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"*turns key in hype machine*"

Hello. If you're expecting a gaming topic, sorry. :0)

I'm writing a new story. It's the prequel to a story I wrote not all that long ago, called Seven. I want to write it, because I feel there is a lot left unexplained... and I hope to basically just add to the whole story.

However, I was going to just pop the story and announce it... but because of the server/font change, the story is messed up, and makes even less sense than it originally did. :0)

So, in an attempt to make even more people read it than they did before, and added to the fact I want people to read it so they understand how the next one will start off. And, more importantly, it's vital you read the old story first, and THEN the prequel. Otherwise it will make NO sense whatsoever. :0)

So, here it is. The first, and only, real story I've done on my own. Please read it. :0)

And in defense of putting this on prime... everyone else does. :D

I say yeah. The ones that it could affect won't be bothered to read it anyway. :0)

As several people on MSN will know, I'm writing a set of stories. Spliff Wars.

The first one is titled Spliff Wars: Some New Dope.

It's obviously a mick-take of Star Wars, but I just wanna know if SR will frown upon a story with drug references (And plenty of 'em) In it.

Very good.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES READ THIS POST UNLESS YOU HAVE READ THE ONE BELOW IT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.



















Air escaping... memories returning...

“THIS ISN’T TRUE!” Sheepy stood up, pointing the gun at the mirror... “You’re just trying to convince me that I’m the killer so you can walk away...

“LOOK AT THE MIRROR, SHEEPY.”

Sheepy looked deep into the mirror.

“You are the killer.” Sheepy watched the mirror as he spoke the words to himself. “You are no more than a demon, wishing to be an angel.”

The thoughts of the dead.

Escaping.

No longer haunting.

Freedom had it’s price.

It was worth it.

The balance had tipped.

And so it ended.

“The six of spades? What’s so significant about the six of spades?”

Sheepy was too quick to judge, Pb thought to himself… He always expected a straight answer, no matter how obscure or unlikely the chance of finding one was. Pb looked down on the card, touching it with his eyes.

“Significant to the killer, at least. Why, perhaps we’ll never know… but at least it’s a start.”

----------------

A WEEK LATER

-----------------

“He was a great Detective. Perhaps we didn’t really appreciate him as one, or even as a supporter, a helper. A friend.”

Chief Inspector Edgy stood at the front of the ironically beautiful church… and the disgustingly ridden body, which lay at the front. It certainly wasn’t a violent death, however…

“He always tried his best, his very best, to march forward and solve the crime. Nothing would stop him… he was a thinker, and a doer. He was amazing at understanding the mind of the killer… always had this gut feeling, that would somehow always be true to follow. He was a living enigma.” Edgy starred through glassy eyes… guilt ridden eyes…

“And now he lies, dead. And with him, he takes many secrets. Things that we’ll never understand.”

-----------------------

LAST MONDAY

GLUTTONY

-----------------------

Detective Pb knelt with his aged joints… he stank of experience, and smoked success with a finely rolled cigarette. He stared down at the putrid mess that covered the floor.

“Ant… a popular chap apparently, many friends, no enemies… well, no obvious ones.” The officer spoke surprisingly easily. “Died of…”

“I think it’s plainly obvious what he died of, thank you officer.” Pb silenced the breathing. Ant lay in a pool of his presumably own vomit, glucose seeping from his nostrils. The playing card was stapled as a alternate to Ant’s… on the back of his head, the six of spades facing away from him. Did that have implication? Two faces? Pb watched as the officer moved elsewhere.

“Sheepy, try and find out who has bought an industrial size bag of sugar recently.” Pb said, not really staring into anything more than his own terrible mind. “Other than Ant.”

Sheepy was silently displeased with the partnership, spending most of his time being told what to think, instead of letting his own mind tell him what to do. Pb shielded himself from the bright mirror…

“Let’s finish here first? Shall we?” Sheepy said, trying to tell Pb his feelings without blurting out in anger…

“I didn’t expect you to rush out and start searching receipts Sheepy… there is still something missing here.”

“Detective Pb?

Pb and Sheepy swung around, as an officer called for them.

“Look, over here.” The officer was jumpy, almost scared of authority.

Pb and Sheepy walked steadily towards the fridge, which had been slid away from the wall… A message lay behind it, placed before them as a warning, and waved around in their faces as a prize for the death… sprawled in blood, across the wall, torturing Pb like some stress doll. The blood would be tested, but Pb already knew whom it belonged to. The killer was testing them, experimenting with the project of God, minds of madmen, sins of geniuses, no one was flawless.

“No one leaves a mark like this, and never strikes again.” Thoughts of demons, dreams of angels, thoughts of demons, dreams of angels.

Something pulled Pb’s attention… staring at him like a lifeless skull; it’s loss of mental achievement hindering its slow gathering to life.

A letter, on the floor… unopened, oddly. Staring at Pb with blank minds, memories of clues and terrible guilt.

He picked it up; careful not to identify himself with it, and opened it… something small was gazing at him inside.

“The sign of gluttony. It was placed here before Ant died, as a warning.”

“A warning?” Sheepy asked, placing the miniature plastic orange pig and the letter into a plastic bag with no personality. The officer listened, expecting expansion.

“The mind of a murder often makes it seem less… severe, if a warning is given. But so vague was the warning, I doubt Ant would have known.”

Pb and Sheepy stepped out into the imageless air of the corridor, leaving the small hotel apartment. The pig was probably placed through the letterbox, he made a mental note to make sure that it was dusted for fingerprints, as simple as it seemed.

It was too early in the morning to think. He needed a coffee.

“Fancy a drink, Sheepy?”

------------------

Coffee had a strange memory.

“A black six? Perhaps that’s what it meant?”

Perhaps it did. Perhaps they faced a more ludicrous solution.

“A door number?” Sheepy suggested again… he was thinking so very hard, the poor soul. He shouldn’t try to think so much… he breathed too slowly, his mind would explode.

“I find that if you think too much about the solution, you miss vital clues to the process.”

Pb, philosophising once again… Sheepy wasn’t scared of Pb’s unorthodox methods of thinking, but he didn’t believe that the picture was completed as quickly as his own way.

Pb presumed correctly what Sheepy was thinking about… perhaps Pb wasn’t a fast labourer, but then, his solution wasn’t so…

He breathed the air of the coffee once more.

Refracted.

With white thoughts from his black coffee, Sheepy decided that it would be best to split their ways, and see what they could find. He was fed up with Pb already… 7:30AM. Right on time, too.

-----------------

7:40PM.

Sheepy entered the once peaceful flat, overdressed with files and papers that Pb still finds it amusing to place haphazardly around their home, much to Sheepy’s own often voiced discontent.

Pb moved in only in the last week, and already it had turned into his abode. Perhaps Sheepy was irritated with the raid on his personality… but then, who wouldn’t be?

As much as he hated it, he knew that it would be best to share thoughts on cases… and Pb wasn’t the type to go snooping around his personal belongings, or to care if he found them, anyway.

Pb was already at his desk, typing away his thoughts for the evening. A measure and record of his consciousness… at least, for the time being.

“So…” Sheepy said, breaking the silence. “What do we know?”

Pb stopped typing.

Sheepy spoke again, almost anxious that Pb would first. “Ant, is a notable… we should try and contact the other six.”

“Seven notables, seven days, seven deadly sins.” Pb read from his notes. “I’m not sure if it’s the notables he’s going after.”

“He?…” Sheepy quizzed… “And why not the notables?” Sheepy headed for the fridge in the adjoined kitchen, trying not to trouble the paper surrounding him.

“It’s bound to be, no women around here. And it’s almost far too obvious to just kill off the notables, he’s expecting us to try and round them up…”

“So…” Sheepy sat on the sofa, beer in hand. “What else could the killer be targeting?”

“Who knows… animals?”

Sheepy raised his eyebrows. He was a notable too, but he’d rather be finished by that evil deed than suffer the consequences of being different.

“Young members? Popular members?” Sheepy quizzed Pb again, still looking for answers.

He breathed the speech. “That… could be a possibility. The motive is there… upset at the fact that people look apon Ant more than they think others look apon themselves…”

“By the way, I tried to trace the sugar sales today, but came up with nothing.” Sheepy tried to defend his abilities. “Worth a try though.” He offered Pb a beer.

Pb sensed Sheepy’s dismay in his actions; but he hadn’t failed Pb, himself. “No thanks Sheepy… It doesn’t matter, thanks for doing so…we should have expected that there would be no trace… But at least we don’t have to do it again.” Pb spoke in bursts.

Sheepy drank from his beer. “So, where’ve you been all day?”

“I went to the library… I tried to dig up some information on the sins…”

Sheepy ascended from the sofa and walked around to Pb’s desk, somewhere in a dark limbo of information. “The seven deadly sins. Gluttony, Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Greed, Lust. That pig, I was right, was the sign of Gluttony…”

Pb displayed the animals to Sheepy… He quickly scanned the page…

“Is that it?” He asked, pointing for information at an ancient picture… a pig was shown, stuffing some animals, into a man, who was tied to a cross.

“Yeah… that’s it.” Pb stored the picture in his thoughts forever, breathing deeply.

“We need to contact the rest of the notables…” Sheepy returned to his sofa. ”And possibly any other animals. Goatboy, Golden Rhino…”

“Are there seven animals?” Pb asked… undoubtedly, Sheepy would count as one.

“I’m… I’m not sure.”

It was a very loose lead… but what else was Ant connected to?

“I’ll start calling the notables now, to check their security…” Pb reached for the phone… but it started ringing as he put his hand over it… he picked the phone up gently, afraid of the tale it would tell.

“Hello there? Detective Pb?”

“Speaking.”

“We’ve found some… information, regarding the autopsy of Ant, that kid killed this morning.”

Pb waited for the man to continue… he wasn’t the type that liked avoiding the point with confidence influencing mumbling…

“Err… We, err… found some things, inside Ant’s stomach, along with the sugar…”

Pb waited, again.

“There was a frog inside him… a snake, rat hair… it’s possible he was forced to eat them.”

“…Thank you.” Pb said, unsure if he was pleased or not. Everybody always seemed so pointless when he was tired… “If you find anything else, please don’t hesitate to contact me.”

Pb starred into the mirror on the other side of the room… starring…

Sheepy glanced away from Pb, as he put Sheepy’s phone down, in his flat, on his desk…

------

TUESDAY

SLOTH

--------------

7:54AM

…Dreams of success, guilt, image assessment… smoking, the friends pity…

Sheepy woke with a phone call… air escaping from his heavy gasping, extracting the dreams… the nightmares…

He ran to the phone.

“Hello? Detective Pb?”

Sheepy spoke through a rough tongue. “What do you want?”

It wasn’t just the lack of sleep that irritated Sheepy.

“We’ve got another body… can you get down here, now.”

Sheepy then recognised the voice… Chief Inspector Edgy. He didn’t sound all too pleased with the resonance of Sheepy’s bellowing.

-------------------

8:21AM

Edgy looked through his nostrils at Sheepy, as if he was nothing more than glass. Pb was angered that Edgy gave him so little respect…

Whoever had died, had lived well. The house was quite huge, beautifully crafted windows… the roundabout that circled a glorious fountain was full of police cars. Not the most festive of images, imperfect sprits, once again.

“Where is it?”

Edgy led them through the main hallway, to what must have been the master bedroom… to the pale bluish white body, drained of life… little bite marks pitted the body, staking and claiming the soul… the room, decayed stench rising from the bed… the thoughts escaping…

The room was so very low… Pb’s head was nearly touching the roof… He was surprised, considering how huge the house was, how anyone found him so quickly.

“His name?” Pb asked…

“Goatboy. We believe the bite marks to be of rats… but I believe he was knocked out first, that possibly killing him before the rats…”

“We should have expected this… I’m horrified we didn’t warn them.”

“Them?”

“The animals… or anything linked with Ant’s killing, yesterday. We knew that Goatboy may have been a target… we contacted him, pretending we were double glazing salesmen, just to check if he was still alive…”

Sheepy looked around the beautiful room… Goatboy must have been quite rich, police strimming the chandelier with their unequivocally vacant minds of forgotten methods and of no feelings of ordinarity towards humanity itself. Sheepy moved his feet across the fresh carpet… almost as if Goatboy changed it like dirty underwear… You knew you had too much money when you put a chandelier in a room as small as this one… flaws sometimes appeared. Not everyone could be perfect… it’s flaws that create perfection…

“Why didn’t you just tell him who you were?” Edgy asked, mystified.

Pb looked at the body, speaking apologetically. “We thought it would be unnecessary worry for him.”

The mistakes we make… “Was there a playing card stapled to the body?” Pb asked…

“No… it was simply placed on top of him…” Edgy took out a clear bag from his pocket.

Sheepy looked inside… “The Queen of Spades.”

“The Queen…?” Pb asked himself…
----------

5:45PM

“So, we’re free to go outside now?” er-no asked, still anxious, almost, to return to the worries of methodical life.

“Just because Goatboy was killed doesn’t mean that all notables are safe…” Pb hated talking on the phone. Eyes were such a beautiful liar, and er-no could so easily be a killer.

Almost too easily.

“I’m never safe, Pb. I risk my life everyday, and a stupid little murder isn’t going to stop me from living my life. I mourn the loss of Ant’s life…”

Pb thought that ‘lament’ might have been a more appropriate wording. Pb returned to listening to er-no.

“…but that’s not going to stop me from living my own life.”

“You already said that.”

Pb sensed er-no trying to leave the conversation. So he gave him the excuse.

“er-no, I want you to ring the other notables, they are your friends and companions, and I have a lot of work to do. Just check if they’re ok.”

“Oh… yeah, ok, I’ll check.”

Pb put the phone down. For some reason he didn’t want to wish er-no farewell.

--------------

8:30PM

A six of spades… and a queen of spades…

A sinner, and the sign of the sinner…

Ant and Goatboy, both dead.

Who would be next?

“I’m confused.” Sheepy liberated Pb’s thoughts.

“What about?” There was certainly plenty to choose from, Pb muttered to himself.

“This card thing. First, the six of spades, now, the Queen of spades.” Sheepy sat on his sofa, beer in hand. He had offered one to Pb, but he had refused. Again.

“No… I can’t see the connection either… But this is certainly the work of our guy, I’m sure of that.”

Pb then had the awful feeling that er-no wouldn’t call the others…

“Do you think I should just call the notables anyway?” Pb asked, confused by his fear.

Sheepy returned to the fridge. “Why are you asking me? You worry too much... Concentrate on the case, we need to get this solved…”

Pb looked at his notes. “By Sunday. The day of rest.”

“So, what’s the connection between Ant and Goatboy?” Sheepy started, trying to get their minds back on track.

“Well… Ant and Goatboy are both animals. In the sense of their names, anyway. Goatboy also had the unfortunality of being a symbol of sin. The goat is the symbol of sin… the colour, light blue.”

Pb checked where he was… yes, still in his flat.

“So… who could be killed next?”

Pb breathed in the fumes of Sheepy’s concepts… merging with his own breath, marginally escaping through the vents in his head…

“I still don’t know. I’ll never bloody know.”

Animals, notables, high profiles?

“Goatboy had a high profile in the forums.” Pb stated. “He was known for what he wrote, his way of thinking… not all the best writers are notables, certainly not all the notables are the best writers.”

Sheepy smiled faceless to the comment. “As you said though, notables are still a target.”

Pb tried to think through his clouded, painful mind… why did the pressure force him to think so repetitively? He couldn’t get thoughts from his mind… brewing and punching the walls of his skull, attempting to reach the outside world. He couldn’t speak them, they wouldn’t communicate… He knew the answers, they just had to be found…

Pb began to hyperventilate, purifying the thoughts… his minds cooled, sparing him the troubles of sorting and searching, orderly processes discovering their homes, returning from their trips around the mind… leaving their wives, so long farewell my death defying friends I hope you return from your graves to haunt me…

“PB!” Sheepy shouted at Pb, crawled on the floor. “Pb! Can you hear me!”

Pb opened his eyes to the black and white filtered world… his minds began to scatter…

“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine… what happened?”

“You just collapsed on the floor… are you sure you’re ok?”

“Yeah… yeah…” Pb sat up… “I’m just… I’m just going to sit here for the time being, ok?”

“Err… yeah, ok.” Sheepy stepped back in action, weary of what Pb really was.

Pb sat back in his chair, still unable to understand why they weren’t making progress.

---------

He had been sat in his chair for about an hour now. He had done little but to stare at the long mirror opposite him.

Your reflection is not who you are.

Pb rolled the words around in his mind. Some things seemed to make sense for no reason.

-------------------

WEDNESDAY
ANGER

----------

9:00AM

Pb wasn’t woke by a phone call… by Sheepy’s worried mumblings and messages… no. He was brought back by his alarm clock. It had been quite a while, and fatigue certainly was creeping up on him… Why?

Pb sat up from the sofa, gathering his dreams. He wondered about perhaps why he didn’t really forget his dreams so easily… well, not as easily as he used to. Was he more mature now? They seemed… so real.

It was nice to have a free mind again, well, at least for the moment. He was slightly worried about collapsing yesterday, but it wasn’t too much of a problem. He just had to remember to stay calm.

In the mornings, the dark balance of thoughts hadn’t began to wear him down yet… his breathing was silent and quite in the night, close to nothing at all. Death? No, but then he wasn’t exactly alive either.

9:15AM

Time went fast when Pb was thinking. Energy lost as time was gained, speaking to himself, comforting his mind.

9:31AM

Pb finally got up. Breakfast was to be eaten, and here was certainly not the place… Sheepy was poking around in the living room, searching for something. He had his own bedroom, and it was certainly deserved.

“What are you looking for Sheepy?” Pb asked, intrigued by another humans behaviour.

“Oh… it doesn’t matter. Just looking for the sake of looking, really.”

Pb understood more than he was supposed to have.

“Shall we go get breakfast?” Sheepy asked, more confident now. “I’m starving.”

-------------

That coffee again… stirring his thoughts so early in the morning. The cold air wasn’t helping, though.

“Do you think the killer has struck already… and we’re just waiting to find his tracks?”

Sheepy, questioning, instead of assuming. He was learning. Quickly.

“Yes, I do in fact.” Pb drank from his coffee… stopping as the coffee trickled down his throat.

The world stopped rotating… the Earth quieted down.

Pb brought the cup away from his mouth, and tried to breath in the fumes… why did he do that?

“Pb…?”

“Yeah, I know.” Pb put the coffee down on the table. It tasted… strange.

Pb closed his eyes… thoughts of demons. The two cards came back to his mind.

“I’m worried about this queen of spades.” Pb tried to push the coffee back in his mind. “I think it’s a red herring. We aren’t looking in the right places.”

“So what ARE the right places…? Aren’t we looking high enough?”

Pb tried breathing the coffee once more… he got up from his seat, and walked over to the small bar. He couldn’t do it. He needed another.

High enough…? Contrasting thoughts, all of a sudden…

Pb wiped the angels from his shoulders, and brought his new coffee back to his seat.

“Or are we looking low enough…?” Pb said.

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just my thoughts conflicting again.”

“You still having problems with that?”

Did he ever tell Sheepy? He can’t remember.

“Err… well, yes.” Pb breathed in the coffee… ah yes… that was better. Much better indeed.

“I thought you said that you were getting better?”

Did he? When? Better? Far from it… falling again… blinded by his thoughts jumping him, bagging him, trapped under his own methods and pressure taking him beyond what he could know with his own mind…

Pb began to sway on the chair… He woke again. Where was he? Still there. Speaking to Sheepy.

“Yeah… I am getting better. It just takes time.”

“Oh… ok.” Sheepy didn’t want to upset Pb further by continuing the conversation. Bringing it back up would solve nothing, putting him steps back again.

A scream echoed from the outside world.

“What…?” Sheepy got to his feet, staring outside… He pulled his gun from his side, and ran out. Pb followed.

A woman ran to Sheepy, crying her dear little eyes out… “What’s wrong?” Sheepy comforted the cliché…

“Blood… over there…” The woman pointed with her shaking arms to a pile of bins, bin bags, lined up like an army of soldiers, waiting to be judged.

Pb walked up to Sheepy, as he stepped over the bins. There, blood, seeping from a black plastic bag.

Sheepy placed on his gloves, and opened the bag… He looked inside…

Lifeless emotions gathered and escaped like breathless memories into the darkened air of decaying matter… Sheepy stirred away from the bag in disgust at the human race…

Pb leaned forward, staring inside, from Sheepy’s mind… where had the woman gone? A face staring up at him. The six of spades…

“KEEP BACK!” Pb stood, forcing the followers and interests away from the sight…

Gazing again. Thoughts of demons, dreams of angels…

Under the bin bags… yes…

Pb lifted up the bin bag next to it, blood on the floor. He moved away all the bin bags, which he knew were too aligned…

---------

“His name was Sniper, and he was not the most popular of fellows…”

Pb sighed into his hands as Edgy spoke to the team. Another motive, drifting away from him… caught again.

“But one of the more famous members on Fog, and a notable. He was found with all his limbs removed from his body, his head and torso separate in the same bin bag. It’s presumed he was still alive when he was dismembered.”

A slideshow of horrors proved that policemen couldn’t use their own imagination. The pictures were horrifying, the fact that they were needed was worse.

Edgy commented on a picture. “A playing card, the six of spades, was nailed against the head of Sniper. We still don’t know the point of this.”

Another horror.

“Under the bin bags, a message was found. ‘ANGER’, written in blood.”

Another victory dance for the killer. He was still far ahead.

“Thankfully… a man has told us that he saw a man driving up to where the bin bags were, in a Black, Ford, Escort.” Edgy said the words as if they were never to be spoken of again.

They had a lead now. It was restricting, but it allowed breathing space.

-------------

Pb stood from a great height, looking down on his body… the fields on both sides of the dusty road spurting out infinitely. He might retire to such a sight one day. Where was he again?

He was in a car, with Sheepy. Sheepy was driving, thankfully, and the two of them headed like unknowns for a distance into the careless world of living like the free. Was Sheepy driving?

“Pb… keep your eyes peeled, will you?” Pb snapped back to life at Sheepy’s request.

He felt good at telling Pb what to do… although… Sheepy thought, not as good as he should have done. He was certainly getting closer to Pb now. He wasn’t always in the driving seat…

The worst brings out the best, he presumed. But then, it worked the other way too.

Still though, he could do with a little joy in his life. Sheepy smiled.

“Why are you smiling?”

Pb was inquisitive too. Sheepy looked out onto the fields… Fog Island was small, the car must be somewhere…

“I’m just thinking to myself.”

Pb seemed to, as well. “Good for you, just remember to breath.” Pb looked away.

“Breath…?” Sheepy asked, confused… his attention, however, was suddenly diverted. A certain car was spotted by him in a gateway to a field…

Sheepy pulled over the car, and they both got out. In a breeze of memories, which Pb tried to catch, they both looked inside the car.

There was nothing inside… visibly, unfortunately, disgustingly. The car was open…

He looked in on the tatty seats. Still nothing to the naked mind. He needed more…

Ah yes. The boot of the car, where the bin bag was… Pb reached inside the open car, and pulled the boot latch. It popped open.

Sheepy and Pb walked around to the boot of the car… Pb lifted the boot up, tempting his thoughts to what was anxious to jump out at the two men, blurting their anger and spitting on them, proving their worth, scaring those sheep of little memories… dreams of angels shattered.

Dreams of angels. The sheep of life. They don’t realise how messed up this world is.

They don’t need to.

Pb stared at himself, who equally starred back with dead peers, pointless to the margin of escape from their pitiful lives.

Not that pictures had lives, anyway.

The whole boot was lined full of them… a clue? A warning?

Or both?

Pictures of Pb, pasted around the boot of the car. Taken… taken from when he was a child… an adult… he noticed a picture of his graduation. His whole life lay in front of him. It was splattered with blood, the pictures merged with the ink and the blood, running as one. How ironic.

Pb breathed, and swore loudly… Sheepy looked inside the car… A small red plastic bear stood proudly among the pictures. Sheepy placed it inside a small plastic bag… again, no fingerprints, identity…

Both of them, quite equally, knew what this meant.

One was wrong.

----------------------

For the first time, Pb’s head was empty.

Devoid of life, precious blankness, never before.

It was quite an experience.

Sheepy offered Pb a beer from the fridge… Pb accepted, much to Sheepy’s surprise, and little dismay.

10:37PM

Pb drank the beer… filling his head with calm. There were no storms on these rivers. Fishing boats, no fish, but then, that wasn’t the reason.

And then… lightning in the memories, protruding, digging into his mind, digging into his mind…

Pb closed his eyes, breathing again. Breathing of times… times past… who…

Demons on the shoulders… whispering… whispering in his ears… what should he do? Give in? Obey? Trust them…?

Thoughts of demons, pondering, entering and making him live. Taking his life, flushing it, eating, destroying. They couldn’t give him another one.

Nothing could. Could it?

Dreams of angels. Belonging, lost loves, minds of geniuses. Why wasn’t he painful? This was hurting, so why wasn’t it painful?

Because he was beyond it. Beyond the matter that he mattered, he was a person, found, once lost. Loved, then departed of life.

Conflicts. Thoughts of demons, dreams of angels… he could feel his mind filling, again, filling with the thoughts of the dead that haunted him, his life, ruined by the chances he gave in to, stepping beyond his bounds, naïve, belonging only to God and himself.

Only he mattered. Why couldn’t he think?

Then, like a ton of bricks, descending on his mind…

“We were supposed to find that car. The person that gave the statement was the killer.”

Pb jumped from his desk, towards the phone… he dialled Edgy…

Ringing echoing through his empty mind…

“Edgy? Edgy, is that you?”

“Yeah… Pb, what is it?”

“That person, the one that gave you the statement about the car this morning, that was the killer.”

“What?” Edgy stumbled for words. “How… how do you know?”

“Never mind, who was he!”

“I… I don’t know, it was a phone call… We couldn’t get a trace from it, it was a mobile…”

Pb’s head slowly came to rest on the desk, still holding the phone where his ear used to be…

“Pb?”

He put the phone down, and fell asleep on the desk.


------------------------

THURSDAY
LUST
------------------

A moth fluttered around Pb’s eyes… it was as if as soon as he closed them, he was opening them again. A phone call had awoken Pb from the sofa, springing him up to his desk, where the phone lay… at least his mind was awake, now.

Another day. Another death. Another string to the imaginary bow. Pb was losing… But who was winning? Pb again?

Self love is the cause of every sin.

Pb called to Sheepy, and they both headed off. Together.

----------------

Not so lonely was the corner of Pb’s mind, full of thoughts again, blocking and scarring the truth… While a thousand men may speak English, none of them may speak the same language…

“Name… Meka, Meka Dragon.”

Pb listened to Edgy again… He reminded himself to ask Edgy why he was coming to the crimes scenes…

“He was a notable wasn’t he?” Sheepy asked…

Edgy walked off, towards the body, ignoring Sheepy.

“Yeah, he was Sheepy.” Pb answered the question for him, sadness in his voice… “Don’t worry about him. Anyone who doesn’t validate your opinion doesn’t deserve respect.”

Sheepy smiled to themselves… Pb wasn’t as bad as he first thought…

“You know Pb, I respect you… you’re a great detective...” Sheepy smiled as they both followed Edgy.

Pb smiled to himself… looks like they were getting on just fine.

Pb and Sheepy finally walked into the room, where Meka lay… The stench filling their minds with tasteless appetisers to the real killer…

“Before you ask…” Edgy said solemnly, with a dash of arrogance… “Yes, that is Meka.”

“How the hell did you identify him?” Sheepy questioned, more of a statement though, confused himself… staring at the charred corpse… burnt out games boxes lay under him…

“Fire and brimstone.” Sheepy muttered to himself. “Just like the book described.”

Pb got to his knees wiping his hand through the ashes… “Lusting for more games… burnt by the ones he had won.”

Pb searched through the ashes… he knew it was there… a feeling, as if…

The card, face up, in the ashes. The six of spades… a face in a dusty mirror, facing him, duelling him… Dancing insanely like monkeys in a fire…

A small blue plastic cow.

----------


Another day. Another dead-end. The café was busy today.

Pb breathed in the coffee, speaking silent thoughts into his mind… To catch the killer, one must become the killer…

Almost too certain. Why were the thoughts so… troubled? His mind was riddled with pressure again, squashing his mind, suffocating his mindful watching…

Thoughts of demons, dreams of angels.

“It’s plainly obvious it’s the notables this guy is going after now…” Sheepy said to Pb, helping him to think… “But another six of spades?…”

Thoughts of demons, dreams of angels, thoughts of demons, dreams of angels…

“I don’t know, but then why did Goatboy die?” Pb finally said, breathing in more of his coffee… sanity is not guaranteed with purchase of your new messed up life. Damages will not be repaired, acts of sins will make your lifetime void… Your mind is your own enemy…

Six of spades. Six of spades. Six of spades.

“It’s getting to me.” Pb said, over the voices… “It’s as if he’s with us now, following our every move and laughing in our faces.”

Six of spades… Six spades… Six spades…

Sheepy nodded in agreement. “This killer… where aren’t we looking…? There isn’t anything left for us to go on…”

Six spades. Six spades. Six spades six spades six spades six spades…

Pb looked deep into the spinning coffee… the cream merging and twirling, Pb’s thoughts colliding…

Six spades six spades six spades six spades six spades six spades six spades…

“Pb, I must ask you… why did you think that the killer was the one that gave away the information? The black car?”

Six spades.

“The killer would have had to write down Anger on the ground, in Sniper’s blood, right in front of the man watching. The killer rung in, because he wanted us to find that car… and he wanted me to work out it was him too…”

Why?

“Why?” Sheepy asked.

I’m not sure…

“I’m not…” Pb stopped speaking, and looked back at his coffee. The coffee looked back.

Six spades.

“Oh God…” Pb got up from his seat, not sure what he was doing… he starred straight at Sheepy.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“We’ve got to find Grix Thraves, he’s the killer.”

---------------------

“GRIX THRAVES!” Pb knocked at the door, trembling with guilt…

Still no answer… Pb’s thoughts directed themselves, and he decided to kick the door of Grix’s hotel room down…

The door collapsed, fanning dust into the tense air, pressurised with the tunes of madness, playing monotonously to every corner of the world… The taste of remorse was strong…

Grix wasn’t here, but an open window was. Pb lurched outside, watching a shadowy figure climb down the escape hatch…

Pb jumped out the window, with Sheepy running down the stairs, both descending… Pb jumped to the floor from the ladder, and chased after the figure…

Remorse?

Little pigs running though his mind… squealing with excitement as they chase in on the thoughts…

“Stay BACK!”

Grix had stopped running… and now had produced a gun, pointing at anything remotely influencing paranoia. Pb seemed to be the largest focus.

“Put the gun down.” Pb starred into Grix’s eyes… six spades…

Sheepy ran up beside him…
“What do you want… What… WHAT!” Grix stood uneasy, waving his body like in a storm, dancing terrified, thoughts of demons, dreams of angels… Grix kept lowering the gun, as if he had forgot he was holding it, or fighting his mind…

The gun raised. “Who are you!”

“My name is Detective Pb… I need to speak to you.”

“Detective?” The gun lowered… Pb walked closer…

The gun rose. “Woah… where’s your id? I don’t know if you’re a detective… or whatever.”

Pb slowly reached inside his long black overcoat, keeping one arm in the air… He produced a wallet, and showed his card to Grix…

Lowered.

“Give me the gun Grix… give me the gun…”

Grix was like a child, handing over the gun, almost embarrassed, as if he was getting scorned for running off… leaving his parents, finding his own way…

“Now, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come down to the police station with me.” Pb said, nodding at Sheepy. He ran off towards the car…

“Why… are you protecting me, or something?”

Pb smiled to himself… escorting Grix towards the car…

--------------------

“Thursday the twenty second, 5:24PM. Present are Detectives Pb and Sheepy; and Grix Thraves.”

“What?” Grix asked…

“Ok, Grix.” Sheepy sat down opposite Grix, and Pb sat next to him.

“As you may have realised Grix, there have been one or two deaths as of recently, involving one or two or three notables.”

Grix nodded, and Pb told so into the microphone…

“Attached to each notable, was a playing card, placed face up.” Pb smiled and spoke softly… “Do you know what that card was, Grix?”

“I think I read it was the six of spades.”

“You think?” It wasn’t a threat Pb made… just a test…

“Yes, it was all over the papers. How else would I know?”

“Perhaps because you placed it there yourself.”

“WHAT! I never went anywhere near any of those bodies…” Grix was very stressed, he would slip up any moment, the defences automatically popping up… “I’m not a killer!”

“Then why did you run away when we came to your door?”

“I thought you were coming to kill me! That’s why I had the gun too, protection!”

Pb stopped for the moment, taken a back somewhat. Let’s try a new route.

“Do you know why I think it’s you, Grix?”

“I…” Grix thought to himself, his hand on his forehead… “No, I can’t think…”

“This card.” Pb produced a small plastic bag. “Detective Pb produces exhibit A, the first playing card, found facing upwards stapled to Ant’s head; the six of spades.”

Grix said nothing, intrigued.

“It’s your calling card, Grix.”

“My calling card? What the hell are you on about!”

“Say it with me Grix. Six spades. Six spades.”

Grix’s eyes narrowed… Pb began to say it faster and faster…

“Six spades six spades six spades six spades six spades Grix spades Grix spades Grix Thraves Grix Thraves Grix Thraves…”

“STOP IT!” Grix pushed himself back in his chair as he shouted… “SHUT UP.”

“It’s your card Grix. You needed to leave us a clue, you couldn’t kill all those people and not give us some indication of WHO YOU WERE.” Pb became angry as he spoke… thoughts of demons… “Your calling card Grix! Grix Thraves! Six spades!”

“No! Be quiet!”

“Grix Thraves six spades Grix Thraves six spades Grix Thraves six spades…”

“BE QUIET!” Grix stood up…

Pb sat there, silent, almost embarrassed. Sheepy looked at Pb and Grix, wondering what was going to happen…

Grix sat back down again. He spoke calmly…

“I didn’t kill anyone. If you really think that card is supposed to link the killings to me, then someone is trying to plant the murders on me. It’s not me. It’s not.”

Thoughts of demons, dreams of angels.

-------------------

7:46PM

“Well…” Sheepy got himself a beer from the fridge. Pb declined, but Sheepy didn’t even care anymore. “…At least if he IS the killer, then he won’t kill too many people tonight.”

“Himself, perhaps.” Pb flicked through his notes… dead end, once again. “He’s on suicide watch.”

We are the loose change. We are the stains on the carpet. We’ve been with you all your life, watching… we know your lies, and we know your secrets… but who are we going to tell?

“Goatboy though… I still can’t work that out. If this person IS going after the notables, then why is Goatboy dead? Was he supposed to be a notable instead of me?” Wishful thinking, thought Sheepy.

“He’s still dead Sheepy, it doesn’t matter if he’s a notable or not. Please don’t think you survived because he didn’t… remember, we’re all still targets.

Hatred determines the geniuses and the insane.

“So what notables are left? FM, Grix, er-no… and you.”

Sheepy raised his eyebrows again. “Shall we call FM and er-no?”
“Yeah, I think we better had, to be honest.” Pb reached for the phone… and once again, it started to ring…

“Hello, is that Detective Pb?”

“Yes, it is. How can I help you?” Hmmm… that was an odd thing to say, Pb thought to himself…

“Well, there’s been a breakout at the prison, can you come down here straight away please?” Straight to the point… he liked it.

“Yeah, no problem.” Pb put the phone down, and called to Sheepy.

----------------

8:12PM

“He barged out the door as we opened it… he’s still got his handcuffs on. God knows where he is…”

Grix needed to get out… but why? What did he know?

Pb was very annoyed… it was like an itch in the back of his mind, irritating him… But still, he didn’t really know why…

“He’s endangering himself more than others, I expect. He can stay out tonight, but a search party will be sent out tomorrow… probably to find a dead body.”

The officer nodded, and Pb walked into Grix’s cell… he looked around, there must be a clue here… he almost knew it…

The bed, yes. Under the mattress.

He lifted the mattress up, and Sheepy watched as he did so…

“Pb… there’s something under there…” Sheepy came over, and held the mattress up for Pb…

He reached on the springs, and pulled out the piece of card…

The six of spades. Face down.

“Damn…” Pb held the card in his hand… Grix must have left it under the mattress… perhaps he WAS still the killer…

Ah well. Another day, another loss.

“Fancy a… drink? Sheepy?”

Sheepy smiled.

---------------------

9:50PM

Pb had only ever drunk water… well, apart from that time yesterday, which he still didn’t understand. Coffee was like a drug… he would breath in the fumes, trying to spark his minds…

9:51PM

Something was going to happen tonight. Pb didn’t know what… he breathed in the coffee…

“What’s wrong?” Sheepy asked, as if he could read Pb’s thoughts.

“I don’t know. I’ve just got this hunch that something is going to happen tonight… a premonition.” Thoughts of demons…

“Tonight…” Sheepy drank from his coffee… “Or tommorrow?”

“Both, I think.” Pb span the cream around in the coffee… coffee, one milk, two sugars, and a small bit of cream… ever so small…

He breathed in the coffee… lives wandering past, cows on a mission, they weren’t important, no one was… why should they live anyway? Perhaps they deserved to die, they had no real purpose…

Pb closed his eyes, and watched the colours spinning in his mind, the words forming like black tipped thoughts, memories on his tongue, waiting to strike and send him to his grave… like a flock of birds, his feelings jumped and skipped, free again. Good evening my minds, it’s intriguing you can live together, body and soul, dancing like butter in a pan, I’m sure we can live in harmony, there’s no reason to fight…

Self love is the cause of every sin.

Self love is the cause of every death.

10:12PM

“Pb? You still with us?”

Smells of the world, like rats infesting… rats… rats…

“Hmmm. What was Goatboy killed by again?”

“I think he was placed in a pit of rats, or something. Well, he was covered in the bite marks of them…”

“But isn’t Sloth…?” Pb couldn’t finish the question… he just gazed at Sheepy for the moment, still unable to…

Pb stood, putting his overcoat back on, from the back of the chair.

“Where are we going?” Sheepy asked…

“First we’re going back to our flat, and then we’re going to Goatboy’s mansion.”

------------------

11:12PM

“Urghhh… how can it still stink so much…” Sheepy placed a handkerchief over his nose and mouth… to try to block the smell of the dead… memories speaking….

“Help me move this bed, will you?” Pb pointed at the other corner of the bed… “Try and get it on it’s side, so we can get it out the door.”

“What… why?”

“Because that chandelier is far too low.”

Sheepy narrowed his eyes, and tipped the bed up and onto it’s side… Pb then pushed it out of the door.

“OK, now we’ve got to get the carpet up.”

“What…?” Sheepy looked at the carpet… it was beautiful, fit for a true king…

“Try and get a corner, or something, we’ve got to rip this off.”

Why won’t you quiet down, voices of discontent? I know you are there, watching me, finding me… was I supposed to find this…?

Sheepy and Pb began to pull up the carpet… only lightly glued and nailed pathetically to the floor boards… dark and rotten…

Sheepy pulled the handkerchief back to his mouth… the stench was unbelievable now!…

“And now the floorboards.” Pb went outside the door, and pulled in the toolbox he had brought with him…

He took out a hammer, and began to pull nails out from the edges of the wall, opposite the doorway…

…Before long, Pb had managed to get up a few boards. He got out his torch, turned it on, and directed it inside…

11:59PM

There, a body… with the six of spades nailed to the back of its head… reeking of death…

The decaying Fantasymeister lay on the real floor of the bedroom… Goatboy’s death was just a red herring, to stop the notables from worrying for that single day… when Sniper died… confusing them… sweeping them away, biding their time, pointless confusion…

----------------------

FRIDAY
PRIDE

----------------------

FM’s body lay covered in bites… Pb presumed, correctly, that they were snake bites, as shown in the book of sins. FM, sloth. Of course… the killer would have presumed FM to be lazy… he never did much around fog anymore… Goatboy must have been the marker… as like the rest of the notables… the blue cow, the orange pig, the red bear…

“Were we not supposed to worry the notables…?” Pb asked himself, walking out of the room… “Or was there another clue here… something we aren’t seeing?”

Sheepy closed the door to the room, locking the memories inside. “I’m not sure… perhaps… perhaps…” He couldn’t think… he needed to get out of the house, the pollution of the dead was fogging his thoughts…

“I was going to say that perhaps Venombyte had something to do with it…”

Snakes… venom… possibly… Pb also knew about Venom’s… other mind…

“Yes… perhaps.”

12:53AM

“It’s getting late now, I think we better get home. I’ve got a funny feeling that we’re going to be needed early in the morning.”

-------------------------

3:30AM

“Detective Pb?”

Pb swung around… God his head was clear. He loved the fresh air of darkness… nobody was around, nobody to infiltrate his thoughts… except…

“Grix? Is that you?”

A shadow slowly peered from out of the corners, the minds… Indeed it was Grix.

“You’re supposed to be in jail. I’ll have to ask you to come back with me, immediately… I like you Grix, I don’t want you pulling off stupid stunts like this.”

Grix slowly rocked his head…

“Right, ok…” Pb checked his watch…

3:33AM

“We must hurry.” Thoughts of demons…

Pb led Grix to his car…

He drove the car down the highway, the main road of fog… it was a dark night. Not much could be seen.

Silence.

“You don’t seem to have your handcuffs on.” Pb stated.

Grix looked at his wrists… “I… I cut them off.”

No reply.

“I’ve err… found a good hiding place, somewhere to hide until this blows over.”

Pb drove.

“It’s err… a… err… lighthouse… on the coast of Fog Island…”

Pb had almost forgot that it was only an island… Fog… no more. What possible harm could a single island do...

“Pb, I must ask…” Grix was nervous. “What were you doing up?”

Still.

“I just needed some fresh air. Detective work is hard…”

Grix felt… uncomfortable… something wasn’t there… the confidence, the maturity…

Pb stopped the car outside the police station, and went back to unlock Grix’s door…

---------------
7:10AM

Chief Inspector Edgy and Constable Dringo, the person that took Pb to the hospital, chatted away, while Pb lay unconscious… words filtered through his mind, long gone are the demons, their thoughts… at least for now the angels spoke clearly…

7:41AM

“Pb?”

He opened his eyes… where? But how?

“Sheepy?” Pb tried to sit up in his bed… his back strained… his head hurt too, but that was normal…

“You were in an accident. Somebody had tried to blow up part of the police station, when you were taking Grix back to his cell.”

“What?” Pb rubbed his back… “I found Grix? How? When?”

“I’m… I’m not sure. I must have been asleep when you went out.”

Pb didn’t go out… did he? The reflection in the window…

“You must have hit your head hard, Pb… You should stay in bed for a while.”

“No…” Pb pushed his legs over the side of the bed. “We have… three more days now… we’re getting close to the killer, I can feel it… We might even be able to stop any more killings.”

Sheepy starred at Pb.

“There HAVE been no more killings?”

Sheepy looked away.

-----------------

8:32AM

Pb wasn’t the type to be bossed around… even by himself. He needed to get out, he needed to stop this. He knew only he could stop it… some… inner feeling…

er-no, to put it simply, had been torn in half… One half of him remained tied to a tree, and the other half…

“We know he was also tied to a car.” Chief Inspector Edgy pointed out… stepping over the tyre tracks, which had sprayed mud up against the tree… Horses roamed the field; Pb expected one to be painted violet… broken on the wheel… yeah, this was him…

“How was he found?”

“Another anonymous phone call, just like the others.” Edgy took another glance at the top half of er-no’s body, the six of spades nailed to the back of his head… then away. Not even he, thought Pb, could withstand such a sight…

Pb had a hard time keeping his stomach calm as well, especially considering how he felt from the explosion… which reminded him…

Pb looked out over the fields… “Edgy, where exactly was the bomb placed, the one that hit me, yesterday?”

“How do you know about that?”

Pb stopped his thoughts… “I was told.”

“Oh, right… err… the water pipes, we believe, underneath the police station.”

“The water…?” Pb thought for a second… well, Grix was definitely innocent. This was not his doing.

“Another thing, Edgy?” Pb walked to catch up with Edgy as he walked towards his car… he opened the door, and got in. “Why exactly are you turning up at the crime scenes? I never usually see you out here.”

Edgy smiled, and looked into Pb’s eyes. “Let’s just say I have a morbid interest.” He started the car, and drove out of the field.

------------------

9:02AM

“I don’t feel like a coffee today.”

“Hmmm?” Pb breathed in his coffee… “Why not?”

“I don’t know. Just… don’t feel like one, to be honest.”

The waitress walked over to the table…

“Just the one coffee today, thanks.”

“Oh, not feeling so well today?” The waitress said to Sheepy…

“Well, act…” The waitress laughed, and walked off. Sheepy sat, watching the back of the waitress as she walked away… “Well, how rude.”

Pb smiled. “We really need to get Grix and you in a safe place.” The coffee was delivered… fast service. “We don’t know when the next killing will happen…”

Pb stopped again, mid thought.

“Where’s Grix?”

“He got away again, when you were unconscious… I thought you knew…!”

Pb’s eyes widened, and he got up from the table, knocking the coffee onto the floor…

-----------------

“Grix! Please, we know you’re innocent!”

No answer from the craggy door they had faced twice in as many days… it had been remounted, so Grix had returned, at least. Perhaps only yesterday, to pick up some things before he was caught… He still couldn’t remember what had happened though…

“Grix? Do you want to replace this door again!?”

Still calm.

“Alright, I’m coming in!”

Pb slammed against the door with the side of his body… the door hinges creaked, and he slammed again. The door fell, more dust rising into the air, escaping…

Escaping. Pb, looked out the window again… nothing. If he was in here, he wasn’t now, and he certainly had got far away. Sheepy waved up to Pb, and Pb motioned for him to come up… Grix wasn’t here.

Pb took the time to search through some of Grix’s drawers… nothing much. A few games manuals, half written stories, drawings… some really, really odd drawings… and a diary.

Pb skipped through the pages… nothing much. According to this, Grix was seeking counselling, because he kept hearing voices in his head… according to this, he had been making a lot of progress until recently. The stress, he blames, have caused more conflicting thoughts in his head…

Sheepy walked through the door, Pb raised his eyebrows as a welcome, and he placed the diary back in the drawer.

Pb looked under the bed… nothing… no, what… there…

He reached inside… and, yes. He pulled out his arm from under the mattress, and he was clutching a letter… Very clumsy of Grix to forget it…

-----------

Dear Grix,

in times of need, we all should try and get away… until this all blows over. I know the perfect place to go, while we wait… I know it’s hard to forget the others, but we have to think of ourselves now.

Meka.

------------

Meka had obviously never made it… perhaps that’s what stopped Grix from journeying to the lighthouse.

Well, until now.

----------

7:53PM

Pb turned off the car, and looked up into the dark skies, at the old lighthouse… it had been hard to find.

Pb grabbed the analogue volume control of the radio, and twisted it to full… Sheepy thought that was a bit odd, considering the radio was off…

“What, may I ask, are you doing?” Sheepy smiled, and starred at Pb…

“Backup. Stay here.”

-------------

Every card found on everybody was nailed to the back of the head… this meant something, and linked with the six of spades… but what the hell was it…

“Grix? Grix, are you up there?”

Pb called up the twirls of steps, ending up into nothing…

“GRIX!”

Pb’s voice echoed through the whole of the lighthouse… If he was here, Grix could here him.

Well, unless… thoughts of demons…

“Grix, are you ok?”

The steps seemed to go on forever… Pb’s mind, spinning such as the steps, the waves thrown against the cliffside…

My dear minds united again under one roof sheltered from the elements against the sins… Pride… Pride is the centre… the force, the start… musical chairs in minds, swapping, stretching beyond the means, please let me go, I would do nothing but live my life… thoughts of demons thoughts of demons thoughts of demons…

The last thing Pb saw before he blacked out were dancing lights in his mind…

-----------------

“Start the car.”

Sheepy was sitting in the drivers seat… and Grix had placed a gun next to his head.

“Start, the car.”

Reaching into his trouser pocket, Sheepy fished out the keys… and put them in the ignition slot…

Grix looked at Sheepy…

With one swift move, Sheepy started the car… and the music came on at full blast…

Grix instinctually looked away to the speakers… and Sheepy pulled the gun out of Sheepy’s hands…

“Now then… I think you better explain to me what’s going on…”

Grix’s eyes widened… he looked though Sheepy…

Sheepy turned around, and was hit over the head.

----------------

SATURDAY

GREED

---------------

Pb woke on the cold hard floor of the lighthouse steps…

Blood.

He must have fell hard… what had happened?… His head still hurt… probably started off again by falling over…

Pb got up, and walked back down the stairs, he needed some fresh air…

He stepped outside, breathing in the cool sea air… staring over space… and then… his mind focused, and returned…

Many memories are stored in the form of complex proteins in the brain. As we age, some break down and enter the bloodstream, where they may migrate across the lung's pink membranes and be expelled from the body in the breath. This is why, if you get right into the face of a very old person and inhale deeply, you can sometimes catch a momentary fragment of one of their lost memories.

Perhaps of a single occasion in their life, such as a first kiss… perhaps of a more mundane episode of their ever-dwindling life. The breath tipping the memories away from the aged eyes and thoughts, and then, the kiss never was. Taken away from them like some disease, overriding their body, destroying them on the inside, before showing the devastating effects of the illness to the world on the outside…

Memories of the dead are of a passage dangerous to man, some unexplored territory of unexpected results and surprises, still unsure of wherever or not to show themselves, as abrupt as it may be, to the quite unprepared world. As memories linger in the air, the final thoughts poured into society as the men and women take their final breaths, who will be there to inhale them again? To keep the legacy of their thoughts going before they are emptied from the world altogether?

Sheepy shivered as he coughed up blood with the last of his memories… mixing with the oxygen that was refilling his mind with blank thoughts, not helping him to survive, just hindering his physical death. Pb shouted something into the air, perhaps for help. He could hear nothing but the twirling sound of his thoughts being extracted with every shake-ridden breath he took as the life was pulled violently out from his body, slipping as it tries to grab onto a stumbling memory, but then, also, drifting away into nothing.

As long as we still breath, then the memories, as they run free from our troubled minds, are forced back inside again. Some escape into the open air, and are then forgotten, ghosts of happiness and sadness, no longer mourned. Pb had always believed this… once trying only to breathe out… to rid himself… freeing battery hens from their captivity. Now though, he knew better.

Should we intrude on the personal space of the dead? The thoughts and memories long vanished?

Pb sat at his desk. There was little more he could do.

The smell of coffee filled his previously blank mind. He wiped away the papers from the desk, and lay down on it.

Self love is the cause of every sin.

Coffee escaped the maze of Pb’s mind, leaving his head free again to concentrate on more meaningful matters. Sheepy was dead. Pb was still unsure why. The ceiling faced him, still lying on his back…

But wasn’t that his job? If he didn’t know, then what was the point of him even representing the human race?

And if this is what humans do, then portraying such beasts, no matter the faction, is appalling.

Was the killer scared of how close they were getting…? Killing Sheepy was certainly not a good way of closing the case for Pb, it only made him more determined to solve the killings.

Pb began to search through Sheepy’s drawers. He had no choice now, the memories may have vanished, but some materials must have inhaled some of the dying thoughts.

Socks, however, held nothing but more socks, so Pb tried another drawer.

Pants held memories too, but not the ones he was looking for.

Closing the pants drawer… Pb decided to check back again. He searched through the y-fronts, looking… yes.

A diary.

Pb inhaled and exhaled, taking in thoughts, removing pre-conceptions. His mind filled from the heavy breathing of the diary, exposing the dead, taking their lives, continually breathing, living forever.

A cold breath sank into Pb’s mind… these were mysterious pages, treacherous passages, treasonous to the dead. Pb learned of how Sheepy had betrayed… Pb took a deep breath.

Covetousness. Greed. Sheepy was the victim, the fifth sin, the object that had to be destroyed, put to rest… perhaps it gave clue to who killed him.


The amount of time it had been since it had occurred was unknown… Sheepy simply referred to it as the anniversary… how quaint. The anniversary of the day that he betrayed his friends for personal advancement, it was funny how Sheepy had celebrated it.

There were no more details. The diary simple stated that Sheepy had “sent down those bent ******* coppers for what they deserved… and finally taking my FAIR share instead”…

Was the attacker a victim of the greed itself, or a simply bystander, that knew OF the greed, but had no real association with the deed?

Pb threw away the thoughts… and caught them again as they began to disperse.

He looked around the room at the quite disloyal proportion of mess he had made. He needed to start searching those files… bent cops are not a common case, thankfully, around here. It would take a lot of time… but he needed to find it.

The time starred at him, reflecting his worries as it passed forward without disturbances… time had no thoughts, but that never died. Perhaps thoughts aren’t the necessity to life, but the lack of them, keeping a calm free mind. The memories of dead men swore at him, he had no right.

But without thoughts or memories, how would life be worth living?

Pb sat at his desk, and began to slowly breath through the first file.

----------------

9:40PM

Have you ever just sat down, and just start to look for something, without really knowing what it is? Searching deep into your own mind and soul… We all hold the secret of life inside us, but we all look in the wrong places…

But then, how do you know if you find the secret? What could you possibly compare the secret of life to?

When you sit down, and just look, you’ll discover a lot more than you intend to. Things you’ll never even have dreamed would be there. And when you finally discover the secret, you won’t need to compare it to anything.

Thoughts of demons run through my mind, delivering their opinions and exploring my head.

…How much of this was real?

Sheepy is dead.

Long live Pb.

------------------

SUNDAY

ENVY

----------------

Pb awoke. The time didn’t matter anymore… pointless, just like everything else.

There was only one more death to occur… he knew that…

Grix. Envy…

What was Grix envious of?…

“You.”

Pb stood up… someone was in the room…

He placed his hand at his side, and took out his gun…

“You’ve failed as a Detective. You couldn’t even stop me.”

Grix?

“Grix?”

“Ah yes… the six of spades… I thought that was rather good, myself. Indeed, you did get it right. Grix Thraves. But it didn’t actually mean he was the killer… I thought you could have least worked that one out. I really did. Ah well, it’s all over now… you’ve lost.”

Lost?

“Lost? What? Where’s Grix?”

“You might find him face down in a river. Ironically, you might find something face up, too.”

The card… panicky…

“The six of spades…. What did Grix have to do with this?”

Pb looked around the room. There was no-one… where the hell?…

He began to knock down piles of papers… searching desperately…

“The wrong places, Pb…”

“What did Grix have to do with this!” He said it louder… sterner…

“Think… come on…”

Two faces… two minds…

“That’s better, yes… keep going…”

“It wasn’t referring to Grix himself… it was referring to the fact that he had two minds… his brain?”

“His brain had nothing to do with it either… come on! This is pathetic. I really had high hopes for you…”

The papers lay scattered around the floor, like dust… pointless…

“I know you’re in here…” Pb said…

“Yeah, I know that too. You catch on quick, don’t you?”

Pb couldn’t think…

“Without Sheepy? He did help you a lot, didn’t he. It was a shame he had to die… ah well, out with the old, in with the new… You underestimated him. You really should have stayed as him, actually.”

Breath. Keep breathing.

“What? What did you say?”

“You should have stayed as Sheepy. This Pb nonsense is driving you insane…”

The mirrors… the windows…

“Reflections. Reflections… refracted… Sheepy was only with you when you could see him.”

The sea… the water… the giant glass on the side of the buildings… the car mirrors…

Pb spoke to the shadow… “Edgy never paid attention to Sheepy… as if he was made of glass… as if he didn’t exist… I was the only one who could see him…”

The dawn of realisation…

“Wrong again. You’re the only one who could see Pb.”

Pb looked in the mirror… at his own dreadful reflection… Sheepy starred back at him…

“No…”

“Your alter ego always found detective work so easy… he had character flaws… he collapsed under pressure… he would never drink coffee… well, you tried not to, anyway. He was charming, intelligent… everything you weren’t…

Sheepy couldn’t take his eyes away from the mirror…

“Or at least, you thought you weren’t.”

“This is not happening…” Sheepy talked… “None of this is real…”

“What to know something else?”

“SHUT UP! BE QUIET!”

“I know who the killer is.”

Sheepy fired the gun. “COME OUT, NOW.”

“Calm down Sheepy…” The voice spoke so calmly… where the hell was it coming from! “I haven’t finished yet…”

Sheepy sat on the floor, on the papers… he had always thought that if he studied the papers, he would become a better detective…

Did he?

“Everybody called me Pb. I’m Pb.”

“No you aren’t… your name is Sheepy.”

“I AM PB.”

“You just believed they were calling you Pb… they were saying Sheepy, but you only heard and saw what you wanted to... Just like looking in the boot of the car… those weren’t pictures of Pb. Those were pictures of you. You didn’t pass out on the stairs of the lighthouse… you didn’t even get chance to leave the car before Grix jumped in. You weren’t driving the car…”

“I SAID BE QUIET!” Sheepy fired the gun again, hitting a tile on the kitchen floor… it sparked and shattered into distinct memories…

“I saw Sheepy die…” He tried to calm his thoughts… still searching the flat… unable to believe… “He died in my arms, as I lef…”

“Yes, Sheepy did die… all that was left was Pb. You thought you had no need for him any more… you were wrong…”

Sheepy paced up and down the room… he returned to his desk…

“The only thing I didn’t understand with you,” The voice spoke… “was the trouble you went to, to convince yourself that Sheepy was killed for some made up bent copper deal. What a waste of time that was.”

Thoughts of demons dreams of angels…

Sheepy said nothing… starring into the mirror…

“I want you to tell me who the killer is.”

The mirror spoke back to him.

“You are.”

Thoughts, memories, rushing…

“You didn’t say goodbye to er-no… you were off to see him later that night. You were planning on drowning Grix in his cell, before he escaped… you went out in the middle of the night to catch him… but you were too late. Grix was greed… the games… he always wanted more games…”

“No… this isn’t true…” Sheepy stood up from his chair…

“You shot Grix in the stomach later though… can’t you remember throwing him over the cliffs yesterday? Forcing Ant to eat that crap was disgusting though… but fair dues to him, he put up quite a fight… as did Meka. I think that floor raising job you did to hide Fantasymeister was a touch of genius though… Sniper. You knew that Sniper was in the boot of the car because you put him there… you were the one that rung the police station…” Thoughts of demons, dreams of angels…

Air escaping… memories returning…

“THIS ISN’T TRUE!” Sheepy stood up, pointing the gun at the mirror… “You’re just trying to convince me that I’m the killer so you can walk away…

“LOOK AT THE MIRROR, SHEEPY.”

Sheepy looked deep into the mirror.

“You are the killer.” Sheepy watched the mirror as h

“Test”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO... OK.

Hello. If you're expecting a gaming topic, sorry. :0)

I'm writing a new story. It's the prequel to a story I wrote not all that long ago, called Seven. I want to write it, because I feel there is a lot left unexplained... and I hope to basically just add to the whole story.

However, I was going to just pop the story and announce it... but because of the server/font change, the story is messed up, and makes even less sense than it originally did. :0)

So, in an attempt to make even more people read it than they did before, and added to the fact I want people to read it so they understand how the next one will start off. And, more importantly, it's vital you read the old story first, and THEN the prequel. Otherwise it will make NO sense whatsoever. :0)

So, here it is. The first, and only, real story I've done on my own. Please read it. :0)

And in defense of putting this on prime... everyone else does. :D