A night mare.
My phone rang. The calming piano piece I set as my ring tone has turned into the equivalent of a screaming squirrel. I answer so as to stop this figuratively deafening sound and rest my poor ears.
"Yo, Cameron. Yesterday at one am you were wearing a red hat, navy shirt and blue trousers when you left at night, right?" Leon just can't seem to stop interpreting my sleep. Every morning it's either a phone call or a knock at the door. I'm like a sleeping volcano. I don't know when I might explode next so he should stop interrupting my precious sleep time.
I yawned and turned the phone into speaker mode. "I mean yeah, how did you know?"
Oh wait, Cain put cameras here... My every move is being watched. Hairs stand on the back of my neck at the thought of someone watching me sleep. I sat up in bed trying to make sense of what Leon's attempting to explain to me. Why is the fact that I went out at night and what I was wearing significant? Okay maybe that type of information might help to prove the crime but that's if I was gladiolus, which I am not.
"After you left someone in all black came and searched for every single one of the cameras and cut all the wires in them." Leon explained. "He did it so skillfully and stealthily that we couldn't extract any useful informations out of him at all. He has skills that matches that of secret agents." Leon's voice was laced with awe. He, rightfully, couldn't wrap his head around the fact that this gladiolus guy practically doesn't exist. Not a finger print. Not a piece of hair. Nothing. It's almost impossible to not drop a DNA evidence accident. Especially with someone like gladiolus who committed various crimes. It's almost like he's a ghost. I shake my head and returned to the train of thought of earlier.
I recounted the memory. I couldn't sleep despite taking a sleeping pill. I had suddenly started to crave a glass of milk but it was done so decided to go to the twenty-four hour grocery story near me to get some.
"I felt strange yesterday. I went to buy some milk but I don't remember actually buying it but it's in my fridge." I said as I opened the fridge to confirm that I wasn't just having another absurd dream. I've had this strange type of amnesia for sometime now. When I am thinking about stuff, I completely forget my surroundings and can do tasks that I've done hundreds of times before mindlessly.
Leon chuckles, "You probably zoned out like last time. Remember when you where so in the zone that you ran into a street pole?"
"Don't remind me of that."
I mean it's probably because I was walking around with sleeping pills in my system so my mind was about to go to sleep anyway and I wasn't registering things as normal. I shouldn't have gone to the store yesterday either after taking the sleeping pills but I couldn't help it when I suddenly crave random stuff I must always get whatever it is.
"You hit your head so hard the bump wouldn't disappear for days." he tittered than cleared his throat. "Anyway someone really is keeping an eye on your house. He went so far as to take out the CCTV cameras so he can roam around freely."
Chills ran down my spine. What is his motive? Why is he roaming around my house like this? Does he want to kill me? Frame me? It just makes no sense because if he wanted to frame me he wouldn't put something on me or in my house. Maybe he already did and is waiting for Cain to obtain a search warrant on my house. I need to search the house and especially the backyard and make sure no incriminating evidence was planted her. The dumpsters also need to be searched since I've seen many crimes that were linked through finding evidence in the dumpster of a neighbourhood where I suspect lived.
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"Yeah. This guy is creeping me out." I closed the fridge and headed towards the backdoor. Oreo insisted on sleeping in her dogs house so I need to open the door to let her in. As soon as I unlocked he door she ran inside. I petted her head.
Something cut my palm. It felt like a paper cut. Sharp and small but on par with a knife in the amount of pain it induces. I noticed there was something stuck to Oreos collar. It really is a piece of paper. I unfold it with one hand with my phone in the other as inspected the contents.
Another code.
"Cameron are you still there?" He was droning on but I'd zoned out since the moment I found the code.
I put my phone down and folded out the paper properly so that all the contents were visible. "Yeah, I found another code. Oreo was sleeping in the backyard and i found it stuck to her collar. It's in the same format as the one before. It has a date on it as well." I filled the paper around but there was nothing on the back.
Leon paused for a moment, "So he snuck into your backyard and slipped the paper around Oreo's collar?"
"That's exactly what I just said."
"No I mean that's strange then why did Oreo not bark or attack him? He's an intruder after all." he reasoned.
Last time I was almost burglarized Oreo bit the intruder so hard that his blood was all over my backyard. "That's true. It's strange. Oreo is only friendly around the people I bring home but not any strangers."
Leon sighs, "I don't know why you're so convinced your dog is nice; She almost bit me the first few days I visited when you bought her and now she only tolerates me that's all. She only likes you." I heard the sound of a notification and checked but it wasn't from me. It was probably from Leon's phone.
"Oreo is just protective that's all. She actually likes you more than you think."
She actually gets really excited when Leon comes over and sticks to him like glue and practically ignores me. I guess Leon is just traumatized be the first time her met her because she was really aggressive then.
"He's probably a dog trainer or used some sort of trick. Anyway meet me in the cafe. I think I found a main suspect." He hung up.
I filled one of Oreos bowls with water and the other with dog food before I did my morning routine.
My skin was starting to breakout and I guess the stress of everything has finally taken its toll on my skin. I grabbed a lemon and squeezed its juice all over my face which usually helped get rid of all the pimples over night. I put on a black training suit and black trainers. I'd say eighty percent of my wardrobe is black and the other twenty percent are shades of grey and white. And frankly I don't know why I guess it's just convenient to wear black.
I jogged my way to the café.
He was sitting exactly where we were a few days ago. The window seat is almost always taken but we've managed to monopolize it two times straight and I'm low-key very pleased about that.
I enter and the familiar bell welcomed me.
"Have you ever been on your fan page on reddit?" the moment he spotted me, before I even took a seat, he immediately asks me the most random question ever.
"It's usually just filled with a bunch of people making far fetched theories about the characters and the little meaningless details I put in my books. What about it?" I slump into the chair.
He pulls out a paper with a printed screen of someone's reddit post and hands it to me. "This guy @maybeillkillyou9, he's practically your biggest fan. He read all your books and is in this fan club where they discuss what they think your next work will be about. I didn't even know such groups existed." he contended.
I lean back on my chair. I'm disappointed in him. Now he's making preposterous claims. "Leo, you're slowly turning into Cain. Just because he's a big fan of my book doesn't make him the killer." I interjected and interlocked my finger behind my head. My head was starting to get heavy from all the thinking.
"But that username though."