Case 1,
The Tombstones
Hajime's POV
It's warm. I could feel the embrace of the warm sun. I want to stay a little more while.
I slowly opened my eyes as the sunlight shone through the glass window covered in see-through light blue curtains. If it wasn't for the morning light, the room would be too dark—no electricity, barely has water supply.
Standing up, I scanned through my new and shabby apartment. What can I do? I have nowhere to go, anyways. Besides, as long as I'm alive, I can tolerate this all.
I went for the old fridge, not working anymore since I have no electricity and took a pack of bread I bought yesterday. I grabbed a pair and shoved it back inside for tomorrow's.
This? This is breakfast.
Finishing the food, I went straight to the bathroom to take a bath from the leftover water that I saved just for this day. It's been stocked here for three days, but since I have no choice, I can only sigh and continue before I come to school late.
I dressed and went straight to my barely living mirror to check if my face is still okay. It seemed okay, though I feel stressed out inside. Before leaving, I shoved the curtains and opened the window to see the outside. I swear, from the front door, the road to the back of the apartment goes straight down, so in my room, the back looks really high and you can see the whole Sanctuary.
Jogging my feet in hurry, I checked my bag if everything's ready and ran straight to school as fast as I can. No taxis. I can't afford to lose money before I graduate this school.
Barely made it, by the way. Just introduced myself in the most common way, as possible and my day in school started. Days like these will become mundane like how it became to the others.
"So, Hajime, I never seen you around. Where do you live?" Rizen, the one who sat before me asked, sitting opposite of his chair, facing me. I just talked to him a while ago and he never stopped asking questions.
"Uhmm..." I paused for a few seconds, "I live in the boundary of the Sanctuary and here, so I basically lived in the Sanctuary. Due to some family circumstances, I have to immediately move out.
"Eh? So you're family is associated with the Sanctuary. Your family's not ordinary noble, aren't they?" He rested his head on my table, "Lucky you," he added.
I wonder about that. Like I said, "Due to some family circumstances". I thought they recognized me as part of them when they said they're going to send me to the Sanctuary, but I was mistaken. Maybe they just want me gone, and the perfect place to send me is that Rapunzel Tower they gave me.
I chuckled, "I wonder 'bout that."
"Huh?" He looked baffled.
I just shook my head and stared back at the bright window. I was supposed to enjoy my school life and now, talking about my shitty family puts me out of the bright mood.
***
"You're coming home early?" Rizen spoke.
"Y-yeah?"
"Ehh? You have nothing to do, right?" Somehow, I feel something's going to happen.
"N-Nothing, probably. Why—" Before I could finish, he pulled me along without a word.
He took me to a place, opposite of the way to my home. I think we've gone too far, but he's not even considering stopped anywhere. We reached a city called Shiren, I even saw a familiar face, but we walked too fast for me to recognize his face fully. He was sitting with someone in the cafe called Black whatsoever with an unfamiliar guy. I swear he looked like someone I interacted with.
"We're here." he stopped, causing me to collide my forehead to his back.
"Sorry," he chuckled.
"Wait here I'll go get food. Food's really heavenly here, I swear," he rushed to the other side of the road and went inside a shady place.
For a few seconds, I felt a sudden chill and reflexively looked behind if there was something, but it seemed like it was just crows playing with the trashcan.
Rizen came running back from the mysterious shop holding a brown paper bag with him, "It's on me, thanks for coming with me. I actually haven't been there for days, and I also wanted you to taste their pastries. What do you think?"
I took a bite and it was exquisite! The flavor was overflowing, but still not contradicting each other.
"Seems like you liked it." he smiled.
We talked for a while and before we realized, it was dark and we're about to part ways. The chat felt so fleeting that we lost track of time. It was a long journey at first, but it was worthwhile, anyways.
"See 'ya tomorrow, Hajime," Rizen waved goodbye before leaving as I did the same.
Now, back to my shabby apartment, the joy was, indeed, fleeting. TOO FLEETING!
I sighed before taking a step inside the small space. I'm tired. I never felt this worn out before. Going straight to my hard bed, I closed my eyes thinking I could close my eyes for a few seconds, but I never realized I could doze off for too long.
I opened my eyes and it was already morning. Wait. Morning?! I even slept with my uniform on! I forgot to eat dinner. Where did I even put the food I had last night?!
I rushed doing all my things and ran outside. It was a few minutes left before I was late. Passing through the road, something caught my attention.
It was police officers. They are digging under a tombstone near the road with a weird guy that doesn't look like one of them. But who would erect a tombstone there? This city is weirder than I thought it would be.
"Hey, you!" I looked around before coming into conclusion—the police is talking to me.
"Do you need something, sir?" I nervously asked.
I'm not a suspect, right? W-what should I do?!
"Did you not watch the television? Classes are suspended, we're investigating a case in this area."
What? This is what I get for having no phone and electricity.
I hurried back to the house to sync in what happened. Is that a murder case? I opened the fridge to eat the leftover pantries Rizen gave me to pass my bored phase.
Third Person's POV
"This is...!" The policeman was flabbergasted by the sight.
Under the tombstone they're digging was a man that gone missing last night.
"Kise, Take this job." The chief demanded to the person next to him, Nijiro Kise, who is not even part of the police.
"But, Chief!" The policeman contradicted.
"No complains. We're not able to solve this case, am I wrong, Nijiro Kise?" He diverted his gaze, filled with a serious look in his eyes to Kise.
"Your eyes are sharp, Mr. Donut." Kise chuckled.
"Call me Chief Hanare!" He snapped.
"Haha, you're no fun, chief," Kise walked away from the scene waving at the police without looking back. "Now then, this one could be difficult to deal with," he whispered to himself.
Sooner, he arrived at his home. It was not big, yet not small either—just enough to be called "Living normally". It has it's own small black gate, enough for one car to enter and glass windows, normally. The windows are tinted black, but it looked like it wasn't taken care of, judging from the dusts that accumulated on every corners.
The inside wasn't much either. Entering the place, there's only a small hallway directly leading to the living room near a small kitchen. There's no table to eat except for the table in the living room at the couch. A farther back from the couch was a stair leading to the next floor above. Beside the stairs was a door to the washing room, also a room next to it was the bathroom.
On the other floor, there's a large room filled with paintings on the walls and a glass door leading to a long balcony with a small plant, barely noticeable from it's hidden position.
Near the stairs was another room— Kise's room. It has a normal bed, a closet and a small table with a computer. Despite being a normal home, it was still too much for him since he lived alone.
Entering, he directly went for the stairs and went inside his room. He opened the closet at the middle of the right side of the wall and began setting the clothes aside and there appeared a small lock. He entered certain numbers and the closet started moving from the middle to the left side of the wall, revealing a iron door with another password.
Once again, he typed the password and opened the door. There revealed a few photos of the victims and tombstones from the incidents that began three days ago. Inside the from are two long counters and a small table at the small space at the side. On the right side was a small safe. And in front was the photos he had a long with other valuable informations about the case sticked on a big whiteboard.
Not long after arriving, he scanned the articles and a sudden call came up. It was Chief Hanare.
He picked up the phone, answered and put it back down the counter and started listening on loud speaker.
"Is something wrong, Mr. Donut?"
"Call me Chief. That aside, we learned something. After the retrieval of the body, we conducted autopsy and found out that the victims just died the moment we digged them out." Chief Hanare explained.
Kise's brows furrowed in confusion, "And how did the victims died?"
"It seemed like the causes of death differed. Two died from heart attack and one from suffocation. Anyways, we're about to dig out more before it's too late for them. There are three new victims. An old lady near the last tombstone we dug out, her husband next to it and a student near the gate of the school."
"Tombstones...Cases of disappearance...Dies after...!" Eyes widened from realization, he grabbed the phone out of reflex, "Chief, don't! The momens you dig out their bodies, are the moments they die!" He exclaimed.
"What? How the hell does that work?" Chief Hanare sounded baffled.
"We're dealing with something inhuman, more than what a normal human can comprehend. This is no normal case," he pants.
"Ok. We'll do what you said. We need to solve this case quickly, or there'll be more victims." The chief demanded.
"Now what? The old lady must be the one who sells sweet near the road. Wait! Did he just said beside?!" Kise felt like he drifted away from the answer.
The cases contained only one tombstone at a certain place, so he assumed that one victim is enough to be taken from a family.
He picked up a cardboard and a pen and wrote up the three new victims with random calling, since he doesn't exactly know them. He sticked it on the location of their tombstones on the map on the whiteboard.
"So, the cases only revolved on the borderline, but it never gone deeper into the Sanctuary. There are only few people living in the borderline, despite having a lot of houses." he whispered as he traced the board with his finger.
"Hmm...?" he looked at a small alley, leading to the borderline of the Sanctuary.
"Mr. Donut told me about all the people living there and there's this kid who moved four days ago, if I'm not mistaken. Four days..."
"Wait, now that you put it, the kid arrived four days ago, the day when the incidents happened. The victims were kidnapped that day and the incidents moved in a straight line, but the house was untouched." he continued muttering to himself.
"Okay, we're setting off!" Kise hurried out and grabbed a scarf and went outside. Time flew too fastt sht is was already dusk.
As he almost reached the place, he saw the kid lying down on the alley with another kid that looked like him going towards the sleeping kid's direction carrying a bread and a few necessities. It was not human.
The ghost was about to touch the human body when Kise spoke, "You're..."
The ghost's eyes windened on surprised when he saw the man.
This had became a problem for both of them.
***