Misery

12. 𝙽𝙾𝚃𝙴𝚂

Cessier's POV

It was just past 10:30 when I reached the crime scene, though the police were still at work I requested that they let us start already before it was too late. My nightmares worsened in the last few days , I now see faceless people chasing me with blood-smeared weapons as I run and stumble. They keep saying some weird chant which I am totally unable to follow.

I heard the bitchy error the day before yesterday telling me about how this young child would drown to death in his bathtub at home, so all this didn't appear as unexpected. I needed to find a connection between the victims. If the culprit was an unsound-minded lunatic then how have they been fooling the entire law enforcement agency this methodically so far, as if they were simply playing with us,

I got the complete liberty of thoroughly examining Oliver's room and finding something - anything that would help me connect the dots. Why were they picking up random victims with the decisiveness of an old man compulsively fussing about boiled eggs for dinner at the last minute instead of eating the pre-cooked scrambled ones. It was infuriating to deal with them.

Something more we discovered about Coby Dilian was that, for a celebrity he didn't have many friends , or any friends at all really. We contacted his only friend, his childhood bestfriend of nineteen years and he said that they hadn't talked to each other in a year. Apparently they cut off ties and went separate ways due to some kind of feud, the details of which he refused to talk about.

Apart from that , Coby's mobile phone had no contacts excluding his parents , manager and a few directors. The last message he received was from his mother asking if he was all fine, a day before his death. He replied with a picture of him smiling ,clad in a t-shirt with papayas printed on it.

We could connect Jewel and Coby stating that both of them were pretty reclusive just that Jewel did keep in touch with a very few and according to them was amazingly bubbly and kind inside out. In complete contrast , Oliver Moore was a literal celebrity figure at school who enjoyed socializing a lot, meeting new people, making more friends.

He was not the lonely, quiet kid but the loud, confident and intellectual who was always surrounded by someone or the other. Who was readily available whenever anybody needed his help at all times. His parents were currently staying at his grandparents' to allow us carry out the investigation.

We didn't formally have a questioning session with them yet. Being mindful of the fact that Mrs. Moore went through a miscarriage a few months back and now this, I didn't push them into meeting up . Instead I would talk to his closest friend Aled Hang later in the evening . He was the last one to send Oliver a message two hours before he met with his death.

We had already conducted DNA tests on the previous cases and there wasn't anything found in the results either. At this point we were clueless as to how we were going to tackle this problem; it might as well have been a ghost . We had no leads.

After the interrogation with Jewel's parents and all the other people I met in Gatlinburg whom I questioned, I discovered none of them were guilty. Guilty of her murder that is. This weird ability to instantaneously read people's thoughts as if they lingered just above the speaker's head, it helped me a good deal when it came to things as such.

Moreover, my entire career was shaped around this ability.

I still had to prove liars as liars and dumb people who got framed unjustly as dumb people ,only after gathering evidences else I'd get called a lunatic or some fortune teller crap.

I regret not stealing some of Coby Dilian's books on necromancy now.

You know what sucked more. Knowing the truth yet having to hold back myself from vocalizing it , looking at culprits lie so shamefully - the jeopardy of death and punishment tantalizing them. I wondered how humans could be so selfish yet 'selfless' , becoming less of themselves every fleeting moment.

What I did learn so far from all the three cases was the fact that there was no sensible reason as to why anyone would kill them. They were killed on a cruel whim, by someone as purposeless as junkies wandering along isolated streets at two in the morning.

Was the culprit playing with the police or were they mentally disabled. These were the two possibilities I narrowed myself down to.

Neglecting the culprit for the time being. I found Oliver's journal down his study desk and its contents startled me to say the least.

It seemed that his relationship with his father wasn't the best definition of healthy. As I flipped over the pages I felt as if I were reading off his journal sitting right before him, though he was long gone .

There wasn't any time to appreciate the way words engraved themselves from his mind to these blank, mundane sheets of paper; his writing was certainly too good for a high schooler. His journal entries were sporadic yet had a quality of absolute richness to them. They encapsulated his day-to-day activities, random poems , short stories - whatever he wrote was bewitching. I felt if adults did spare some time to have actual conversations with teens , they would know wisdom comes in all ages ,miscellaneous personas and varieties.

It was amusing really how some people were so good at hiding what they felt and thought .It was sad how fear held us back from saying what we really meant. It was shameful how we always cried over spilt milk.

The pages went blank after I reached a little more than midway across the journal. Maybe an hour had passed or two, I found myself contemplating human relationships. Something clicked in , "Rest in peace - love, friend, son " . The notes. The ones which were appeared disrespectful and psychotic, the ones that made me burst into ironic sparks of hysterics. They finally started making sense to some degree.

If we consider the victim and the calamities they had to fight through, the things they lacked, things they deserved, things they desperately wanted. For Jewel - a family to love her , for Coby friends whom he could share the euphoric joys and sour sorrows of life with, for Oliver a better father figure.

In those notes left behind by the killer , he regarded them with titles , words - that they wanted to be regarded as, but probably never did after a certain point in their respective lives . Loneliness was a disease highly underestimated in our society . It kills, it could definitely kill.