It had been a week or so since I'd first woken up in the body of Officer Bell and come to realise a few things; Number one, this was one of those 'I'm dating a serial killer/a killer wants to date me' type of novels which I'd garnered from the title alone; Number two, I was a side character in this novel so I reckoned that somewhere the main characters were probably being set up or meeting each other and I had no idea of the progress they may be making; Number three, if the story of the novel spans over years then I would be stuck here for years so I needed to speed things up; And finally I also realised that I would probably die in the novel which would be really bad because it didn't say that reality was augmented so I could really die, also that someone was also pulling my strings in a certain way. When I had gone to the station for my around my third or fourth shift I was asked to go with some other officers to give a safety lecture at a local high school and when I had tried to decline something kept stopping me like the word were being pushed back by an invisible force on my lips. I eventually had to accept and realised that somewhere among all of those young students were the main characters but it was impossible to figure out who, I had tried begging the system to give me the novel to read but I guess that was a one time use kind of deal.
I leave my apartment grabbing my coat and begin walking down the stairs to the front door and began my walk to the police station where I worked.
My first day I was so lost I had to try and find where I worked from a map on my phone and when I got there I had no idea what I was doing thankfully that didn't seem that strange to my fellow officers because it was this body's first day there. Luckily I was only tasked with listening to the tip line and getting people coffee, I got coffee for the detectives who dealt with murders the most trying to figure out if the murderous mc had started their slaughtering yet. Not exactly the high octane police work that action movies had promised me but I preferred it because unlike the body I was in I had received no police training so I would have no idea how to fire a gun, follow procedure or just what to do in general.
Other than the safety lecture at the school nothing else was happening so I spent time thinking and theorising. I thought about how I had crafted an item before that I could put in my inventory and how useful it would be to have secret items in my inventory so the novel couldn't force me into my death. So I spent most of my time after that working and checking for any strange crimes or murders at work and then in my off time experimenting with Crafting and coming up with solutions to stop my death. I also figured I should try and learn what this body had learned in case it ever came up so I went to the firing range to improve my accuracy and training with my pistol, followed a rigorous exercise regime that I cobbled together from various people's recommendations at work and read up on things like police procedure and the law.
I step through the doors of the station and other people whizz past me frantically, this was kind of normal but they seemed to be more worried and zooming around faster than usual.
'Whats going on?' I asked a particular female detective who I had been cultivating a friendship with through coffee and asking about her work (it was mainly to learn about progression in the novel but she was very nice).
'There's been a murder at the local high school! The commissioner's daughter goes there so it's all hands on deck on the moment. Here, you can come with me and help me out.' She smiles at me I assume because she's happy to have help but I see a glint in her eye for a second.
[Relationship with a character: Detective Lawrence has reached a new stage]
[1 Skill Point has been added and a bonus is applied to both level and skill experience when your around this character]
Damn I think Detective Lawrence is kind of interested in me! Maybe I should pursue this, only for the experience and skill points obviously... Not because of her curves and her cute face and her curly brown hair. No only because of the skills.
I ride in the car with Lawrence now noticing just how pretty she is. But it's also amazing how she is able to take charge even around officers that out rank her. As we get to the school all the other officers move to make way for her and look at me sometimes with envy and other times with sorry expressions that I have to work with her.
I look into some of the classrooms and see them empty and assume that the school has decided to take some time off after the "incident".
We arrive at a classroom much like the others in every way except in the middle of all the desks on the floor lies the motionless body of a girl with a plait in her hair and one hand to her face that lays still with a sorrowful expression and eyes that had mascara running down from them to her cheeks. Her other hand clutches over her heart at a large wound that has spilled blood over her white shirt.
OK time for me to solve this thing and wow everyone.
'Is it OK if I inspect the body and look around?' I ask Lawrence.
She turns surprised and unsure, 'I suppose so but this isn't a murder mystery or how it is in films or books we draw facts and evidence into conclusions and arrests. Don't go thinking you can solve this right now it's not even your department!'
I tell her that I understand but that I would still like to and she hands me some gloves that I have seen dentists wear. I put the gloves on and immediately go over to the body using my pen to take a look at her hands. They looked to have some kind of black smudges on them as well as some dirt. I walk around the body to the top of her head and look at her hair which seems to have flecks of blood on it. Now I take a look at her shoes I turn a leg slightly with my pen and note that there are some more flecks on the heels.
I look up to see that everyone has taken note of what I was doing and is staring into me.
'What are you doing?' asks Lawrence but I just tell her that I wanted to look at the body. Everyone seems perturbed by me being there but I persist in looking around the classroom but there's not much else to see. I ask Lawrence if she wanted to check something out with me and out of curiosity she decided to come with.
After a while of walking around I manage to find my way to the janitors closet and I instantly smell bleach and cleaning solution. I tell Lawrence I'll catch up in a bit as I sprint to the bathroom.
I spend what feels like ages vomiting into a toilet in there. I saw a dead body, the life gone from it, the smell, person they used to be. I think about all this and throw up more and more. It hadn't caught up to me until we were away from the body but when it did I felt so bad. I hear the door of the bathroom creak open and see Lawrence come behind me in the stall and I feel her start to smooth out my back.
'It can be really tough to see something like that. Sorry I shouldn't have brought you along.' She said softly with regret as she continued to smooth my back.
'No I'm OK now and I'm glad you brought me along.' I say with a raspy voice and I wipe my mouth away with some hand towels from the sinks.
'So did you crack the case?'
'No but I just figured out most of the stuff you guys must have done. Like that the girl was on cleaning duty when she was killed, she wasn't surprised about her attacker being there just sad and that someone had cleaned all around the body or she had been moved there.'
She looked stunned for a while and then grinned impressed.
'I thought you would have been too shocked to make findings or deduce things.'
'Well I figured I needed to make myself useful to you. Plus I'm no stranger to being in uncomfortable situations.'
'Well we already knew about the cleaning duty and her facial expression but could you explain the last part?'
'Well there are flecks of blood in her hair and the heels of her shoes and the black smudges could have come from cleaning duty but all that dirt on her hands had to have come from somewhere else. However that room was spotless and the janitors closet reeked of bleach because someone used a mop to clean up after the blood and bleached the mop so we couldn't find any trace of it.'
'Wow why do you think they did that?'
'I don't know I'm no Detective.'
I got home and felt the aching and tiredness from a day of work crash over me like when you walk into the water and the tide crashes against you pushing you back. I look around the flat that I had woken up in a couple of weeks ago and the place I had begun to consider my home. I sit on the edge of my bed and lay down the fatigue was getting to me and was worsening the more that I thought about the fact that novels like these take ages to end after the first kill, I could be here for months maybe years. I get up and move over to the bookshelf before taking out a ring-bound folder with "novel" written along the spine.
For a while I had been writing down important stuff in folders just like this and had now amassed a few folders like this to litter the bookshelf with titles like "System", "Plan" and "Novel". The system one was for my theories about the system and things I had already figured out. The plan one was for my daily routine, exercise regimen and other things like that just planning out what I was doing. The novel one was theories about the novel and parts of the novel I had already discovered. It was easier for me to work using folders for now but I might buy a board for putting paper on and connecting it like in the movies.
I jotted down everything that had happened that day like the girl, how she was killed, my deductions and hypotheses, etc. After doing that I slotted the folder back on the shelf turned out the light and decided to turn in early.