had a full tracksuit but he did not have it currently.
"You're on time. The dinner had just done." Lisa said as she put down a pot of red soup with meatballs. Plates of bland spaghetti were served in front of every seat.
Ax took a seat and started to dig in with the others.
As they were eating, Henry voiced out to open a conversation. "How's your day at school, Olivia?" He directed the question to the daughter.
"It's great!" She replied excitedly. "The teacher told us to draw what we want to be when we grow up. So, I draw a witch."
"Why witch though...?" Henry confused. "Didn't you says that you want to be a doctor not long ago?"
"I changed my mind. Witch seems more powerful."
"She said that by becoming a witch, she will be on top of the world as she is invincible. Haih... She watched too many movies and cartoons..." Lisa sighed.
Olivia was smiling big and held her nose high.
Feeling awkward, he turned to his son. "How about yours? Anything extraordinary happened?"
Ax diverted his eyes up, staring at the roof as he reminiscing of event had he gone through in the morning. Then, he lowered his eyes, looking at Henry. "Nothing. Everything was almost too normal today." He said with a complaining tone. "It's kind of boring. Want something extraordinary to happen..." He mumbles.
"At least you're not killing yourself." Lisa voiced with easiness as she lifted her drink to her lips. But her easiness could not last long as Ax suddenly let out request.
"Oh yeah, by the way." Ax shoved the last spoonful of spaghetti and half meatball into his mouth. "I want to get some walk tonight."
Those words had triggered something it should not have. A great wave of chill was suddenly ran down his spines. The chill was emitted by Lisa's rage.
Some veins could be seen on her face. She was pissed. She slowly tilted her toward Ax like a robot and stares at him with devilish smirk. "Oho~ Really?" Her voice rough.
He could feel the raging monster inside of her. "I– I promise you that I will not do anything stupid and unalive myself..." Ax raised his right hand and opened up his palm. Making a pledge.
"Oh~ Really?" She repeated again but this time, it was deeper and slightly louder.
His words and action does not seems to relieve her anger even a little but the otherwise. It just made her look more scarier if not any better.
"Don't be so mad. He promised, isn't he...?" Henry tries to calm Lisa down.
"Promises is just a word! He can break it anytime he want!"
"But he seldom do promises. And whenever he does, he had never broke a single promise before." He stated.
"Yes, yes. That's right." Ax nodded twice in fear of being beaten up by Leon's mother.
Lisa spare a glare at him. She seemed to cooled down a little. But just a little. At the same time, Henry looked into her eyes with eyes pleading for their only son, Leon, to walk freely outside for the night.
She hissed. Then, finally gave up and gave the boy the permission to get some walk. But with some conditions.
The first condition was obviously to not doing any kind of stupidity moreover ramping into a moving vehicle from the front like what he just did not too long ago. Second was to not get into any fist fight. Because if he does, someone might die by his any of his attack. But it was already too late for that... And lastly, the third condition was to not approach the abandoned– rundown shrine at the end of the forest at the suburb that was not far from their house.
But what left Ax in wonder was the third condition. Lisa seemed to spoke with deeper tone like she tried to emphasize the third condition more than the others. She did not tells Ax the reason of why she forbid him to do so but just keep reminding hi about it even right before he took a step outside.. It was unknown and odd to him.
Now he got the permission to go outside, he was more than glad to finish his task. He spare no time and started to jog the moment he stepped outside.
. . .
"I'm done with him..." An ununiformed cop sighed. Right palm on his face. Two uniformed cops entered the interrogation room and escort the detainee in front of the ununiformed cop to a cell soon after.
"Aaand, that was the seventh guy. Man, seriously. Why are they so persistent? Do they really think that people will buy their story?" Noah complained. It was night, about thirty minutes after ten and the cops in charge of the burning bodies case were still interrogating people from the alley.
"Well, even our captain couldn't convince them to talk, now I'm losing confident that we can even get a believable answer." Robert said. He yawned.
"The higher-ups from HQ will be mad if they get a wind of this." Noah continued.
The door to the observation room was slammed open. The captain, Oliver Reese, entered he room with pissed face and restless steps. He was stressed over the interrogations. He had done five interrogations for the day but all of them gave almost identical answers. Then, he threw himself onto an office chair and leaned back.
"Man, you look so stressed." Noah spoke to him.
"Haih... Those guys... You two must be tired too. You can go back. We finished for the day. Continue tomorrow." Oliver said. He waves his hand up and down towards them.
"Oh, finally!" Noah reached out for his jacket in excitement. "You too should get enough rest, captain. Bye~" He ran out of the room without looking back and let the door open. His laughs could be heard echoing along the way.
Soon after, Robert too reached for his leather jacket. He then put it on as he approaches the captain "Captain, do you think that they're telling truth? Cuz' I'm starting to believe them." He asked Oliver.
The middle aged man sighed again. "Something like that is of course doesn't exist but the way they confessed with fear in their eyes, it might be real but you know what? Even if it is real, the higher-ups won't believe it. They'll just nag at us and tell us that we're failure. Cut down our salary for the month and called it off." He paused. Took a deep breath. "Aah! I don't know anymore! Just continue this tomorrow. I'm so fucking tired! I wanna go hug my kids!" He rose from the chair. "Rest well. Tomorrow gonna be another long day." The captain walked out.
Robert took one last look at the interrogation room behind the one-way mirror before moves out. He stares at it for a long moment. A smirk was shaped on his face. An idea for tomorrow's interrogation formed in his mind. It was a great idea according to himself.
He turned off the light for he interrogation room and the observation room and got out of the room. Closed the door and locked it. He walked passed the front counter. "Hey, Zack." He called for the cop on duty by the counter.
Zack responded to Robert as his name was called. Robert lightly tossed the keys for the interrogation room and the observation room to the cop. He quickly rose from his seat and caught the keys. He showed the key to Robert and nodded. Telling him that he got the key in silent. Then he put it into a cabinet at their specific slot and sat down on his chair again.
Robert walked out from the station and got into his car. He held the steering with both hands. He pushed his body onto the cushion with arms straight. 'Tomorrow... I'm just gonna do that for the interrogation.'
. . .
It was a bright morning. The sky was clear with only some white clouds and birds flying around in a group. It was a peaceful day.
But not for the Brekord City Police Department. At the interrogation room, the situation was full of negative energy that was released by everyone as they were stressed over the interrogation. Adding the previous interrogation from the previous day, it was already tenth time they interrogated the witnesses.
The captain, Oliver, had already reached his limit. If one more person gives the sane answer, he might kill them out of stress.
What they want was just a answer– one logical answer of what happened in the alley that everyone could believe. Not an illogical, supernatural answer that no one would believe. Their story might be funny the first time they heard about it, but not after multiple times of the same answer. Different person but identical answer.
"Done!" Oliver yelled. He was so mad. If it was a cartoon, steams could be seen released from every hole on his head. And as usual, the detainee was escorted out from the interrogation room by two uniformed cops.
Robert, with an idea on his mind taps on Noah's right shoulder who was at the front of the microphone, telling him to step aside. Noah stepped aside as a response whilst looking back at him in confusion. Then, took another step as Robert pushed him with a hiss.
Robert pressed the power button on themicrophone. "Captain, let me handle the next one." He spoke through the microphone.
Oliver heard him from the other side, he looked at the one-way mirror that separate the two rooms. Obviously, he saw nothing behind the mirror except black and his reflection on it. He soon agreed on Robert's demand by nodding once.
Both of them switched places. Oliver got to rest inside the observation room as Robert got to sat inside the interrogation room to be an interrogator and interrogate a witness.
The door to the room did a click sound and was opened wide. A detainee entered with both hands cuffed. It was a young man with skinny body that almost looked like a skeleton. There were dark circles under his eyes. It was clearly that he have taken so many drugs and suffering from the side effects.
Was what they thought.
The guy sat down. He was probably in mid twenties. A cop locked his cuff to the table. Then, the both of cops walked out.
Before starting the interrogation, Robert brought out a black pen and a small notebook from one if his pocket. "Okay, let do this." He fixed his eyes on the detainee's eyes. "Start by telling me how." He simply asked the guy.
The guy sighed. "Let just end this fast. You'll only get the same answer as the others from me. It was a–"
"I'm not talking how did it happened. Nor of what happened. I'm asking of how was the appearance of the kid you guys were talking about. Tell me all of it. As detail as possible." Robert butted in his talk. He pressed the pen's butt and ready to write all the detail the detainee will tell him.