Clothed in our grief

Chapter Forty Five

Like hell you could have slept after that. That was literally nothing but nightmare inducing. You don't think you were able to shut your eyes for more than five minutes without snapping them back open again. Wondering if what you really saw was real or just a nightmare. He looked like he wasn't any older than ten. What was that? Who killed him and why did he look like he was based off Batman? Come on, the ears. The mask, but there were different things about it. Instead of a utility belt, it was what looked like two crossing across his chest. Starting from both shoulders and sliding down to his waist. Instead of a cape it looked like a cloth wrap. And when the wrap caught on fire, it turned out he was wearing iron plated armor under it, with an insignis in between the center of both plates connecting the chest piece. A red circle with a black upside triangle.

You've seen that emblem before. Nothing can tell you that you haven't seen it. You know you have, somewhere buried away in your thoughts and memories. It's more than just a sign, you know that. It's a symbol, but it's not a good one. Besides the obvious evidence of this seven foot man murdering a ten year old. Nothing out of that can be good.

You were just staring at this photo. His back was for the most part, turned to the surveillance camera. But just the curvature of his chest was caught and a more clear image of the emblem was caught. You only kept staring at it in confusion and what felt like disbelief.

You know that the deep web is no place for anybody in their right mind to be on, but one thing always leads to another. You're sure this is Julian's laptop, he got it from a friend. But lately you've been using it. The only way you were even able to get access to the deep web was through a downloaded browser that apparently costed money? You don't know, but you used it anyways. Going through different domains and serves until it all just became a matter of clicking on one link and another. Gaining access to security surveillance cameras was easier than it should have been. It legitimately shocks you because of how easy this is. But the only reason why it's so easy is because the domain has already been discovered by Julian's friend who owns the laptop. One of the most visited sites was basically just a long list of pirated movies that have only been in theatres got about a week. You're amazed, really. Seems a bit of an innocent reason to be so simple to tread through here.

"December 2010, Wayne Tower 11:45 pm." You read outloud, skimming through the details. Apparently, viewing what happens through security cameras is something some people like. And by like, well, it's on the deep web for a reason. Because some weird stuff can be seen every now and then. It's creep stuff. As in someone bending over to pick something up, sometimes it bleeds out into even worse things. You don't go there, you don't even want to think about it. You've already came past a video of someone crushing a bunch of birds with a sledge hammer for viewer amusement. It's safe to say you didn't stay there for long.

You clicked the photo, and quickly closed the pop up ad that came with you interacting with the screen. The emblem, you've definitely seen it. The video has almost no views, and what little views there are is just more people who find this stuff amusing. It's disgusting. Something about the video being compared to whatever the hell a red room is.

You let your eyes skim every detail of the emblem. "Narrowing them and getting closer to the screen. The wider you set the image, the more pixelated it became. You decided to print the screen and see if you could send the image to maybe Jaime or one of your friends from portland or something to work it out.

But before you hit print screen, you made a double check to make sure that if Julian had something saved and didn't want it to go to waste, you'd open up paint and then make sure to paste the image he copied and then put it there, downloading it.