Project Obsidian Moon

Chapter 6: A Dinner Date

We quickly left the sewers before we found any more trouble. As we used the turbolift back up, we caught up with our old instructor. Apparently a couple years after Travis graduated the academy, Jenson resigned and became some sort of private investigator. And recently he'd been gnawing at whatever the hell Jeremy had going on in the slums. "It's still fancy seein' the two of you rockin it out after all these years, y'all datin' or somethin'?" Jenson had always been a cool guy but he didn't really understand boundaries. "Nahh haha us? Dating?? No we're simply partners to solve this case. That's all I swear." She was quick to put an end to any speculations. It did sorta hurt my feelings though. "Yeahh we wouldn't do that.." I had to try my best to hide my ego dying. "Right.. anyway where's that other cunt that ran around with you two? Thomas? Terrance?" "You mean Travis? Well.... That's kind of the reason we're investigating this in the first place." We'd arrived at Sarah's apartment, once we got inside we decided to tell Jenson about what had happened. "Travis is.... Dead? Y'all pullin my leg or somethin'..? That boy can't die he's too much of a pain in the ass.. You sure he didn't fake his death?" I hadn't thought of that before, I hadn't seen Travis's body, I'd just been told he was dead and so I assumed he was.. "Yeah we're sure, I saw the scene myself. He was stabbed repeatedly in the neck and back.. The DNA and blood samples matched." Sarah's words struck me like an arrow... I hadn't known this... Why didn't she tell me, "Why didn't y-" she knew what I was going to ask. "Cuz I knew if I'd told you, you couldn't sleep at night." I stared at the front door.. Blank. Empty. Numb... He really was dead... With what's going on, I hadn't really been able to process and accept that he was really gone.. I stood up and walked towards the nearest wall, braced my two hands on it, and knocked my head against it as hard as I could. "ADAM!!" "KID WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?" I heard both Sarah and Jenson yell. Sarah quickly ran over and pulled me away. Jenson came over and helped too, they set me down on the couch as I broke into tears. "You alright kid?" Jenson had worry in his voice, but Sarah's voice was quivering as she spoke, "Adam it isn't your fault, you couldn't have done anything. All we can do now is find who did this bring them down." But what she didn't know was... "I could have done something, that night he'd asked me to come over.. he was scared in that message, but I ignored it and decided to... Eat a fuckin sandwich instead of running over there like I should've. I'm the reason he's dead, it's cuz I decided to choose a meal over my best friend..." Sarah stayed silent, clearly she had nothing to say. Jenson began to laugh but Sarah knocked him in his gut with her elbow. "Ahem, all jokes aside though kid you can't really blame yourself. Even if you got there in time you couldn't really have done anything against whoever killed Travis seeing as they had a knife and all. Plus you're really scrawny so I doubt you'd have put up much of a fight anyway." He got the elbow blow from Sarah again and this time he let out an audible yelp. I started to feel dizzy and everything went black as I fell.

I woke up with a sharp headache. Why couldn't I ever wake up peacefully? I looked around and saw Sarah sitting at the table a couple feet away from the couch, her back was turned to me. She was typing away on her computer. I started to get up as she looked back at me "Oh you're finally awake. You really scared me there, next time maybe give me a warning before passing out and falling into me like that." Falling into her? What the hell happened? "What happened?" "My guess? Your little tantrum of knocking your head into the bloody wall probably screwed or rather unscrewed something in there, you did just suffer a concussion a day ago." Right.. I can't lose my shit like that again, it's embarrassing enough that it happened with Sarah right next to me. "Where's Jenson? It's awfully quiet." "He left, stormed out a bit after you went under, complaining about how he was late for his date or something." Typical. Well, now what? We've exhausted all our leads, "Did Jenson say anything? About Jeremy I mean." She closed her laptop and walked over to the couch and sat down beside me. She'd changed out of her jacket and jeans into more casual clothes. "Nope, I guess we'll have to wait until he pops back in to pursue this. Meanwhile I thought we could let loose a little you know? It's been a long time since we've hung out, so I thought we could... You know.. go out to dinner... So I uhm.. booked a reservation at the Twilight Six for tonight." The Twilight Six?? That's like the most expensive steakhouse in the city. "So like a... Date?" She got up and walked into her room, stopped just at the door and smiled, "If that's how you wanna take it then..." And slipped away, presumably to get dressed. "I don't have the fuckin clothes for this" I mumbled to myself.

This was bad. Very. Bad. I'd never thought of buying any decent clothes. All I had was that leather jacket Travis gave me, and we were going to the most fancy restaurant. "Why do you never give me a warning Sarah... Damnit." I said to myself as I jogged back to my coffin. I had to find something nice to wear, and fast. As I turned into the familiar corridor, I stopped at my coffin and slid the door open. I opened the closet hoping I had something to wear. The closest thing I had to 'fancy' was a grey button down shirt that I bought for a job interview. I thought of an idea and quicky changed. I grabbed some extra money and was back on the run. I could still turn this around, I ran to the shopping district and slipped into a shop with a neon sign, "Ti-tan Formals". I grabbed a black tie and told the cashier to bill it, and in no time I was back on the jog. I saw a perfume shop and had an even better idea. I walked in and a woman greeted me asking if she could help, "Uhm I'm looking for something that'll fit a date?" "aahh I see, yes we have tons, if you look over here we have some great new arrivals. These contain pure extractions straight from our flower gardens." Now watch and learn. "Sounds great, do you have a tester by chance?" "We sure do. Here you go." I proceeded to try the tester on myself and then pretend to receive a phone call, telling her I'll be right back. Obviously I wasn't, I had about 5 minutes get to the Twilight Six. Can't be wasting time, I started putting on my tie as I ran. Sarah really is a pain in the ass sometimes.

She told me she'd meet me there, and I was counting on her being a couple minutes early. I turned into Avenue 12, a sort of mini mall with all kinds of restaurants instead of shops. And right in the middle was The Twilight Six. You could ask anybody in the ARK and they'd know what this was. Most people steered clear of this place simply because you could lose your entire life savings in one evening. I walked to the front desk and told the receptionist my name and how Sarah should already be here. "I see, yes. Your friend checked in a couple minutes earlier, I reckon she's waiting. Your table is on the 3rd floor. I've added the route to your Holo-watch gps. A pleasure serving you this evening." He was quick and brief. I would be tipping him. Sure enough my Holo-watch guided me up to the 3rd floor and I immediately saw Sarah. Not because she stood out but because there wasn't a single other person there. She waved as I walked up to our table and sat down. A sudden sense of dread washed over me.. I was severely underdressed, apart from my shirt and tie all I had on was a pair of trousers. On the opposite side of the table sat the most glamorous woman I'd ever seen. She'd done her makeup and everything. Only one thing I could do now. Charm my way out. "You know I spotted you instantly, you just outshined the crowd so effortlessly." I was obviously being sarcastic, let's hope she picks up on that. She laughed. It was working! "I see you've tried your best putting something together, I like it!" I could tell she was trying to make me feel better. "You like my plain grey shirt..?" "I meant I like that you at least tried. Most guys don't show as much effort." Oh. So she's been with other guys? No no no, can't think about that. "Hey you're the one who's putting in the effort I mean.. How the hell can you even afford this place?" "Well, I'd been saving up a bit and I just thought you could... Use a little break. Plus it has the added benefit of being our first date." Wha- wait so.. huh.. "Wait so this is a date?" She just smiled as the waiter walked over and asked us if we'd decided what we wanted to eat. Sarah had obviously had time to go through the menu so she had no problem telling the waiter her order, on the other hand I had no clue what to get. Just to save myself from the embarrassment I ordered the fish and chips, it wasn't too expensive and it wasn't anything too boring either. The evening flew by alarmingly fast. We talked and laughed constantly and to be completely honest, I'd forgotten about everything that had happened recently. The murder, the cover up. All of it. I felt safe around her. Enough to finally sit back and let my guard down. But as I'd soon find out, that was the worst mistake I could've made. A loud bang rang out as the waiter's body fell to the ground.